Tag Archive | crafts

Grocery Bags! (an Alter-Sprig blog post)

Mar31

While I was looking up how to, and then proceeding with, washing my reusable shopping bags, or at least the portion of them currently in circulation (they accumulate, like single socks, or shopping trolleys at the bottom of a steep hill…), my husband kindly suggested that the reasonable thing to do would be to make some. 

I grabbed this idea with both hands and both feet and ran with it (sort of a stumbling run, since I was holding onto that idea…)

So, things I want in reusable shopping bags:

* Washability (since that is what started this whole thing) – I want it to be washable and then look decent afterwards.  And I want it to be throw-in-washer washable, not something fussy. 

* Durability – able to stand up to the sort of shopping run where we get 2 bags each of flour, white sugar, brown sugar, & confectioner’s sugar. And then other stuff. 

* Size – not so big as to be unwieldy, either for me or for the cashiers loading the thing, but big enough to hold an 18-pack of eggs without tipping, or a rotisserie chicken, or that flour & sugar mentioned above.

* Nice – Why bother making something like this if I don’t like the way it looks? No more feeling awkward because half my bags advertise either a liquor/wine/beer place or a business I barely remember giving me the bag. 

* Pocket –  super useful for keys when I don’t have a purse or pockets on me.

* Foldable/packable – one of the things I really like about the store-bought reusable bags is how they fold back down into a nice flat package (at least until they get too rumpled or they’re washed or..)  Some of the good ones have the fold line on the sides pressed in & sometimes even sewn in; not sure I’ll go as far as sewing it in, but it would probably help. Maybe I’ll try it on one. 

 

Since none of the patterns were everything I wanted, I drafted my own pattern. 

Webbing handles that go all the way around, doubled on the bottom. 

A double layer of fabric on the bottom, with interfacing in between.

A pocket of something I have around the house sewn in between/under the webbing handles on each side, or at least on one side, depending on fabric scraps. 

The bag itself made from mediumweight cotton duck. 

Now… I need to find a place to mail me canvas where the shipping isn’t as much as the product. 

Please note: The below is a planning pattern that I have not tested yet at all.

The idea is to get two bags on one yard of fabric (or one bag on a 1/2 yard).  There’s some left over,  if it’s the 67″ wide stuff from the place I liked a lot until I read their shipping prices, so I may make a tote to hold the folded bags.

Time to start knitting again!

Dec30

I got my mom learning-to-knit for Christmas – 2 sets of needles, 4 skeins of yarn, and this pattern, because it involves:
* only knit stitches, no purl
* color changes
* increases
* decreases

(Mom & Dad have a long long flight to New Zealand ahead of them in January; I thought she’d best be prepared).

Of course, if I’m going to go drive up to Rochester & show my mom how to knit, I probably ought to have knitted in the last year or two, no? And it’s been a while.

I might do another kerchief, like this or this. Don’t need a hat, maybe I’ll work on the Shahin Wristies I’ve been thinking about for 100 years.

Maybe I’ll just dump all my yarn on the living room floor and see what jumps out. What do you think?

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1034545.html. You can comment here or there.

April A-Z Blogging Challenge: K is for Knitting (etc)

Apr14

The Meme Master Post

K is for knitting and kisses and kites

Good topics!

Knitting! I was going to start with the Oldest Egyptian Socks I’d just found last night whilst Googling Old Clothes, and then, while looking for sources, found this Blog Post on Knitting and the Oldest Egyptian Socks (which were made with Nålebinding, but hey, it’s close).

In my current quest to figure out Everything about Reiassan, I’ve been googling the oldest extant clothes, which is how I ended up finding the the Oldest Egyptian Socks. It’s not the first time I’ve come across Egyptian Socks, though, in my Reiassan research – I knit, so I was looking for evidence that the Calenyena might have picked up knitting early on in their timeline. (Further evidence shows that Egyptians did, indeed, knit as well as do nålebinding, so that works out.)

But that part of Reiassan started because someday, someday, I want to cosplay my setting. Probably at least two different eras of it (That’s what I get for writing a millennia-spanning setting). And when I started really getting into Reiassan was about the same time I started getting into knitting.

It’s kind of sad. I started getting into knitting because my baby cousin was having her first baby. She’s got three kids now and that first blanket still isn’t done.

I haven’t knit all that much since we got the house, actually, though I keep meaning to start again. It’s a nice thing to do with my hands that doesn’t take up all that much brainspace; it’s more relaxing that surfing the internet and more productive, too. *looks at pile of yarn and incomplete projects* also, it’s free, at this point.

Maybe I’ll do that. And blog about that, too. As well as the Fashion History of Reiassan and Homeland.

And, ah, kisses are nice and we used to fly kites every Easter and whoops look at that, out of time!

Catch you tomorrow for L~

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/922483.html. You can comment here or there.