waste not, want not

Oh dear.

This poor little dotty bag has been looking a little worse for wear for a while now.

I’ve been on the lookout for a replacement, but nothing quite fit the bill.

A couple of weeks ago we took a car full of stuff from the cellar to the tip. In the pile was an ancient MDF table from an old campervan (not ours, sadly). The table was rotting, but the jolly picnic oilcloth on the top was still in good condition, so I peeled it off and brought it home again (this is why our house will never be clutter-free and minimalist).

I spied my dotty, blotchy bag and a plan started forming…

Two hours of cursing and sewing and undoing later, and I’d made an exact replica of my old bag, in brand new picnic oilcloth with a new dotty lining.

I couldn’t tell you how I did it. I wish I could remember. I undid all the seams on the old one, rescued the handles and the base, drew round everything – and then spent the next two hours putting it all together in various combinations and unstitching them again.

At one point I’d managed to sew the handles inside the lining of the bag. Later I sewed the entire bag up inside out.

Eventually I made it work, and I’m rather taken with it. It’s the wrong season really. It doesn’t feel like a bag for taking to work – it feels like a bag to take to the seaside, filled with picnic and books to read and sunglasses and money for ice cream.

All pens are now being kept inside a case. I’m trying to keep this one intact until next summer…