New Straps On An Old, Beautiful Book Bag

My friend had some books that she'd borrowed, and gave them back to me in a lovely (temporarily loaned) bag - which had the most raggedy straps that I've seen in a long time!

I wanted to thank her for having done the driving for our monthly women's circle meetings, so today Vincent and I walked down a few fields to their house - with a newly restored bag, filled with deliziosi agrumi; citrus fruits that we have a glut of from recent foraging in Guardia Sanframondi...

The old straps were uncerimoniously cut off. And a non-favourite pillowcase was cut along two sides, so that at least one edge was 'pre-sewn' 🤩

I pinned and then sewed - with the machine, but turning the wheel by hand, because our powerbank was charging in the sun - along the strips I'd cut...

Then turned them inside-out.

And then attached them with a repeated square and cross of sewing at the top of the bag. Turning the wheel by hand, after a lot of fiddly pinning (to make sure the whole straps were evenly formed), was pretty laborious.... when the powerbank was full though, I used it to sew the final edges...

...which were the folded-in-half straps' reinforcements: they are folded around two-thirds of the way up each side, wuth their full width left open where the straps will sit on the shoulder or in the hands.

I really love the continuity of the colour, and though I'm not sure how sturdy the original straps were, I feel that these are more than sufficient for the size of the bag - even if it were filled with heavy books!

It is a joy to do a small-but-labour-intensive job like this for a friend, as a surprise boon, a wee treat of bringing a nice bag like this back into its full utility. 🥳🤗🥰

Feels like a nice achievement too, to have carved out space (and time), in our super-chaotic living room/ dining room/ bedroom/ atelier! We only very recently got it fractionally more organised, and it feels about 5000% better to live-work-play in!

The days are short - the hours of direct sunlight in through our multi-purpose room's window are few, and this precious period is made all the more enjoyable by our glorious woodburning stove that we recently acquired secondhand.

Completing a sweet project like this, in our very-slowly-evolving home, is a minor achievement from the outside - but for me, the sense of fulfilment is really rather significant!

I mused with dearest @vincentnijman , as we leisurely perambulated down the flanks of our beloved new mountainside... on the importance of a good bag like this remaining in circulation.

In the future, repairing skills may be valued at a much higher level than now, and basic, useful, long-enduring items like cloth bags - well, they might be considered essential indeed.

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