The baglady

I’m a bit late for a Mother’s Day post, aren’t I? Wouldn’t mention it except I wondered what I’d been doing in the week since then.

Thanks to my friend’s sister, Bev at http://www.kaingahappenings.blogspot.com/ (I don’t know how to insert a link and if I looked it up now that will be today gone) I have been on a sewing bender. Once upon a time, when my children were small, I was a sewer. Everything the family wore was made by yours truly. Except my bras – I drew the line at that. But everything else from our underwear to our coats was made on my trusty old Elna sewing machine. The same machine I am still using.

I took the Elna to Auckland when I visited my daughters to allow them to spoil me for Mother’s Day. On the Monday Justine and I modified some of our clothes. We have both lost a bit of weight which is wonderful but saggy baggy clothes aren’t.

I’d mentioned to the girls my renewed interest in sewing and showed them the bag I had made for myself, with its matching make up bag. Also, I gave Justine her birthday present. Her birthday isn’t till June but I probably won’t see her between now and then and there’s no way that child could have an unopened present in the house for that long. I gave her the little camera bag I’d copied from the one Bev had made for her sister, my friend, Chris. I’d used an old pair of jeans to make my bag so the girls dived into their wardrobes to provide me with more old jeans, jackets, skirts that I can recycle into bags.

Recycled jeans

I now have four bags in the completed pile. One is definitely for my youngest grand-daughter’s 6th birthday in August. Definitely a little girls bag. Another is long and thin and heavily padded – I think it would come in handy to carry a bottle of wine. Maybe with a bottle of wine in it, it would make a nice gift?

Little girls bag and wine carrier

This week I am staying at my son’s house looking after my three grand-daughters while he and Heather are away. I took them to netball on Saturday morning, feeling thankful it wasn’t raining or cold. Memories of freezing on the sidelines watching Sat morning sport! Ah, the good old days, huh?

Netball in foreground with rugby and hockey in the background

Krystal and Shayde aren’t as competitive as my children used to be. They were perfectly happy having been beaten 12 nil. My kids would have made everyone’s life a misery after a result like that! Maybe the current generation is really buying into “It’s not about the winning, it’s about taking part, playing the game.” I remember one of my kids saying to me after they reached adulthood, “Oh, yes, you always said that but we didn’t believe you for a minute!”

Tonight we are off to gymnastics!

Nearly finished bridesmaid dress recycled to dainty purse