Making Bags for memories sake

Kyle's beloved Grandma passed away a few years ago. She was a such a blessing to her family and community and she was always using her talents (cooking, sewing, painting, gardening, etc) to express love to her friends and family.

As the family went through her belongings they found a multitude of craft supplies including LOTS of fabric. Much of it was scrap pieces or pre-cut quilt blocks. As I went through the fabric I couldn't pass up on some of the wonderful vintage finds. Then the fabric sat for over a year as I could never decide on a project worthy of such special fabric.

Then one day Nora took it upon herself to pour out my bag of hair supplies and throw the bag in the toilet. That bag immediately went in the trash and I decided a could use a few new make-up type bags to organize all my vanity supplies.

As I was researching different ways to make bags and utilizing fabric from my stash it occurred to me that Grandma's vintage scraps would make adorable little bags. And what began as a small project turned into a mission to make all the girls on the Schenk side a bag in memory of their mom/grandma/great-grandma.

And 17 bags later this is what I had!

I had a lot of fun picking out the fabrics and finding a coordinating fabric for the inside. I actually had all the inside fabric in my stash so for each bag I only had to purchase a zipper. The size of the bags was determined by the size of the fabric scrap. Then I added coordinating colored zippers. The colorful zippers is one of my favorite parts about the bags.

This is the bag I made for myself. It's one of the 1st bags I made before I had committed to making one for everyone :) I love the colors and the fun vintage feel. Funny enough as Kyle was looking at the finished bags he tried to guess which one I made for myself and this was the very last one he picked. I guess he doesn't know me that well :) In his defense he saw the cat and knowing my distaste for cats thought I would never pick out a fabric with a cat on it.

The inside of Nora's bag

I kept the bags a secret and packaged them up for a Thanksgiving surprise. As I was wrapping the bags I thought it might be nice to include a gift tag explaining the bags so here is the ditty I came up with:

Turning something
from the past
into something new

Helps us remember
her legacy anew

I hope the ladies use the bags in their everyday life and they are a wonderful reminder of their mother/grandmother!