The Happy Bags

HAPPY BAG #1: The Mogwai Bag
Gizmo was a Christmas present from a former Partner I used to share a Mortgage with. He’s travelled to three different homes with me since then to my current (and first one for a looong time!) Flat and has been looking well forlorn hanging on my cupboard door by his strap, after I abandoned him in favour of a bigger bag (I’m sorry, Gizmo!).
I popped a few badges & a pink leopard print dog collar on him and started taking him to work with me.
Gizmo is loved by Everyone. He’s hugged by drunks, stroked by children and “Aww!”-ed at by everyone who remembers Gremlins. Strangers even shake his hand! He dons a hairnet and is the life and soul of the Smoker’s Shelter banter
Although he can comfortably fit most of the regular things I carry around in his Belly, he’s unfortunately not up to having my Umbrella, a Stack of A4 Folders & my Hoodie in there when I can’t be carrying everything in my arms, which brings us to…
(I promise I’m not leaving you back on the Cupboard door!)

HAPPY BAG #2: The Patch Bag

I bought myself a £5 Camoflage Backpack from ASDA’s Back-to-School range last week, and lovingly thought of the Korn patch still stitched to the unloved Lace Dress I wore under a red PVC zip top as a teenager that was still hanging up in my wardrobe after nearly ten years of not being touched.
After a long shift at work with just the Bunny for company of a Friday Evening, I went digging in my bomb-site of a Craft Room for my Sewing Tin…

…and found the two Sport’s Bag’s stuffed full Craft bits that I’d totally forgotten I had. They’d stayed in the bottom of my wardrobe after I left a 4.5 year relationship and went to live with a friend, and have been sitting in the Craft Room cupboard for nearly a year!

A big bag of History that could still be put to use and I can’t believe I’ve been sitting on it for all this time. It’s made me even more determined to learn how to use a Sewing machine and how to start altering things professionally, and making sure all of my scraps and odd-ends all find somewhere to be complete.
The BITCH patch still attached to the pink fluffy kid’s bag I used to lug around!
The aquarium-colour-themed felting wool I’d added into my dreadlocks when I had them!
The Sew-your-own Guinea Pig I’d never stuffed and finished!
A wodge of fake fur that I used to make Catnip Toys with!
Ribbons with Hearts and glitter printed on them!
Buttons, zips, safety pins, badges I’d collected over the years that were pinned to random objects.
The tartan square I unpicked and stitched onto every new pair of Skater Jeans I bought as a Teenager with my Paper Route money!

There’s so much of my Adolescence in those bags, and I am going back to them so that we can shake hands, have a Pint together and start all over again.

The last 18 months have been tough (Actually, the last Ten years haven’t been too fun!), with almost everything that held me and kept me together exploding in my face.
I am so afraid of the World and everything in it sometimes.
Finding and using those unwanted, odd, end-of-the-roll scraps and shards to complete something unique and colourful and interesting will be my way of making Peace with Life.

Anyway, here’s my first Step in unlocking who I used to be before Boys & Experience drew my curtains shut and the corners of my mouth down: