Paddington shopping bag…

This is what I’ve been up to today – as well as finishing ‘s dress, I’ve made a Paddington shopping bag at the request of .

It’s a big bag, quite a lot bigger than the totes that I’ve made previously. It’s roughly A3 in size, and the handles are short ones. They won’t go over your shoulder, but you can carry the bag in your hand without it dragging on the floor.

I’ve got quite a lot of pillowcases in the Shed – most of them came with the duvet covers I’ve been buying to make skirts from. I can get two of these bags out of one pillowcase, so I’ll be running up a lot more in the not-too-distant future. I particularly like the fact that there won’t be any leftover fabric at all, by the time I’ve finished.

I’ve signed up for the Rising Sun Art Market in September and November, and I’m on the reserve list for July. I’ll be taking these new bags along with me, as well as lots of badges, and anything else I happen to make in the meantime!

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Jeans and T-shirt tote bag

This tote bag is a one-off design that I made for my sister.

She originally presented me with a pair of her husband’s old jeans and asked me to make them into a skirt. Unfortunately the reason that her husband was throwing out these jeans was a huge rip across the behind, and it was strategically placed so that I didn’t have quite enough fabric for a skirt.

So, instead, I made a tote bag, for carrying around all of life’s essentials on a casual weekend.

The bag is my standard tote size, 10 x 12 inches. It will comfortably hold A4 paper, or your favourite magazine. The handles are 25″ long, and fit nicely over the shoulder. You can also carry the bag in your hand without it dragging on the floor.

There is a pocket on each side of the bag – the one on the front still has the original “Levi’s” tag!

The bag is lined with a pretty blue t-shirt from my mountainous collection of “things to cut up”.

Now to parcel it up and send it off in the post – along with my Dad’s second Christmas glove. They took slightly longer to knit than I’d expected… sorry Dad!

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Bags of space…

…pun intended.

Today I have been mostly making cushion covers and Christmas presents. This means that I can’t show you most of what I’ve been making, but I’m fairly certain that the recipient of this little bag won’t be reading my blog and spoiling her surprise – she’s only five!

This is a regular magazine-sized tote bag, made from a recycled duvet cover.

The handles are a bit narrower than usual, to accommodate little hands.

Don’t forget that you can order tote bags in the shop, in any of the fabrics shown here.

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A scarf and a squirrel handbag.

Remember that frighteningly tangled skein of silk?

This is what became of it:

It’s a narrow scarf, which is long enough to reach below the waist on both sides. It’s knitted with one strand of Debbie Bliss Pure Silk and two strands of Colinette Parisienne held together. I cast on 13 stitches, on 5mm needles. Every fourth row, I changed to a 10mm needle. Otherwise it’s just plain garter stitch – keep knitting until the yarn runs out!

Here’s the last of the pre-ordered tote bags, which I finished today.

You may have noticed that it’s a different shape from the others!

The photographs don’t show the shape particularly well – it’s more curvy than it looks. It’s big, too – in the second picture the bag has an A4 pad inside it, to keep it nice and flat. It has one long handle, and you can just see a tiny sneaky peek of the Design By Claire label in there too.

Tomorrow night is Hallowe’en and I’ve just rustled up a very quick costume thanks to Martha Stewart. I’ll tell you all about it as soon as I have some photos. Happy Hallowe’en!

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I’m Not a Plastic Bag.

Chloe is my new hero.

Were any of you daft enough to queue outside Sainsbury’s for an Anya Hindmarch “I’m not a plastic bag”? Or worse, to buy one for a ridiculous price on Ebay?

Yes, in some ways it’s a good idea. The most influential handbag designer of the moment jumps on the green bandwagon. That can’t be doing her profits any harm. Or Sainsbury’s. It brings the issue of recycling and re-using and landfill to the public’s attention. But I would like to bet that these Anya Hindmarch bags won’t be used by people who actually care about not using carrier bags for their shopping. They’ll be used mostly by fashion victims as a handbag, while they continue to drive their groceries home in the car, in ordinary carrier bags, as per usual.

The bag itself was made in China, and shipped over to the UK. It will also shortly begin another production run to be shipped over the the US. Hardly a low carbon footprint or an ethically sound manufacturing option! It’s made from “unbleached” cotton, but nowhere does it say whether the cotton is actually organic, or fairly-traded.

Maybe that’s asking too much from one small bag, but why should it be? There is no excuse for designers, especially designers who are jumping on the “green” bandwagon, not to be using cotton which is either fairly-traded or organic, and preferably both. Yes, organic cotton is more expensive, because the yields are lower. Gradually, as the earth recovers from being doused in pesticides for decades, this will change. Yes, Fair Trade cotton is more expensive because, shockingly, you have to actually pay the farmers for growing it for you.

A number of high street stores are now selling “green” clothing ranges, although it’s quite difficult to find out what criteria they’re using to make this claim. M&S has a range of t-shirts, Asda has similar, and even Primark are somehow producing the cheapest “green” clothing around. I’m happy to see this kind of thing filtering down to the high street, even if I am suspicious of how Primark can produce so much, so cheaply.

At the moment I simply can’t afford to buy organic and fairly-traded cotton to make my clothes, although it’s something that I’ve been looking into for a couple of years. This is why I’m currently taking the recycling route, and trying to make something new out of something which would otherwise have been thrown away.

How long do you think it will be before the fashion victims get bored of the “I’m not a plastic bag”, and simply throw it away in favour of the next most fashionable thing? Still, if they all end up on Ebay, at least they’re being recycled…

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