How I Designed And Made My Bag Out of Fabric Scraps - Once A Crafter...Always A Crafter!!!

Hello Steemit Friends!

Perhaps you may call it addiction, but whenever I see fabrics, the bells always ring in my head telling me to go inside the shop and scrutinize what the store has to offer. Planned or by chance, I always end up buying fabrics although I didn´t really know what to do with them at the time of buying. In short, I hoard fabrics and I do not even know where to place all of them as my craft room is full of craft materials already.

When I was still working as one corporate slave, aside from the cooking marathons on weekends...I could still make DIY crafts as well as many other things despite lack of time. I would even crochet or do hand embroidery inside the train to work or I would do a bit of container gardening, talk to my tomatoes, cukes and salad greens, LOL! There are a lot of things to do at home and all crafts-making and other hobbies relieved me from my corporate stress.

Today, I´m gonna share a very chic bag I designed and made out of fabric scraps I hoard. So you see , hoarding isn´t that bad at all! The fabrics were either remainders of some other projects I did ... such as the stripe cotton had been from a curtain canopy I made in one bedroom. The plain blue on the sides were scraps found from my fabric stash and had been sitting there all the time for so many years.

TOILE DE JOUY

The main feature of the bag is a a fabric called toile de jouy. It is a typical french cotton or linen designed with pastoral scene and comes in various colors in red, blue , black and yellow... Jouy en Josas, a small town southwest of Paris is where this fabric originated. The three words mean Toile = cloth, de = of , Jouy = Jouy (en Josas).

Original designs depicted country life of the locals of this town where it shows the men and women and the farmers in rural areas doing their daily life. So prints depicted mostly peoples´s lives in the early centuries as well as country and pastoral scenes like planting and harvesting. The designs are so classy in itself and are sought after by many interior designers around the globe. It´s the french prints that evoke european feeling.

MATERIALS ADDED

The other materials added to complete this bag were a new zipper, quilt batting, semi hard interface lining so that bag would stand. I have made similar bags which I sold and sent to California, New York, Spain and Manila. It´s actually a bag in one, one could use it for shopping and travel or for overnight travel.

Nowadays, my time is divided into making a cactus garden, trying new recipes , learning cryptocurrencies, make nice photographs as well as blogging on Steemit. I love to try new hobbies now that I´m retired as a corporate slave. I have all the time, no stress and enjoying the andalucian sunrise and sunset as well as the Mediterranean Sea.

All images are properties of the author

Thanks for reading and wish you all a happy weekend!

Until next time....

Mers
https://steemit.com/@mers