I've been meaning to make some heavy duty grocery bags for years.  Every time we go to the bulk store (Costco/BJs) and we would struggle to get all the giant-sized mouth washes and monster boxes of pasta into the house (they don't give you bags), I would say, "I'm going to make us some grocery bags out of that denim I bought years ago."

Yeah, right.

Well, now that we don't have a car we *needed* to have some reusable bags that could take some abuse.  The ready-made reusable bags seem to be light-weight, which is great for carrying around for spur of the moment shopping, but we like to *really* stock up when we shop.  That means our bags need to stand up to being chock full of sharp-cornered boxes and heavy jugs of orange juice.  They also need to weather the trunks of taxis or being set on the ground while we take a breather on the way home if we're walking.

The denim was a perfect solution.  It's heavy duty, washable, and will stand up to years of abuse.  I made the handles so they are long enough to fit over your shoulder, but short enough that if I'm holding the straps in my hands that the bag isn't scraping along the ground.

The first hem around the top was the zig-zag stitch to catch the inside raw edge..  For some reason, zig-zag stitching always looks really cheap to me.  I put a straight stitch on each side of the zig-zag and I like it a lot better now.  I left the bottom of the straps raw, so they are going to fray.  I was afraid of sewing through too many layers of denim.  But, I have to say, my trusty sewing machine did a great job.  It went through 6 layers of denim like it was butter.

I made two of them and I think they are going to be plenty big for our monthly-ish* shopping trips.  I might add some ties to the inside tops to help keep them closed, especially if we're going to put them in the trunk of a taxi.

I've seen those obnoxious Whole Foods bags that say "I used to be a plastic bottle" on the side ... which is highly incongruous when you see the cars people drive to Whole Foods to use their one little reusable bag.  Those bags totally irk me.  I've been joking that I wanted to stitch "I used to be a baby seal" on the sides of our new bags, but apparently it's bad enough that they are covered in flowers.

*We get all our staples like pasta, rice, etc. and all the heavy stuff on the big trips that we do every 4-6 weeks.  Then, on the way home from work a couple nights a week, I'll stop and get fresh vegetables to use for the next several dinners.  We did it this way before we got rid of the car, but it's a perfect set up now that grocery shopping is such a hassle.

I was hoping to complete an awesome wrist pin cushions using Michelle's great tutorial before I posted my review, but I don't think I should wait.  That's her awesome photo above.

Her tutorial is detailed and well-photographed.  The pincushion she made is absolutely the cutest.  Where in the world does one find Little Red Riding Hood ribbon?!  And, on top of all that, she's giving away the wristlet that's the star of the tutorial.  It doesn't get better than that!

I'm going to make one of them with the vintage German ribbon Isa sent me.  What a perfect way to use some of my precious little bits in a way that they'll be useful and cute.

Plus, I really really need one of these.  Last time I used pins on the couch (tiny macrame owl) I forgot some pins that I stuck in the cushions of the couch. Oops!  Luckily they were found before they poked someone in the bee-hind.

It's utterly absurd how happy it makes me that (after *much* thinking and experimenting and cord making) the giant wall doily is becoming a reality.

Absurd.

Some people dream of fame, world peace, riches ... I dream of giant wall doilies.  Well, at least I can achieve my dreams, right?

If anyone knows of an automatic (like, hand cranked) spool knitter (i-cord maker), let me know.  I found this one with Sonya's help, but it doesn't handle worsted weight yarn.

It's excruciating to manually spool knit for 5 minutes to just make enough i-cord to make one double crochet.  It's like having a child make their own bubble gum.  Just give me the gum already!

I only have two more pages to fill up in my old notebook before I get to switch to my new one.  To get the new one ready, I hand-sewed clear vinyl pockets into it.  Because of it's thickness and rigidity, I can't sew it with the machine.

I pre-poked the holes with a pin.  I used the leaf pattern to make them evenly-spaced.  If you need to do this on plain paper, you could sandwich a piece of graph paper between the paper and the vinyl to use as a guide for poking your holes before you sew it up.

I left pins in the corners as I sewed to help me keep everything straight.  I used some floss from my left over floss bits box.

Cry Baby

I feel like a whiner for complaining about not having enough time in my last post.  Who *does* have enough time?  Or money?  Or chocolate?

Sometimes I get so focused on the projects I haven't finished, the projects I haven't started, the patterns I haven't published, the posts I haven't written, the crafting supplies I haven't purchased, the thank yous I haven't sent ... that I fail to see all the things I actually *have* accomplished.  I have a lot to be proud of.  Thanks for pointing that out (the the nicest and funniest way) Blue  and lil' d!

Avatars 2.0

When I showed Andrew my avatar he said, "You don't have black eyebrows."  And he's right.  

When I went back to remake myself I took the time to figure out how to change the background and noticed that you can move some of the elements up and down, like mouths.  Moving the mouth down a click or two makes your avatar look a little older.

More About Memes

Also, I totally forgot to tell you why I end up doing memes even though I can't even bear to utter the word ... it's because I love reading yours so much!  I love learning about you guys, seeing pictures of you, hearing your secrets.  I figure that I'm not the only one who likes it, so I might give you a tiny glimpse into my Aliceness.  I still think there's something icky about them, though. :)

Cactus Update - August

Grow you little bastards!  Grow!  Why are they still so teeny tiny?  Am I going to have to wait until next Spring for another growth spurt?  And ... I killed another one last month.  Three down, eighty-two to go.  More pictures on Flickr.  [ Note: I've compared last month's photo of the red-spiked cactus to this month's, and it has grown a leeeetle bit.  But that's not saying much since it's only 20 mm tall (that's less than an inch). ]

I like to play the crusty curmudgeon (and maybe I am).  I feel the same way Korallin feels about memes and web awards (and I often need a nap, too).  But (but!) sometimes I enjoy a little of the blog-meme action (like I did here, and here, and here, and here).

Futuregirl Avatar

So this week I found myself making an avatar after seeing  Green Kitchen's and thinking, "Wow, that really looks kinda like her." (and her Sis', too!)  And now, going back to see them to make the links, I realize we all have the same shirt on, but I changed the stripes to be black and grey like my favorite shirt. ever.  I've worn that shirt once a week since I bought it a couple years ago.  I added the freckles in Photoshop.


Six Unspectacular Quirks About Yourself

What a wonderful segue to the "six unspectacular quirks about yourself" meme that Christina from Little Wilds tagged me for (which I was tagged ... whatever).  I'm not going to follow the rules (which you can see on her blog in your interested) because that's how I roll.

1) If I find an article of clothing I like, I wear it once a week until it's dead.  I'd wear them more than once a week if I washed clothes more often.

2) I mispronounce words.  Mostly ones I've only read and haven't heard other people use.  Like ancillary ... which I say (... or, I guess, said) /ann-sillary/ (rhymes with Hillary) but should really be pronounced /an' sil airy/.  I have to pause before I say superfluous because it wants to come out of my mouth /su'per-flew-us/ instead of /su-perf'-ew-lus/, but at least I know that one's wrong.  I've also been called out on biopic ... which I say (said) /bi-op-ick/ instead of the correct /bi-oh-pick/. [** edit, I had the biopic pronunciations mixed up**].

3) I'm very particular about the smoothness and non-movingness of the covers while I sleep.  Very. Particular.

4) I don't like to eat fruit.  I'll eat cold cut up apples, but that's about it.

5) I got caught smelling my own arm at work last week and I realized that I do it all the time.  I like the way the sun-ripened raspberry shower gel smells.  Luckily I was only seen sniffing my bicep.  I think I usually bury my nose in my elbow pit and then I breath in slowly and deeply.

6) I eat breakfast cereal dry and out of a cup.  Like I'm drinking it.  I don't like milk or fake-o milk substitutes.  But I *do* like breakfast cereal.

Those are pretty unspectacular.  Nothing too shocking or cool.

Things I Assume You Know

This is also a great time to mention that I added a new section to my about page called "Things I assume you know."   I realized recently that I've started to assume that my readers know stuff about me and I figured I should let people who are new to my blog know what those things are.  And, to keep you from having to click, I'll just list 'em here:

- My name is Alice.
- I'm 36 years old.
- My husband's name is Andrew.
- I live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
- I lived in San Francisco for 9 years from 1992 to 2001.
- I grew up in the Midwest.
- I've been crafty my whole life.
- Currently I mainly crochet, handsew things out of felt, and embroider.
- I'm alergic to wool.
- I love Japanese craft books.
- I'm really into owls, peacocks, lions (especially on buildings), and octopuses.
- I also really like skulls, flames, and glitter.
- I don't knit. I only have so much time.
- I'm obsessed with being organized.
- I love lists, notebooks, and organizational systems.
- I work full-time outside of the house.
- I'm a web programmer.
- I wrote my blog application using ASP.NET (VB.NET) and SQL Server 2005.
- I try to visit the websites of everyone who comments.
- I try to respond to all my comments.
- Sometimes I don't have the time to visit or respond. I wish I did.
- Ravelry user: futuregirl
- Flickr:  futuregirl_dot_com

I've been missing crochet so much.  After making a whole handbag on Saturday, I didn't want to stop.  I decided to make one that could be lined with the awesome fabric Veronica sent me December 2007.

The stitch pattern is *3 sc, 3 hdc, 3 dc, 3 hdc*  And there are some single crochet rows thrown in there, too.

I did a little test swatch.  I love the way the anarchy waves look.  There was no forethought and each row has a different stitch pattern.  But that just wasn't going to work on a handbag whose sides need to match up ... well not without a lot of planning.  And I wasn't in the mood for planning.  I was in the mood to crochet.

I brought all the balls of yarn that matched the purse out in to the living room and picked the colors row by row.  Thank goodness I like the way it all worked out.  The mix of colors and their frequency really echoes that of the fabric for me.  I want to do fabric handles on this one, but I haven't really worked out how yet.

There are a million-and-one-other things I want to talk about in this post but I don't have the time.  But I still need to get them out of my head, so here's a mangle mess of thoughts:

- I wanted to talk about how the gifts people give me of yarn and fabric (like those in yesterday and today's post) cry out to me every time I see them saying, "Why haven't you used me yet?"  All of my craft supplies cry out "Me me me!" but I find the ones that are gifts do so especially.

- It's unbelievable that I've had that fabric for over 8 months.  Sometimes my crafty blog-record can be a curse.

- I see women all over the city wearing slinky skirts and dresses with awesome with multicolored, disappearing/emerging wave patterns on them and I was trying to recreate that in my swatch.  I couldn't find an example of the pattern on the web (I want that f*cking hour back, Google!).  I've been wanting to crochet that kind of pattern for weeks and it just sort of fit in with this project.  I like how things like this come together.

- I "watched" some TERRIBLE movies on-demand on Sunday while I was crocheting.  I need the noise.  In the office (aka craft room) I like music, but it's gotta be the TV in the living room.  When I saw a homeless woman with a radio the other day, it made me think of me on Sunday and I realized if I'm ever homeless I'd need a radio, too.  Then yesterday Angelina posted about homeless people, which I thought was a weird coincidence.

- I photographed the bag from yesterday on the couch.  What a crap background for that bag.

- I never explained the title, which comes from an Indiana Jones movie.  But it's a quote at our house because of its use in Clerks.  I thought of it because I spent all my spare moments last weekend crocheting ... OK, not all of them.  I also did some stitching for A Collaboration.  All that crafting didn't leave much time for anything else, but it sure did make me happy.

- Did I mention I wish I had more time?  I have so many stories I want to tell. :)

After getting the box o' yarny love from Shannon last weekend, I *had* to do some crocheting.  The package contained a wonderful variegated yarn that I really wanted to see as a handbag.  There was some major blue-pooling when I was doing the base which I wasn't loving (see bottom right in photo).

I noticed that the green didn't look like it was pooling, just the blue.  Like one was negative and one was positive.  There was a skein of green in the box, too, so I decided to do every third row in the green to break up any potential blue-pooling issues.  It worked like a charm!

Did you notice the solid green rows before I told you about them?  I started and finished this on Saturday.  How long do you think it will take me to find the perfect lining fabric?  My money's on late November.

Man, I totally hate to disappoint everyone, but the robot random number picker has spoken.  The winner of the Glitter Stamping Starter Kit is Megan of Crafty Intentions.  Congratulations!

Thanks to all of you for bringing the comment-love! You guys are the best!

"Here are your random numbers"?!  There's only one number, you doofy web page!  I wish I could go fix the code ...  is that crazy?  Don't answer that.

Oh, and I didn't count the people who commented and said "Count me out" so the 60 doesn't match up exactly if you're double checking me.  But why would you do that?  You totally trust me, right?  You should.

... or should you?  

Lots of recent goodness to share:

Owl Earrings

Tanya of More Than Blue, a frequent, thoughtful, and hilarious visitor to my blog, sent me these beautiful and elegant owl earrings.  Because they are simple sterling silver, I can wear them with anything ... and, believe me, I will!  Thank you, Tanya!

I might have to break my gold/silver taboo and wear them with the awesome owl pin Blaize sent me.  They *do* look like twin-zies, don't they?


Surprise Pack Of Yarn

Shannon of Birdstar sent me a box of non-wool yarn from her languishing stash.  Seriously people - I'm totally overwhelmed.  There are FIVE (5!) skeins of red chenille in there ... three balls of Debbie Bliss cotton (which I've only ever dreamed about!) ... loads of other cotton yarn ... some Paton Grace that coordinates with the Viola I'm using for the Icelandic Turtleneck ... a rainbow of Lion Brand Homespun softness ... and so much more.  I've already started a handbag with some of the yarn she sent, which I'll show you later this week.    Thank you, Shannon!


There's a Mouse in the House

I complimented a coworker's lapel-mouse and discovered that she has a friend with an Etsy Shop.  How fun is that?  Well, if it's MouseTrapVintage, then it's super-fun!  Her hand-sewn mouse pins are unbelievably adorable *and* affordable.  Just look at those houndstooth ears!

New Stitchy Circles Photoshop Brushes

Jason Gaylor's Photoshop Brushes are the coolest.  I use them to make the fancy white cutout border on the bottom of my images.  Yesterday he released a brush set named Stitchy Circles which looks amazing.  Although many of his brush sets are free,  this one is $14 for personal use ... which is totally worth it.  There is a free sample so you can try before you buy.
Crochet Blanket Heaven

I ran across this awesome blanket when I was clicking around the intertubes.  Hexagons!  Advacado Green!  Harvest Gold!  Pumpkin!  It's so "1970s housewife" which is totally my favorite. For real.  The best part is that a 21-year-old made it.  How awesome is that?!