Momma's Got a Brand New Bag

It's amazing how even part-time work cuts into blogging time.   Fortunately, I Love my job with a capital L. If I had made a list of all the things I wanted in a job, it would fit that list perfectly. Sadly, there's just less time to visit everyone out there in bloggy land and I haven't been able to focus on posting anything recently.

My favorite cousin was in town and we spent some time together, eating (Cheesecake Factory), shopping, eating (Charleston's), visiting, eating (Pizza Picasso's) and ...

getting pedicures with the Granddaughter, too.  So much fun. Oh, I dearly loves me a pedicure!

My cousin and her hubby come from coooooold weather, so I knitted them each a hat to take home with them ...

And I've done a tiny bit of sewing. Bought this cool book "Low-Sew Boutique" written by Cheryl Weiderspahn on a Walmart clearance rack for $3. The idea is to make things like tote bags and handbags from other things that are already made like rugs, place mats, oven mitts and potholders. I think this is called upcycling and it's such a terrific idea.

I went to Anna's Linens and got a place mat on the clearance rack for $1.39 and a couple of linen napkins that looked good with it for $1.99 each. Then on to JoAnn's where I got wooden purse handles for $5.99. (The handles would have been less if I'd had a coupon but I already used it for yarn.) The Place Mat Purse shown in "Low-Sew Boutique" actually uses a potholder for an outer pocket but I couldn't find one that I liked so I decided to go ahead and wing it, making several pockets from the napkins. Here is the picture shown in the book ...

Here is what I bought and a few pictures of the process ...

The great thing about using place mats is they're already backed, which creates the lining for your purse and they're usually made of pretty sturdy fabric (if my kids were any indication of how well place mats can hold up under constant use and abuse). This particular place mat caught my eye because it has my youngest daughter's favorite colors in it and it's just so darn cheerful! I did have a magnetic catch (in the little baggie upper left) that I was going to use, but not only did the purse not need it, I really don't know where I would have put it. I added A LOT of pockets to this thing, inside and out, because I believe you can never have enough pockets to hold all your crap.

Here I've folded the place mat in half and marked the fold with pins ...

I started cutting and folding pockets, just making them up as I went along ...

I decided to put double pockets on the outside of each side of the bag ...

I also put a huge double pocket on the inside of the bag and stitched individual pockets for cell phone and sunglasses ...

The book calls for handles with removable rods, but I couldn't find any so I just went with some cute oval wood ones by Everything Mary and jimmy-rigged how they were attached ...

And here's the finished bag ...

I love it and, more importantly, YD loved it. She came to the house while I was running an errand and saw it hanging on the cupboard. She told me she'd noticed the colors were her favorites and was hoping it was for her. Yay!

There are other great ideas in this book like luggage tags, eyeglass cases, sleep masks and a curling iron caddy, but my next project will be a large tote bag made of woven rugs, like this ...

or this ...

Are those cool bags or what???

And I've been reading. I read for 4 straight hours in bed this morning (starting at 5:30 a.m.) with a pot of coffee and finished my book for book club next Wednesday. Our February selection was "The Gift of Rain" by Tan Twan Eng and it was so good! I'm not a big fan of historical fiction, especially war time and this is set during World War II, but the author did such a wonderful job with the characters and the story just sucked me in and kept me turning pages. It is the tragic tale of Philip Hutton, the son of a British father and Chinese mother, who lives on the island of Penang which becomes occupied by the Japanese during the war. Great story (432 pages) with so much fabulous history and culture mixed in. I would highly recommend it.

And can you believe January is nearly over? Already! Hope it was a great month for everyone!!!