A handbag thing
I have never been much of a shoe person. For most of my late teens and early twenties I wore steel toe cap Dr Martin boots or big heavy motorcycle boots. I teamed them with strange net skirts and velvet dresses and thick black tights and fancied myself as looking like Madonna I suppose. The comfortable boot years rather spoiled me I am afraid and comfort in shoes has been a must ever since. In recent years I have begun to embrace uncomfortable shoes a little more and my collection of towering heels is growing but shoes are still the afterthought of the outfit and I do still love a boot. On the other hand, bags are certainly not an afterthought and the money I have saved on shoes has been well and truly spent on bags. I spend a great deal of time and effort hunting down the perfect everyday bags and I especially love pretty evening bags.
My return to sewing has produced several bags so far and of course there are also more than a few knitted bags amongst my collection. These two bags were sewn for a recent trip to Chester Races, as usual I left things to the very last minute and they were hurriedly sewn the night before, one black, one white because my decision on what to wear was even more last minute and this covered both options.
Grace Kelly was in my head when I made my drawings, and a browse through one of my Japanese Craft books produced something close to what I wanted. I used very stiff interfacing and boning in the handle. The bags are made of off-white linen and black silk and decorated with some of my precious vintage buttons, so ridiculously hard to make myself use those buttons! I am so pleased with how they turned out, for once exactly as I imagined and hoped. They are now decorating my bedroom along some of the rest of my collection. Incidentally, as you can perhaps tell from the attached ticket, the white bag went to the races in the end although needless to say, 5 minutes before I needed to leave I was still tossing up between two choices, I do wish I was more decisive....
I have never been much of a shoe person. For most of my late teens and early twenties I wore steel toe cap Dr Martin boots or big heavy motorcycle boots. I teamed them with strange net skirts and velvet dresses and thick black tights and fancied myself as looking like Madonna I suppose. The comfortable boot years rather spoiled me I am afraid and comfort in shoes has been a must ever since. In recent years I have begun to embrace uncomfortable shoes a little more and my collection of towering heels is growing but shoes are still the afterthought of the outfit and I do still love a boot. On the other hand, bags are certainly not an afterthought and the money I have saved on shoes has been well and truly spent on bags. I spend a great deal of time and effort hunting down the perfect everyday bags and I especially love pretty evening bags.
My return to sewing has produced several bags so far and of course there are also more than a few knitted bags amongst my collection. These two bags were sewn for a recent trip to Chester Races, as usual I left things to the very last minute and they were hurriedly sewn the night before, one black, one white because my decision on what to wear was even more last minute and this covered both options.
Grace Kelly was in my head when I made my drawings, and a browse through one of my Japanese Craft books produced something close to what I wanted. I used very stiff interfacing and boning in the handle. The bags are made of off-white linen and black silk and decorated with some of my precious vintage buttons, so ridiculously hard to make myself use those buttons! I am so pleased with how they turned out, for once exactly as I imagined and hoped. They are now decorating my bedroom along some of the rest of my collection. Incidentally, as you can perhaps tell from the attached ticket, the white bag went to the races in the end although needless to say, 5 minutes before I needed to leave I was still tossing up between two choices, I do wish I was more decisive....
Comments
I do the exact same thing. I always go back and forth on the more appropriate outfit and then when I get to the event, decide I have chosen the wrong one. Every time.
Those bags are GORGEOUS.
Sabine (mindfulknitting)
Bet your boot wearing younger self never thought she'd be elegant ?!;0)
I love my doc martins but I do like pretty girly shoes too.
I too am more of a handbag person. I'd love to love shoes but my feet are all the wrong shape. You can never be the wrong shape for a beautiful bag.