Market bags
I made my friend Marcia a set of five market bags. Sorry for the bad photos in low light - it's been gray and rainy here and I couldn't do much better. Anyhow, I used the Jane's Market Bag pattern that Alicia is selling over at Posie gets Cozy. Totally worth the $6, in my opinion. It's well written, easy to follow and the fact that I didn't have to figure out the dimensions, add seam allowances, etc. was a plus. And they are really cute and don't advertise a particular store. Am I the only one who feels weird shopping at one place with a reusable bag from an entirely different store? Anyway, you'll look stylish carrying your groceries in these.
You could do some serious stash busting with these bags if you wanted to. I didn't buy a single piece of fabric for these - it was all on hand. I left the pocket off of one side of the bag so that saved some cutting and sewing. I would like the handles to be a smidge longer, so next time I will add an inch or two. They come together pretty quickly. I'd say it's a day long project for the first one, but that is a total guess as I made mine assembly line style. And after you make one, you will want to make more. Think holiday gifts. I am.
In other news, I have not sewn a stitch this week and it is making me cranky. It turns out that painting a bedroom with crown molding, chair rail, baseboard, four windows and three doors takes about 3 hours per coat. It's all that cutting in. Fun, huh? I'm getting ready to start coat number 3 (tinted primer plus 2 top coats) - thank goodness for no VOC paint - and plan on rocking out to my new summer music mix. Then the sewing machine is coming down to the family room where there is space and TV and hopefully a good DVD from Netflix.
Oh, and we got postcards from the girls. So funny. Kate wrote one sentence: "I like camp." Jane wrote a whole bunch of things mostly centered around dinner and the fact that she figured out there is a "vegetarian stand." Awesome.