Bag making, Spiralising and Instagram

The sneak peek of my fabric designs for bag making on my previous post has slowly started to turn into bags, they are shaping up as cross body purses.

There are quite a pile to stitch up which is going to take a while as I've got busy with real work again after a quiet spell.

Some of the bags match with previous scarves I made.

Here we are in a bit more detail.

This has been the week I joined Instagram as Fabric Mountain, I must admit to having no interest in it before. It just seemed another thing like Twitter, Pinterest and all the other social media to take up more of my time in front of a screen and less time making and creating. However I've recently heard good things about it helping to promote crafts peoples work as it's mainly a visual medium and hence I threw the towel in and joined. Having been warned by Green Rabbit that it can be addictive, I can confirm it is now that I've got going and I'm starting to find my way around!

Other new things this week. Spiralising! I've wanted one for a while, I did a lot of reading of reviews to which one I wanted only to find it was out of stock everywhere I looked. Anyway Amazon reckoned they were back in stock at the end of July so it was just a few days later than that when I ordered and here it is.

It is rather fab and we've made courgetti last night and it's so easy to use and clean that I see it having a lot of use.

I lightly sauted my courgette strands and they did wilt down a bit leaving not a huge portion of food so tonight I'm having another go and doubling up.

This Lurch Vegan spiraliser was definitely worth the wait and great value at about £35.

Make a wallet from recycled Has Bean Coffee bags

The new red & white Has Bean coffee bag/envelopes which the weekly subscription of beans arrive in are so much more practical. It actually fits in my small post box which the jiffy bag never did and I always had to be in on a Saturday morning to take delivery. They're less packaging and less waste and they look very smart too. Here they are displayed by Bob the Bunny.

As some of my readers will know, I like to recycle and I like to stitch and create things. 
This got me thinking, as I was about to discard the last few weeks bags, could I make something useful out of them.
I know, a tiny wallet to hold the loyalty cards of some of my favourite cafes.
I chopped up the bits of bag with the HB logo on which would make the outer surface of the wallet.

I then stitched some of these bits together, overlapping and using a zigzag stitch.

I was working to create a rectangular size of about 21cm x 9cm and here it is, I also zigzagged around the edge for neatness.

Next you need another rectangle the same size for the inside, I found this coffee themed oil-skin fabric.

With wrong sides together, stitch with a zigzag all around the edge to join the 2 pieces, exposing the right sides. You can see below that inside I have stitched a little red pocket to hold my loyalty cards.

The design of the wallet will be to fold over the right hand side with a small flap and then the left hand side will fold over that and close with a snap fastener, as you can see on the picture below.

Here is the finished wallet with a little embellishment on the front.

The inside, to store those precious cards!

And finally the back view.

Plastic bags & packaging with nice designs on are very versatile to chop up and stitch to recycle into something new.

This might turn into an occasional series of "More Than One Use for a Has Bean Coffee Bag", you have been warned!