Class has Finally Started!!

Class finally started Tuesday night. For those of you who don't already know, I've enrolled in an 18 month residential carpentry (construction) program. We get to jump into tools and safety tonight and I'm hoping by next week we'll be producing some saw dust!! As expected the class was mostly men. But there was one other woman...and this was the craziest part...she's a chemist too! Seriously. When does that happen? Out of the professional setting I have never met another chemist, let alone a female one...and we're both in the same construction program?!?!

I made a yoga bag for my sister this week, for her birthday. This is the first non-ETSY project I've done in a while. It felt good to get back into sewing after a little break. Here are some pictures of the drawstring style yoga bag. Once again I stand on the basic bag design that I use for everything. It's fully lined which gives it more strength and it has no unfinished edges, which is nice. I made the drawstring by ironing a strip of fabric into a double-fold bias tape. The strap needs to be about 6 inches longer then the drawstring tunnel. That way when it's pulled shut it's long enough to fit over your shoulder, when the bag is opened the strap pretty much disappears.

I love this simplicity of this bag, and plan to use it as a gift bag for the holidays. A smaller version can be a wine-bottle gift bag, a larger version can hang on the back of a seat as a junk bag for kids toys, etc in the car. Especially when you have stores of fabric with no direct purpose...these make great stuff bags, gift bags, tote bags, etc etc etc.