New Purse

Originally uploaded by craftscout

Some women collect shoes. I hate shoes. Some women have a closet full of clothes. I wear the same things over and over. Purses, though . . . I have always had a thing for purses and bags. I’m not really all that girly, but I have always had stuff to carry around, and I have always been trying to find the perfect way to carry it all. I hate big purses, but sometimes my needs overflow my preferred little purses.

And of course, when I started sewing a lot, my personal purse collection grew by leaps and bounds! I figured out I don’t really like overorganized purses, but I don’t like to have to paw through a bunch of stuff to find the essentials. I like wallets. I like having my hands free.

I think I finally found the perfect style. I found this idea in a Levenger catalog, but it is no longer available, and I didn’t really like the leather or the $100+ price tag. It is three stacked bags, each done in a different canvas fabric, each a little bigger than the one before. They have a triangular profile, and D-rings on each side. The strap, long enough to wear across my body like I like, has clips on each end so I can wear one, two, or all three bags at once! There’s a big pocket in the big purse (big enough for my phone or feminine essentials) and two little pockets in the little one (for my driver’s license and headphones). Which is just about enough for organization for me.

I had so much fun sewing these up, and can’t wait to use them!

Fabric Postcard, front

Originally uploaded by craftscout

So, the idea of fabric postcard has appealed to me for some time now, but the practicalities of mailing them has troubled me. But I finally found a time when it would work for me to sew my first one. My daughter has been at Girl Scout summer camp this week, with the theme, “Want to be a Princess?” I have a BUNCH of lovely camping themed fabric, and some shiny goldish fabric, and a slick sewing machine which does letters.

Voila! A postcard a Princess would LOVE to receive at mailcall, and possibly something to make all the other princesses envious. Maybe. Just a little.

I also sent glowsticks for all the princesses to share, so if I’m not the coolest mom, I don’t know who is.

Recycled

Originally uploaded by craftscout

So I have been saving these bags for quite some time with the intention of recycling them, or actually reusing them since I was planning on reusing these produce bags as produce bags. But they needed something – a drawstring!

So mini-tute/advice if you plan to do this yourself.

This will take about 5 minutes per bag. It is easy, but will seem hard. The netting for each of these bags is different (one was a lemon bag one an onion bag, and one a tomato bag), and ALL were impossible to pin.

So what I did was tuck one end of the clothesline I was using for the string through a hole, about an inch from the top edge. Then I folded the top edge (which I had carefully cut, not ripped open when it held produce the first time) over the clothesline (about an inch) to form a casing. Then I carefully zigzagged all the way around the top edge, keeping the clothesline just to the right of my sewing machine foot, and using my hands to keep the netting folded over correctly. Go slow and zigzag the line twice. Then I tucked the other end of the clotehsline through a hole, sewed the two ends together and tied them with an overhand knot.

Voila, no more plastic produce bags! Or at least no more stupid sackers deciding that I REALLY wanted all my produce bagged up, even though I didn’t do it myself, and that since I brought my OWN grocery bags and chose NOT to bag ANY of my produce, of course what I REALLY wanted was MORE PLASTIC BAGS!!

Nope, I’m not bitter about that day. Not at all. But now it won’t happen again. And if it does, I am going to unload all of this bitterness on whatever minimum wage earning teenager thinks he knows better than I do what I want!

quilt

Originally uploaded by craftscout

This is the beginnings of a quilt for DD for the holidays. It is made from a large stash of her clothes from when she was three years old. Yeah, for some reason, almost all of her clothes that year were purple or turquoise . . .

There is a backing fabric stitched to it, lavender with tiny white polka dots. I think I did remarkably well keeping my lines straight since this is done almost entirely with KNITS. Bah . . .

Ready to Declutter

Originally uploaded by craftscout

So I have been sewing “one for the Sale, one for me”, and this is my latest “one for me”. I have been wanting something like this for a while. I realized that I could make it, use up stash, and even some more of those denim scraps from my Dad’s old jeans. Even the stick is a lovely one I have had for a while.

It is to hold mail for me, and papers from school for both kids. Basically everything that people end up stacking on the peninsula in our kitchen. Here’s hoping it works!

From this (well, not these screens in particular, but you get the idea):

To this:

To this:

I am so thrilled with this project. I love how the linen turned out. I love the print, I love the colors. I love this pattern (Simplicity 2916, view D), and I think it will actually be really useful! Mom will probably think it needed some punch of color, but I love the muted, subdued tones. I NEED some calm in my life. Love you, Mom. I really do.

So, I had some bias tape leftover from this project, so I used it to finish ANOTHER PROJECT! Wow, a UFO actually FINISHED! This lovely little bucket has been sitting around for months now, because I really did not want to whipstitch the top together by hand. I hate handsewing. So what did I end up doing? sewing on bias tape by hand, because the interfacing is too stiff to fold around my sewing machine head. Le sigh.

The interior is recycled back pockets from some of my Dad’s old jeans. Second project finished in the past two weeks involving recycling pants. . ..

Okay bear with me, there will be artsy crafty goodness at the end.

I try to be eco-friendly. I really do. Not in a trendy, “Ooh it’s so fashionable to be green right now!” but in a “I’d like my children to have a planet when they get old” kind of way. As cute as all the new reusable shopping bags are, I have only bought one (and only because Boogie Boy wouldn’t leave me alone until I did). I have a perfectly good set of 8, which is generally plenty for every shopping trip. I try to keep packaging in mind when I buy groceries, to add as little as possible to the landfills (this year I switched from juiceboxes to reusable drink containers and large juice bottles for DD’s packed lunches, and grouse when we are REQUIRED to send lunches packed in a brown bag with all disposable packaging and juiceboxes).

I have also stopped putting my produce in a plastic bag when it isn’t necessary. These can be recycled, true, but the order is “Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle” for a reason. Reducing what we use and what we buy is better than contributing to our nation’s rampant consumerism. After all, if I don’t use them until I need them (like for 2 pounds of fresh green beans, or for bean sprouts), then the store won’t run out as quickly and won’t have to buy more as quickly and the factory won’t have to make as many.

I know. I sound ludicrous. But if EVERYONE did it like this, think about how many bags WOULDN’T get used, bought, and made!

Okay, so here’s the rant part. This morning I went to the grocery store. I got a bunch of yummy produce, lettuce, and cilantro, tomatoes and onions, apples, a melon and a mango. I got a bag of cherries, which I left in the bag (it would be hard to corral them for weighing at the register). None of the other produce got put in a bag, it wasn’t necessary.

Apparently the sacker thought differently. I would have thought it was really easy to see that I didn’t want plastic bags, unless it was necessary, afterall I brought reusable shopping bags and I didn’t put my produce in plastic bags. However, the sacker knew better than I what I wanted. So she put my lettuce and my cilantro EACH into a bag, and then put THOSE bags into ANOTHER BAG!! Holy wastage, Batman! What a @#$%^!!

I guess now is the time to whip up some handmade produce bags. I have a bunch of mesh bags from previous produce purchases that I plan on reworking into new produce bags (and one really huge bag from our crawfish boil a couple of weekends ago!). I might also make some muslin bags for getting bulk rice and stuff. Here are some links to others who make reusable produce bags (just to show I’m not some kind of freak! *grins*)
kootsacs
LoveLane bags
Good Earth bags