The tarted up shopping bag

I've discovered frozen yoghurt, eleventy million years later than everyone else, but it's the ideal low calorie snack, isn't it? Fat free strawberry yoghurt and fresh strawberries/raspberries. Lush! It also took me forever to catch on to the idea of overnight oats, but I love those too. I especially like the idea of making your breakfast the evening before. So when you're waking up, all bleary eyed and yawning, all you have to do is take a bowl out of the fridge and grab a spoon.

Speaking of being bleary eyed, I woke up stupidly early today and couldn't for the life of me get back to sleep. Ended up doing laundry at about 5.30am and hanging it out on the line before the rest of the neighbourhood had even opened their curtains. A good job too as by mid morning the heavens opened and we had thunder, lightning and a drenching downpour. All needed for the garden, so can't complain.

This afternoon I was watching old episodes of 'The Great British Sewing Bee'. I haven't bothered with the current series as it's all got too formulaic and the programme just serves as a vehicle for whatever comedian's fronting it. But I enjoyed the original format, and it's got me itching to try dressmaking. I'm thinking of buying the Tilly & the Buttons 'Stevie' pattern as I fancy making a simple tunic / dress. Something that's roomy, sleeveless and has pockets. The 'Stevie' is the nearest pattern I've seen to what I want, and it looks straightforward, even for a total novice dressmaker like me.

In the meantime, I finished adding patchwork pieces to a cotton shopping bag that'd seen better days, and which I decided to cover all over in a random design. It was just a plain cream coloured bag, the sort of thing we've all got tucked away in the bottom of a handbag or in a kitchen drawer.

I covered both sides of the bag and also the handles, which had got very tatty and discoloured.

And - because I know you're curious - here's the inside of the bag. All the stitching on show.

The idea is to keep patching up the bag as and when it's needed, and keep adding quilting lines, kind of in a boro fashion. Making do and mending, giving the humble cotton shopping bag a whole new life.

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