Lucky Locket's Mobile Device Pocket Bag

 

Lucy Locket lost her pocket,

Kitty Fisher found it.

Nothing in it, nothing in it,

But a ribbon round it. 

traditional Nursery Rhyme

I'm right up there with Lucy Locket when it comes to the value of a portable pocket.

I don't sew as many pockets in my clothes anymore, now that I've gotten in the habit of wearing cross-body bags.  I need to have my iPod and iPhone handy, especially since my phone has an app that tracks my exercise. I also listen to audio books a lot on my iPod, so I pretty much always have this kind of bag on me. Mobile devices are pretty hard on clothing pockets, and there's always the chance they'll slip out too.

Here's a new portable pocket bag I just finished. It has a very sturdy zipper across the top and the strap is made from a recycled leather strap on a 1930's binocular bag - the binocs are still good but the strap was coming off. I punched two holes in each end of the straps, then fixed it inside the corners with a button on each end to keep things secure.

No pattern, just lots of folding and thinking and working with the scrap I had leftover from the tapestry cap I posted about last time. Thanks again to Susan for the fabric. I used just about every inch of a 25x25 home dec square for these two items - both of which, I know from experience,  I will use until they wear out.

Tapestry Purses/Totes/Bags - Sewing Day with Susan

My buddy Susan, made a number of really beautiful purses and totes from tapestry prints with McCalls M5822. The pattern envelope doesn't show what great creations are possible with this pattern, or else Susan is simply a better designer than whomever created their display pieces.

In this month's Enchanted by Sewing Audio Podcast show, I'm interviewing Susan and we talk about her experiences making these gorgeous purses. You can sign up to get an email when that (and other) monthly episodes are published. I publish the shows shortly before the end of each month.

I like the way Susan altered the print so she uses both directions on this purse!

Oh lucky sisters and sister-in-law who got these purses for Christmas!

In Progress: This is my favorite purse

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Web Resources

 Listen in on my Sewing Life in the Enchanted by Sewing Podcast http://www.enchantedbysewing.blogspot.com

McCalls M5822 - http://mccallpattern.mccall.com/m5822-products-9415.php?page_id=104

1001 Nights: Scheherazade's Peacock Purse

Scherazade's Purse Sewn by L.R. Shimer
Hot Patterns Vintage HotPatterns Hangbag Heaven Nairobi Handbag
Iman Home Fabrics, Punjab Peacock Radicchio

Do you laugh when people ask you... "But where do you get your ideas?" Ideas are not our problem, are they? I know that my head is tumbling full of them, and I bet yours is too. It's completing the projects inspired by these thousand and one ideas that's the challenge!

Our sewing stories are like the thousand and one stories that Scherazade told her husband. There's always another one waiting to be imagined. Still, I thought it would be fun, perhaps for the sake of the people who don't think the way many of us do*, to think about where the inspiration for each of my sewing stories comes from.

Do you recall that it was Scherazade's own idea to be married to the shahryar who was infamous for having already married and beheaded a 1001 wives? To my mind the man sounds like a power-mad brute, but Scherazade saw him as a challenge. She believed that he was just one crazy, mixed-up dude who, having been betrayed by one woman, had gone mad by love. Her plan was to keep him entertained by telling him story after story. Of course she told him that the stories were for her little sister, Dinazade. As the light of morning broke after a dramatic story filled night, Scherazade always managed to leave her most recent story hanging. Her version of story-telling therapy worked. After a thousand and one stories, the shahryar was cured. The couple went on to a happy life together.

Who'd a thunk it? Well, I guess marriage is always a chancy business.

I can fit four dvd boxes to go back to the library in my bag. I like to envision Scherazade, perhaps with help from Dinazade, packing her toothbrush and nightie in a bag much like mine, when she went off to take her chances on marriage. When I walk off to the library, or downtown to buy a box of bandaids, with my Scherazade-inspired purse hanging over my shoulder, the beautiful Rimsky-Korsakov symphony runs through my head. You can listen to it here.

Sewing Details: I finished creating Scheherazade's peacock purse last week. Bare Bones: It's made using a "Vintage HotPatterns Hangbag Heaven Nairobi Handbag" pattern. The material is designed by Iman Home Fabrics and is called "Punjab Peacock Radicchio". I bought my fabric on line. I'm not sure if I managed to cut it out of the half a yard the pattern suggests, because I had bought two half yard pieces. I sewed a simple tote for my daughter out of some of it. Also I wanted to have a lot of peacock eyes nicely displayed so I'm sure I used more fabric than I normally would, laying out the pattern pieces just so.

I also quilted, in the ditch, along the seam lines, using scraps of some type of cotton heirloom quilt type batting that I happened to have on time. It gives it a nice shape and heft. The lining is a jade green poly/satin I recycled from an old bridesmaid dress I found for free. Instead of the pocket included in the pattern, I cut off a small poofy sleeve from the dress and stitched it down inside. The sleeve had elastic at top and bottom. It works great as an inner pocket.


*Hey some of us are network/web thinkers and others are more focused and linear, right?

Sewing: Annhhh Just Bag It! Bribing Us to Be Green (Green Movement Humor)

 

Them Bags, Them Bags

Sung to the traditional tune, ‘Dem Bones’

Head bone connected to the shoulder bone

Shoulder bone connected to the arm bone

Arm bone connected to the wrist bone

Wrist bone connected to the hand bone

Hand bone connected to the finger bone

Finger bone holding them bags!

Them bags, them bags, gonna walk around

Them bags, them bags, gonna walk around

Them bags, them bags, gonna walk around

Oh HEAR the word of the Green!

The Green Studies Handbook

for Down-To-Earth Romantics

Did you miss the last Green Movement Humor Piece in this Journal?

Annnh, Just Bag It!

Bribing Us to Use Our Green Shoppin’ Bags

All us environmentally conscientious types know the problem. We acquire giveway bags or maybe we buy or sew some really great ones. Then we forget to take them to the store and end up staring blankly at the clerk when asked, ‘Pastic or paper?’.

Here’s what worked for me.

Bribery.

Remember a long time ago when you said you would never bribe a child to do something? That’s right. Children should be motivated by the pleasure of the activity and the righteous feeling that comes with well – doing!

If you nodded your head vigorously, then I bet you haven’t had or cared for a child in a long time, have you? Next time a young child comes over, be prepared with a few of those I-Voted stickers you got handed the last time you went to the polls.

~

Once I too forgot my bags. All those charming tote bags that I sewed from remnants, recycled bits and even brand new fabric. I was really into sewing bags for awhile. And all of them stayed tucked away at home when I walked, biked or, very occasionally, drove out for groceries.

My neighborhood Trader Joes started a little bribery campaign that did it for me. Every time we remember our own bags and don’t take one of their bags, we get to fill out a little drawing slip, and pop it in the bucket by the managers desk. It’s on the honor system. If I think I saved two bags, that’s how many tickets I put in. Once a week somebody at the store pulls the tickets (they just have our names and phone numbers – no nobody collects it for their database) and calls the lucky winner.

I know it’s going to happen for me any day now! I’ve been doing this for about three years, and I walk to Trader Joes at least five days a week to pick up maybe some yogurt, a box of cereal or a loaf of bread. This also satisfies any gambling yearnings I may have ever had. It’s pretty clear to me that I can save my money when it comes to going to Las Vegas or Reno.  Even though I’m sure I will win every time I put the slip in the bucket, it hasn’t happened for me yet.

The prize is a $25 gift certificate at the store. Trader Joes makes a good chunk of change off shoppers. They can afford twenty-five bucks. Not only that, they may be making money off their greenness. One of the cashiers told me that the very first week they put this system into place they saved an entire palette of bags. In terms I can relate to, he told me, that’s 25% of the bags they used to buy. Trader Joes uses only paper bags for carryout – no plastic- and I think he said those cost them a nickel a piece.

Maybe you can talk a few vendors in your area into doing something to reward people for bringing their own bags. A small store wouldn’t have to give away a great big credit as Trader Joes does. Maybe they could give out the free prize of the week – something they got a lot of or they got a good deal on. Maybe they could have the drawing once a month instead of once a week. Maybe they can figure out a way to save themselves a few bucks by giving out less bags and make it fun.

It worked for me.

Post Script

Whole Foods is a longer walk for me, and I don’t get there as often. They have a system whereby you can donate the nickel or two cents, or whatever the cost of the bag you didn’t use, to one of several charities. This is tied into the automation in the cash register system, but I don’t know why a regular small store couldn’t have one of those little donation jars for earthquake relief or something similar out, with a big sign encouraging you to donate the savings from your bagless use to the jar. The store could have a special campaign (a poster) up on the wall and say something about encouraging ourselves to be green and, at the same time, help out somebody. Oh, you marketing types, you get the idea.