The Myth of Library Bags is No More

Almost all of the stitching gifts I make cost little or nothing to complete because I use notions and vintage fabric that others pass along or that I've come across for a dime.  This is kind on the pocketbook, but it often means that what I have on hand dictates what I make.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, though, because I end up making things I might not otherwise.    At a rummage sale four years ago, I ran across some heavy, canvas-like material during a dollar-a-bag sale and stuffed it in on a whim, with the careless thought that it would make good library bag material.

That year, I made a little Susannah Bird her very own appliqued and hand-embroidered library bag, but I didn't give it to her because I had Big Plans to make her sisters their very own library bags, too, from fabric that I picked up at a later bag sale. 

 

 

Fast forward two years.  I still cling to those Big Plans but have only embroidered the front of Mildred's bag.  No further progress has been made.

Fast forward two more years.  Two weeks before Christmas, I determine that my Big Plans, which have been deflating like a pinpricked balloon for the previous two years, Must Not Die, so I begin what should have been done four years previously, only NOW I have two extra girls.  Two extra girls = two extra library bags to make on top of those for Millie and Annika.  Since I'm winging the design of all the bags, it takes longer, too.  (For you seamstresses who know what you're doing, I know it should be simple; even constructing simple things is hard for me, though.  My brain is missing some vital piece.)

 

(Yeah, the beading is crooked.  I was handsewing it on halfway to dreamland.)

Piper's is my absolute favorite, and I'm tempted to steal it for myself.  I guess I wasn't thinking far enough ahead when I embroidered her name on the front.  (It should read "Abigail Joy.")

 

 

My goal was to give them to the girls before Epiphany.  On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, right before bedtime, I finished Luci's, stuffed the bags full of library book sale books I'd been saving for that very purpose, and delivered them to some excited girls whom I should have been tucking into bed.

 

More than anything else, I was jubilant that THEY WERE ACTUALLY DONE!!!  Quack!