Monday Making

Lined Drawstring Bag pattern designed by Jeni Baker.

This week has been a mess at work. I am a speech-language pathologist by day and I work in an elementary school. I love my students. Seriously, I love them. But sometimes it is just insanely, emotionally exhausting to manage work responsibilities. Ammi right, working women of the world!?

But let's not talk about that. I'm "making it work" and that is not what I want to share about. Ever. Especially on this amazing blog that will be dedicated to joy and creation and quilts and general cool stuff to make and think about.

So.

Sew.

I left work in a huff yesterday and went straight to one of my happy places. My favorite fabric shop is Material Girl in Crystal Lake, IL. Go there-- it's amazing! It has bewitching healing powers. I mean it. I go in there and sniff and touch fabrics of all colors and feel a unique kind of calm. Bonus-- Darlene was there and she is absolutely amazing and helped me reset myself. I'll tell you about Darlene another time. You'll love her.

Anyway. I made myself a lined drawstring bag. For all my non-sewing peeps who I will (hopefully) convince to read this blog, School of Sewing by Shea Henderson is an outstanding manual to learn some rockin' fundamentals about sewing. It kicks off with 52 pages of information about the founding of the book, as well as a long list of resources on machines, stitches, supplies, and fabric. The rest features beginning projects, starting with a pillowcase. A quilt is the "final exam". It is a wonderful book!

I had to laugh at myself while making this bag because although the directions are very clear and helpful, I made a bajillion mistakes. I lined up the interior fabric where the exterior ones should be, cut 1 1/2 inch squares for boxed corners on the wrong side, and could not for-the-freaking-life-of-me figure out how to put the drawstrings in it so that they would actually work.

But. I did it!!

It is a sincerely magical feeling I get when I'm about to finish something that I made with creative joy on my sewing machine. I get a little shaky and giddy and...proud. In a different way than I do in other parts of my life. It's special. And it's changing me somehow, little by little and bit by bit.

And come on-- look at this shade of pink that peeks out at me from the inside of the bag. Doesn't it make you want to squeak with silly delight!!?

Squeak!