The recipient of the first bag

Here is my future daughter-in-law, Paula, with my son, Harlan. This was taken a few weeks ago when we were all on vacation in Puerto Vallarta. Let me tell you alittle about Paula, who will receive this first bag of my Bag of the Month Project. Paula is a southern girl, born and raised in Atlanta. Sheis a very easy going person, warm, social, bright and articulate. She is a very enjoyable person to be with. She is also passionate about many things, including environmental issues, green businesses, fair trade and organic products, and feminist causes. She loves to listen to NPR, she sings and plays drums (formerly in the DC Band the Sprogs), and loves chocolate. She will be a wonderful life companion to our son, and we could not be happier to welcome her into our family. Right now she is getting her MBA at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where she will specialize in helping businesses to become sustainable. In addition to being a top student, she enjoys art, and has recently enrolle din a pottery class. She has made many beautiful silk screen prints which decorate the townhouse where they currently live, near Chapel Hill. Paula's favorite color is purple, and she will wear a purple wedding dress this June. Harlan's favorite color is orange, so I have made them a purple and orange wedding canopy (Chuppah) for the ceremony, that can be used as a bed quilt or wall hanging after the wedding. The bag I am giving Paula is made from leftover scraps from this quilt.

I have selected a few carefully chosen gifts to go in this bag I have made for Paula. Here they are:

1. A piece I wrote about cooking for Harlan that contains some recipes of his favorite foods.

2. An environmentally friendly travel bag from Aveda that contains refillable plastic containers. I know Paula will be traveling a lot in the year to come: for her honeymoon to Ireland, to Minneapolis and Atlanta for family celebrations, to Costa Rica for winter break, and to California as part of her summer internship.

3. Two bars of organic, fair trade chocolate! For her sweet tooth with a conscience.

Here is the bag, filled with presents, and ready to give to Paula when she comes to visit in ealry March. I hope she likes it!

The first bag is done!

Here is my first bag. I tried to follow the Grandma Lena pattern, but I diverged.

First, I wanted to use precut blocks from the orange and purple wedding quilt I am making my son and future daughter in law. I tried different arrangements of the squares, and finally decided to center a square on each side of the bag, and put a contrasting square on each end, so only half is shown. You can see the layout below. Chose a fabric that had orange and purple for the base and for the two straps. I choose a dark purple with orange dots for the lining (shown in the third picture). I made a full lining, rather than just a part lining, like Lena made. I did not do any quilting becuase I wanted to do something pretty quick and easy. It took just about one hour and that incluced some seam ripping when I sewed the wrong sides together.

This photo shows the lining.

The final dimensions are about 14 1/2 inches winde by about 8 inches high. I was going to make a smaller version, based on one square for each side of the bag, but thought that owuld be too small.

Now, who will I give this first bag too? I think I'll give it to Paula, my future duaghter in law. Its made from the same fabrics that will be in her wedding quilt. It is small enough to be a little purse or to carry a few things to class (she is enrilled in an MBA program at UNC). Or, she can use it as a gift bag, putting a gift in it to give someone. Paula and my son Harlan are coming to visit in ealry March so I will give it to her then. I

I being to plan the first bag

I am ready to begin the first bag of my project. I decided to base it on the model of a "Grandma Lena" bag. My husband's grandmother, Lena Orlofsky, made hundreds of little cloth bags, like this one. She used fabric scraps, upholstery samples, remnats, whatever she had. These little bags were treasured by her friends, by our family, and by our friends. In her loving memory, I dedicate and will create this first bag.

I measured the bag and its about 12 inches square, with a little less in height becuase of the botton having a little tuck.

You can see the inside of it at the right. It has a little fabric liner at the top. The top edge is finished with a type of zig zag stich.

Let me share a little informaiton on Grandma Lena. She was born in Roumania, and came to this country when she was four years old. Her father had already come to the US and had sent for his wife and five children, all five and under, including six-month twin boys. Her mother, Rebecca, traveled with a friend who posed as her hsuband. They were in the steerage part of a boat. Can you imagine traveling in the bottom of a boat with five children, aged five and under? She must have been amazing. After they arrived in in NY they settled into a little apartment in the lower east side. Lena's older sister died, leaving her as the oldest. She lived all her life in NY, mostly in different parts of Brooklyn. Grandma was an amazing woman. I met her shortly before I married Michael. She was incredibly handy and could fix anything. She designed cupboards and closets for her daughter's house in Long Island. She knit and sewed items of her own creation. Most of all, she enjoyed and was a whiz at fundraising for different Jewish organizations. Lena took her first airline trip to attend my wedding in Minneapolis, and her second, to attend my Bat Mitzvah at the age of 40. She took her thrid and final flight to attend the B'Nai Mitzvah of my twins when she was 94. She passed away at the age of 99, on a day that we happended to be in NY to celebrate my twins' graduation from High School. I think of Grandma Lena often and am inpsired by her. i witll think of her as I create this first bag.

I will start with 12 inch squares, as she did. I will use a purple and orange batik fabric leftover from sewing a wedding quilt/chuppah for my son's forthcoming wedding. I am not yet sure who I will give it to. That will come to me as I work.

Now, shall I model it exaclty after Grandma Lena's bag, or shoud I quilt it? I like the look and feeling of a quilted bag better than a plain fabric bag. However, since we may make more little bags like this for the wedding party, I think I'll keep it true to Grandma's sytle, this first time.

It is a very cold, quiet day here as we brace for an arctic cold front. I am enjoying a day at home by myself, and a long weekend (thanks to MLK day om Monday). I am in my quilt studio with light streaming in three windows, and I need to straightne up some of the lcutter before I begin to work. I will play music or podcasts from my computer which is also in this room. But first, I will go make myself a cup of tea and think through the steps in making this bag.

My Love Affair with Bags

MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH BAGS

When did I first fall in love with bags? Sometime in the past 15 years I developed a great passion for bags mdae of fabric. We’re not talking purses, but tote bags that can be used to carry items. My first purchase was actually a woven straw bag at the Galeries Lafayettee in Paris in 1993 that I bought to use when going to the farmer’s market (shown to the left). A few years later when traveling in Asia, I bought a lovely quilted bag in Singapore in the Little India neighborhood. I had recently become a quilter and was prowling for fabrics there. One year later, on my first trip to Israel, I bought an unusual woven fabric bag in a Druse village. My collection had begun and my dilemma was how to use all these different bags and where to store them. Around this time I received my first fabric bag from my husband’s grandmother, Lena Roth Orlofsky. She was a prolific bag maker, using little fabric samples or remmants to make small bags that she often gave to other elderly people to hand from their walkers or carry on their arms. Over the next few years she gave me many of these bags as a way to raise money, but I actually gave them to my friends and to my duaghter’s friends. We all enjoyed these “grandma bags”.

I started to see beautiful quilted bags in quilt shops, and enrolled in a class at my neighborhood quilt shop, Eydies. I used bright blue and yellow French fabrics and made my first bag, which I gave to my sister Ann. After that, I was holed. I bought several more bag patterns over the years and have made quilted and cloth bags, that I have kept or given to others.
Here is one I made using small pieced batik squares . Here is one using leftover upholstery facric given to me by my friend Susan.

Over the years I have also enjoyed watching my sister and my daughter make bags of their own. Ann made this one for me:

Rebecca madethese two cute bags that I still have at home, a bright orange batik tote bag, and a messenger bag make of bright flowered oil cloth. She also made several draw string tote bags, giving them to friends and one to me (that used woven Mexican fabric).

Despite owning all of these bags, I find that I am still compelled to make more bags. When I see a new pattern at a store, or a quilted bag in a shop or on someone’s arm, I think "I could make that, or something like that.” Most recently, before a trip to Mexico, I found a tote bag pattern on the internet that was made from placemats. Inspired by this pattern, I searched for colorful woven placemats that I could buy and bring home to turn into bags.

While in Mexico, the idea for this bag of the month project emerged, and I liked it. I know that I do not need any more bags, and because I love to make bags, I will now set up a system for making them other people or fundraising groups, and give them away.

Since it is January, I need to start planning my first bag. I have decided to try to reproduce one of Grandma Lena’s little bags, just to see if I can, and to honor her memory. For the fabric, I am going to use bright purple and orange batik fabrics, which are leftover from a wedding quilt I am making for my son Harlan’s forthcoming wedding. IF the bag turns out well, we may make several more to give as gifts at the wedding.

Quilted Bag of the Month

While I was vacationing in Mexico in January, I came up with an idea that combines many of the creative pursits I love: quilting, writing, photography, and food. Each month I will design and make a fabric bag to give as a giflt. The bag will either go to a designated person or to a charity or non-profit group to use for fund raising. Each month I will write about process of designing and making a new bag, my relfections on who I making it for, and photos of the bag at different times. I will pick or create a special recipe inspried by the bag that I will put inside, possibly along with some key ingredients.