It's a Sickness

Last month I went to visit all of my family in California and had a lovely time... and as usual I came home with a project! Rebekah had this wonderful canvas bag embellished with Suffolk puffs (aka yo-yos) and buttons.

I HAD to have one!

Since Beatrix only *sips* diesel fuel... we made several trips down to town to get what I needed for MY party bag. I looked at Bek's and thought, "Hmmm, I think I'd like mine a little larger!" (What WAS I smokin'?)

I've been working on this bag for the last month, pretty much neglecting any other project except indexing... it is another one of my sicknesses! Sometimes bigger isn't always better... my finished bag was going to be big enough to fit a sleeping bag in... I'm not joking! So it was time to improvise. I have a fun cow/pinto purse that I got recently and taking some cues from it I constructed this bag. But since it was going to be significantly bigger I needed to add a few things. First, I wanted to have a hard bottom. I dug around and finally sacrificed an old scrapbooking accordion folder thing to make the bottom. But then I wanted to be able to wash the bag without the plastic bottom, so I added a second zipper to the bottom seam of the lining to facilitate that. After lots of *make-it-up-as-I-go*...

This is my finished party bag!

The stats:

• 63 Suffolk puffs
• 5 yo-yo flowers
• 8 appliqued flowers
• 15 appliqued leaves/grass
• 70 buttons
• 29 beads

Bek, who shares many of my sicknesses, added pocket to her bag. We MUST gave pockets. So this is my pocketed inside. (You can see the zipper in the bottom.)

I have HAD a whole stock of old zippers and used one for my new bag. And I just happened to have some zipper pulls left over from Christmas so I put one on my bag. It makes me happy.

Now lest you think me a mean girl who doesn't want to share her ideas, I will tell you that I've looked in vain for a publishable link for this great project. I will share what I do know. Here is a photo of Tita Leach's (of Rickerty Raggs) original bag.

Bek got the magazine from a friend and she thinks it is Australian Homespun Magazine. I've Googled all of the possible combinations I could think of and all I could come up with is a possible address tita_leach@yahoo.com.au. I've sent her an email trying to get more information and will update here if I get anything.

UPDATE****

If you are interested here is Tita's email to me.  Or you can just wing it (but remember that bigger isn't always better!)

Hello Joanie,

Yes the bag was published in Homespun magazine from Australia. I never made up a pattern for it as it was being published through them. You could contact Homespun and see if they have a copy of said magazine. If memory serves me I think it was published last year. I was surprised how popular it was. I am off to the US on Saturday as I am taking a quilt tour. If you get no joy from Homespun please email me again. I will be back in Oz at the end of May. Lovely to hear from you,

Kind regards Tita Leach.

Also check out the first comment it is from Homespun Magazine. (Yay little Joanie! I uncovered the link!)