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.