just a quick note to say there are new bags in the shop! and two bears too.

have a great weekend!

I making bags like crazy over here.  All, of course, for the sale that you are sick of hearing about.  It’s this weekend and I’m actually getting a little nervous.  I’m sure all the self doubt will all go away when someone buys something–if someone buys something!  I’m used to selling pastries and breads and chocolates that I’ve made, where if you make a mistake it gets eaten anyway.  But someone will own these bags and use them, and if they fall apart their mother will be cursing me.  Or maybe they will be used and loved and come out of the washing machine in one piece.

You can see I finally made the toy bags I was talking about and though I wasn’t excited about them while I was making them, or even after I was done, but they are growing on me now.  Simple muslin drawstring bags with some applique (and stamped labels? yes? no? still can’t decide anything over here). The other bags in the picture are kiddy messenger bags.  I made one for my daughter just like it for christmas.  She got so many compliments on it, I thought they would go over well at the sale.  There are pictures of more bags over at my flickr site, if you are interested.  Have a good day.

This little bag was my present to my daughter even though I didn’t wrap it or even call it a present. Because December was so full of presents my daughter started expecting them everyday–well before christmas–and when there weren’t any she demanded More! Presents! But I still wanted to give her something. We did a lot of traveling for christmas, which if you have kids means schlepping an amazing amount of stuff around. I though it would be nice if my daughter could carry some of her own things. I followed one of the millions of tutorials on craftster (does anyone else remember when it was in it’s infancy?) for a simple bag. I’m new to making bags, not being a bag person myself, but it wasn’t all that hard really. I used a sew in interfacing, which made for a lot more cutting and sewing but I didn’t think to put it in the flap or the strap and I should have. Two year olds get frustrated easily (and all the time, ugh) so I think it’s important that the bag has some structure. I used a magnet closure thinking that it would be easy for her to use, but damn those are some strong magnets! It was filled with almost all handmade toys, which made me incredibly happy and very proud. And it meant that I didn’t have to shove even more crap in the diaper bag. She carried it the whole way.

The fabric (because a couple people have asked) is Alexander Henry and I’m not much for little kids prints, but I really like this one. And the inspiration for making the bag in the first place came from Beth at writemamawrite. She has a great list of things to pack for toddlers in that post as well, but let’s hope you have no more traveling to do–this year at least! We have one more plane ride home (home!) tomorrow and we’ll see if the excitement of “my new purse!” can last until then. Hell, I hope I last until then.