All Bagged Up!

My sewing career has gone through fits and spurts.

Whenever I feel inspired, or the circumstances are good, I sew. The rest of the time I wish I sewed, or that I sewed more.

At the moment, my circumstances are right for sewing.

Indeed life has been good since I moved to Ireland this year, so I have completed a few pieces.

The first thing that I made since I got my machine was this beige striped shoulder bag.

As you can see, there are free form flowers on the front. These were made from the selvages. I like the way that they add a rough edge, and of course use up some of those left over scraps, that would otherwise go in the bin.

Yes it's a lot rough around the edges, I am not particularly patient finishing things off, but it's a good first project after years of doing no sewing. The bit that I like to boast about the most is this. I drafted the pattern myself.

In the future, I will return to this bag, and add an insert to the base so that it holds a little more shape. But for the mean time, I am very happy with my first project in about 6 years.

What is important these days anyway?

OK, stay with me on this one.

Yes, that is a pile of clean dish cloths. To be more accurate, it's a pile of my dish cloths. I use them about the house, for just about everything. If anything gets spilled, out comes a dish cloth. Need something to wipe your face with, clean the kitchen surfaces, damp dusting, you name it. I mostly don't use disposable paper products out of the bathroom.

As a planet, we are running out of resources very quickly. In my life time, if I don't witness oil running out, I'm sure that I will see it's prices soar so as to be far too expensive for most people.

It's little things like my dish cloths that have the potential to make a difference here.

Every time that you buy something, a lorry has to bring it from the factory, to a distribution centre, to the store, and a lot of the time, you come along in your car, on your own, and drive home.

So, I am trying to make less of an impact buy having these handy little cloths clean, dry and ready to use. They simply go in the wash with everything else.

I'm not saying that I am a green goddess of the environment. Indeed, there is a lot more that I could do to reduce my impact on the planet.

My point is this. I do something, every day that might be considered environmentally helpful.

It could really slow down the depletion of oil reserves, and reduce the damaging effects of human population of the Earth if everyone did a little more.

The other thing that I do regularly that is very important, is use a very common, inexpensive way to get to work.

Coffee

About three years ago, I decided to take my love of good coffee to another level.

I bought an espresso machine and grinder.

"Right", I thought to myself. "Thats the most time and money that I am ever going to spend on coffee."

I couldn't have been more wrong.

After a couple of months of buying very fresh beans, I dipped a toe into roasting coffee at home. Now I'm not saying that the coffee that I was drinking before I started home roasting was bad. It's just that I now have more controll over how my coffee tastes. And that is a beautiful thing.

At the time, I was living with my parents, and I felt that I had to go outside rain or shine, to roast coffee. Seeing as they are tea drinkers, I think that was fair.

I started off, with a popcorn maker, progressed to about 4 popcorn makers. Then I struck gold!

There was something better out there for home roasters who didn't want to spend hundred's more on coffee equipment. a heat gun.

Yes indeed, the very gun that you use to strip paint, could be better used to roast coffee. So now, once or twice a week, my house gets filled with the most fantastic coffe smell.

At the moment, I am using an Ethopian coffee.

Even though I have some of the most fantastic coffee at home, I would be happier with an updated espresso machine, and a few more coffee gadgets to play with.

Oh well. Coffee Nirvana is a long way off.