Magikquilterdesigns

This handbag and teh co-ordinating tote shopping bag were made using some wonderful Boussac of France home decor weight polished cotton. The blooms on this fabric are up to 20 cm in size! I was so thrilled that I was able to save this fabric…yes it was another one of those fabric scrap bags that the charity workers were going to throw out! I paid a certain amount for the bag of scraps and although there were a lot of unwanted bits and pieces this was a huge find….about 1.5 metres of it if my memory is correct.

The contrasting strips and flap are from the Waverley Jacquard sample book which Kara gave me earlier this year while the bamboo handles are from a second hand bag which was in poor condition although the handles are like new. I decided to make a giant tote so that it is easier when shopping in the city to throw everything into the tote bag, keeping the handbag for wallets lipsticks and all the magical things we women have in our bags….camera in my case. These bags are entirely my own design, devised around the recycled fabric that was available to me at the time.

Nestling amongst the blooms is my  mother of pearl butterfly necklace and the stunning pink and green medallion style necklace, both of which were thrifted locally at St Vincent de Paul stores for less than twenty dollars. Now I just can’t wait for summer to use these bags but winter has set in again with a vengeance…it was 12 degrees celcius today which is really cold for here. In Australia most of our energies are spent keeping cool in summer and as a nation we may have to really consider how to better insulate our homes against not only the heat but the increasingly colder winters. But that is way in the future…in the short term I just want to use my new bags!