Monday, December 7, 2009

The Tommy Bag: Oops I did it again!

This is a story about my second attempt at making a grocery bag. Let's begin...

I love stuffed animals. I have always loved stuffed animals, and I probably will always love stuffed animals.  Right now I have one stuffed animal sitting in the chair with me, there are 3 on the coffee table (granted, they are mice and tiny) and 2 sitting on the TV. And those are just the ones I can see right now.  Anyways, my newest stuffed animal is Tommy the sea turtle.


Tommy comes from Barbados.  He likes swimming and going on cruises and taking naps in the bed.  His favorite singer is Rihanna, but he also like Bob Marley.  Here is a picture of Tommy and me swimming together in his home waters.
(Tommy is the one on the right)

Anyways, I love everything about Tommy.  I love his floppy arms and legs, and his fuzzy snuggly shell.  That is why when I saw this great Tommy belting at Joann's I just knew I had to have it.

It was calling to me, like a beacon in the night. 

I knew I wanted to make a Tommy tote bag/grocery bag with that Tommy belting, but it took me a good couple of weeks to go back to Joann's and buy it (I think I was waiting for a good coupon).  When I did I also bought some blue denim and some cute green lining. I was all set for success!
"This reminds me of the beautiful blue waters of my homeland"

I worked out a pretty simple pattern.  I made a bag similar to this a few years (5 or 6) back, although it was much much larger, but I did have a plan for the whole thing before I started, which we know is a very good idea!  So here I am, sewing along and BAM!  There goes another pin into the depths of my sewing machine!  I can't believe I lost another one in there!  What is it with grocery bags and pins getting stuck inside that darn machine??  (At this point Stephen is telling me "Ummm, don't you think maybe you should start doing it that other way you talked about on your blog?" I still haven't changed a thing)
So like last time, I kept sewing along, hoping for the best but about an inch or two later everything jammed up.  Uh-oh.  I pulled my fabric off of the machine and lucky me!!
 
That pin worked its way out of my machine all on it's own.  Hooray!!  The rest of the project went off without a hitch, and turned out GREAT!

I love my new house!!
And I LOVE Tommy!!!!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I met Tommy in person once and I can assure you that he is very happy with his new home/bag!! Now what about one for Flubby?

Anonymous said...

I think that Aunt Flo would love a home bag for her grocery shopping -- she does prefer elephants though to turtles but also she is a pretty flexble gal so she may be just fine with turtles....

Anonymous said...

zingy could use a bag...

Anonymous said...

I think it is Singy -- do you suppose Jenny makes both dinosaurs and elephants? Maybe Cardinals??

Laura Maurer Storms said...

Somewhere along the line, i learned to pull my pins out when sewing - I'm not sure where I picket this up because mom certainly doesn't subscribe to this practice. When I think about leaving my pins in, it gives me the heebie jeebies thinking that my needles are going to break!