Yeah, so? Well, the last handbag I bought in Barcelona. I was last in Barcelona in 2006. Not that I had been using the handbag for 10+ years - I had to wear out the handbag that came before Barcelona bag. (Where exactly was Barcelona bag bought? Not sure - but somewhere on this map (we had dinner at Taller de Tapas when we bought it; if I'd known I'd want to blog about it over a decade later I would have kept better notes!):
But Barcelona Bag was becoming an embarrassment and had to go. But only when I found the right one. And it was right under my nose - in a
shop in Sydney next to the suburb where I used to live. I owe Sarah for telling me to go in and have a look.
And it is my favourite colour (note matching shoe)!
And luck it was, as I was set on getting a bag that had at least 2 internal pockets (in addition to zip pockets and a phone pocket. And it didn't. But that was soon fixed. I made a handbag insert:
The fabric was purchased to mimic heavy duty canvas for an apron for my son's role as a coal carrier in the school musical (right), and has a synthetic canvas on one side and black felt on the other. It's thick enough to stand by itself.
I traced around the bottom of the bag for a pattern for the insert, then simply cut rectangles the height of the bag, and sewed them together with a zig zag stitch to create an insert with 3 compartments. I bound the top of the insert with bias binding (still using my grandmother's stash, last seen in
this project. My grandmother is 100 as of a fortnight ago. The saving of these small amounts of bias speaks of the "mend and make do" era. Photos below of grandmother and the bias stash.)
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The insert in the bag: