A hobby?

Since we've had the most amazing city electricity over the past little while, I've been getting really excited about using the sewing machine that was sent up from Uganda.

I started out making some little things for our table. They were supposed to be napkins (um, serviettes, depending on which country you're from!), but they seem to actually work better as placemats and hot pads! Anyways, they are pretty little cloth things to use on the dining table (which, in our case, is a fold-out office table). I think they're rather pretty, myself, and I'm quite proud of them.

Then, last weekend, I decided I needed a new bag. I have a thing for bags. Any market, any shop, any little souvenir kiosk I see, I go straight to the bag section first. I've had this bag addiction for a very long time, and as a result, I have an awful lot of bags. Most of them tend towards the cloth variety, but I also have a few leader hand bags from various corners of the globe (for instance, my brown leather purse from Addis Ababa is one of my treasures :) ).

However, over here, I only have a handful of bags. I have a small bag, which holds basically a wallet, a pen, a few tissues and some hand sanitizer, which is from the Masai market in Nairobi. I have a big bright green bag from the beach on the Kenyan coast which is big enough to hold my computer, it's power cable, plus my phone chargers, a water bottle and some papers. I use this one mostly to cart my stuff back and forth between my house and my office, since my hands are usually full with keys and tea, as well! Then I have another bag, which I've had for ages, which is a tie-dyed cotton bag from the first city that I lived in when I came to Africa a long time ago. It's a great bag, but a little on the bright-purple tie-dyed side. I usually just take this bag when I go to the market, and cart around my eggs, bananas, tomatoes etc. in it. If it gets grungy (which it normally does!), it's easy to wash and I don't have to worry about it. The last bag I have here is a lovely navy blue and red kikoy bag, with a little red fringe along the bottom. It has the perfect length strap to wear across your body, it's roomy enough for a water bottle, your wallet, a novel, a few pens, a bunch of keys, a couple of cell phones, some tissues and some hand sanitizer. Everything a girl needs to go out and about around here.
However, it's been out and about for a very long time. It's been a faithful friend. But my faithful friends here have started to tell me that it's about time to get myself a new bag. But where does a girl find a new bag here?! Not really a hot spot for tourist shops to buy cute little African bags. The women around here have odd taste in handbags - they like really ornate pleather bags. Yuck. Makes me sweat just thinking about having this big old plastic handbag stuck to my arm all day.

So, I took matters into my own hands! Since the power was on, I whipped out the sewing machine, and here's what popped out!
I have to admit, I'm quite proud of it, and all my buddies here have said it's the next fad in local fashion! I think I'll quit my day just and just start designing bags! Well, maybe I'll use mine for a couple of weeks and see if it falls apart before I start marketing them :)

Special thanks goes to Zane, who so patiently posed for the above photos. And now you know that I have been in Jb for much too long, as I have just spent the better part of my evening posing my cat with my bags and blogging about it.