Paying forward

I have had fun.
A while back I volunteered for a Pay it forward, but I am very impatient, and got excited, so I was thrilled when someone wanted to play. Luckily they had a pinterest board- I had never heard of these, but it is a great little tool/ timewaster. A bit like this I suppose. Enjoyable, but I could be sewing instead, or doing the dreaded housework? and you learn a lot by looking at what others have done and how they did it, and then you get sparked off in other directions..


So, I looked and I thought, and I produced a few items I thought she would like, and so I sent them. What did I send though.

It was a perfect excuse to play with a pattern for which I had been looking for reason to make, Amy Butler bag, free pattern here. I looked in my stash- I always have something lurking, and I thought the colours worked for her so here it is. It looks quite different in the plain fabric, and I did not have the Peltex to line the pieces, so I used heavy duty interfacing instead. And I used a heavy duty cotton lining. The finished bag is a softer bag than the pattern would normally create, but I quite like the softer result, so hoped she would too. 

And the pockets are a strong cotton satin type fabric. I knew I would have to make this again, and I have, It is a very straightforward pattern.

Now, the bag then, when shut. looked to me to be a bit plain. I had made kanzashi flowers in the summer, and knew I could turn them into brooches, so made some in suitable colours, and they went on the front.

I had also bought some lovely vibrant fabric when I was with DD1 in the summer, and found this was the excuse to play with that too. I was planning a mug rug, but my mug rug turned out far too big and was a place mat! Whoops. When there are three in your family, one place mat doesn't really work does it? So the poor lass got landed with three.

I think I went a bit over the top- but in my defence, I was having such fun! I certainly wouldn't expect this from anyone else, and would probably not go so mad another time. But this is energy expended for the possible three volunteers, though only one person took me up on it.
I hope she gets fun and use of these things. I certainly did. And it kicked me off to making more brooches for a friend to sell for charity. So that was good too.




I suppose, I still am open to offers- if someone would like to do a pay it forward this year, I would enjoy trying to make something for them, there are two places available...