How has the second month treated you?

Ok, I can hear you going, "हद हो गयी  Sreekala, why are you showing us pics of your bed sheets on the blog now?" Please bear with me for a while. Remember this?

That was the original set of plastic bags that I used to buy our monthly groceries. We reused them month after month, folding them meticulously after each use. But they slowly started giving way. We did get a few new plastic bags (after all we are not absolutely fanatically anti-plastic, yet!) But recently, there have been a couple of embarrassing giving ways of the old and worn handles - not good.

So that set me thinking - there was this old Rajasthani cotton bed sheet that developed a hole in the middle... so here goes!

Three beautiful, handmade shopping bags - double thickness and all seams stitched twice for strength. I know they are strong because I broke one needle trying to stitch them! They are reversible too, because I stitched both layers as separate bags and joined them together. And in keeping with my not-perfect traditions, they are all different in size (completely unintended) and my rather overenthusiastic "handle reinforcement " for my first bag looks like a kid's handiwork...

I choose to show this because with all that "purrrfect"eye-candy floating around in blogland, a novice could be paralyzed into inaction. If such a person sees this, they can go, "Hey, if she can do that, I sure can do better!" :) 

I am pretty inordinately proud of the handle straps that I cut off the strong borders and made in quadruple thickness... please note that the handles are attached way better on this bag!

But then I thought, hey 3 bags are not enough to tote our grocery! So I went searching and ta daaaah....

An old Bombay Dyeing number this time - my needle found this tougher, but I went so slowly and it felt like I was pushing the sewing machine needle myself for each stitch. The second one is still a WIP. Hopefully I will finish it before this Sunday when we will need it for our monthly shopping! And while writing this I got a brilliant idea to do the same to the pillow covers of the first bed sheet - just lop off the tops a little, stitch both together and attach handles, one more bag! :)

Meanwhile, DH, who started off the treasure hunts felt that the youngest member of our family was feeling left out. So he decided to do a number with pictures for the kindergartener...

Amazing drawings... because Ani recognized all of them and found his treasure: a Thomas the Engine book. He was heard to remark as he sat down, "Finallyyyyy, I got a treasure of my own!" 

Naturally his father was inspired to do more. This time he turned to coloring!!

The prize was a Bob the Builder book and equally welcome! 

Howz your kitchen garden going? Hadn't I told you that this is the Year of the Kitchen Garden? Stay tuned for our veggie updates!!!