Oh my. I could also have titled this post “the art of letting go”. Despite my babbling about “making for the love of making” and things like that, this bag caused me so much trouble…
It started with time pressure. I somehow put the idea into my head that I could only sew when T. was away (there is absolutely no reason for that, though my days are full and busy). So when it turned out that making three of his pants shorter and three of my skirts smaller took a much longer time then I had planned, I slightly panicked when I was finally ready for some fun.
And then I was looking at my stash and had a hard time to decide what fabrics to cut into. I was so happy to finally have fabric again, that I felt it was a really big deal to just start cutting without a pattern. But part of the fun in making bags (at least for me) is just that. Just start cutting, see what I can come up with. I knew I wanted something big to hold my projects and needles, something made from fabric I liked and something that would look nice in pictures.
Ahem. I know, that shouldn’t be important, and it isn’t, but I do love pictures of beautiful baskets holding beautiful knitting. But baskets are not made for this climate (salty, moist and hot – they get smelly and moldy), so a bag it will be.
Anyway. I kept taking out fabrics, combining them, putting them back and then I decided to drop the wish for beautiful moody pictures (I’d have to make something brownish to mimic a basket but a. I don’t have brown and b. I don’t want brown), and just pick something fun. After all, the beauty of making something yourself from thrifted fabrics is that you can always decide to make something else if you don’t like it (and cut up the discarded bag for another project too).
So I took the blue/green I loved for the outside and added the fun chicken print for the inside.
Step one taken. But then the sewing itself… It was the first time for me using such heavy interfacing. And though it does work beautifully to make the bag sturdy enough to stand up by itself, it was so hard to wrestle such a big project with that stuff through my simple machine. I almost gave up, but then I didn’t.
And I’m glad I didn’t. Even though the end result is far from perfect (I would never give it away or sell it – it’s not my best work), it’s actually a fun bag that holds my knitting projects, my needles, my notions and even the book I’m reading. And it doesn’t look too bad in pictures, I think.
Mission accomplished.
