Friday, November 1, 2013

Practical Pre-Surgery Sewing

Before my surgery, I completed two other projects.




My daughter had purchased a little purse like this one, from which I made a pattern and sewed my own.  I had thought I would use this after surgery when I went to doctor's appointments, but as it turned out, I only used it while in the hospital.  It was just large enough for my cell phone, a small packet of kleenex, and . . . well, I forget what I put in it!  But it was very helpful.  And by the time I saw the doctor for the first time, I was using a cane and could carry a regular purse.

For about three weeks, I had to use a walker to get around.  After looking around on the Internet for free patterns for walker totes, I came up with my own.


(That's Kelly helping me with my picture taking.)  My thought was to make a bag large enough to turn into a tote bag once I no longer needed it for the walker, so the ties you see on the sides were sewn on by hand, and the straps on the top were stitched on using buttons (I sewed through the buttons and the straps).  These have also been removed.  I've stitched webbing straps to one side of the bag, but alas, it remains on my sewing table, waiting for me to take the 15 minutes to pin and sew the other sides down.

A note on the fabric:  it's a heavy-weight utility-type fabric that I found in the remnant bin and paid next to nothing for.  It was a great purchase since I got two projects out of it, and still have some left over.