Colorful Canvas Market Bags

Like so many, we are up to our necks in a constant stream of plastic bags. I used to use canvas shopping bags, but over the years they have gotten old, dirty and misplaced. I've been well aware that it was high time to replace and replenish my supply and get back into a healthy, green shopping habit.

While looking at my lovely Ikea fabrics, (see last post) and wondering what to make from these canvas weight delights, the light bulb went on and I realized they would be perfect for some bright, stylish market bags! Happily I also bought a few yards of sturdy weight solids, perfect for the lining. And joyfully, I have enough fabrics to keep us in a delightful supply of these bright cheery bags!

Wash Day

New Ikea fabrics,


all washed and hanging out to dry.

Tuskineko and Ikea

I've been asked by a few readers as to what paints I used for the dolls in my previous post. I used Japanese Tsukineko All-Purpose Inks. They come in a wide assortment of colors inside very small bottles. Applicators, such as the ones shown, are used to apply the pigment. (You can also use a paint brush.) Depending on how you use them you can get different results... very bright saturated color right out of the bottle, water color effect when used on wet fabric, to an almost coloring book effect when used in light amounts on dry fabric. Hope that helps!

In other news... My very sweet Hubby spent his Father's Day taking me to Ikea, where I went hog wild buying up their sale fabrics, priced .99 cents to $2.99 a yard. The last thing I really need is more fabric, but at those prices how could I resist? By the time we got home the light was getting too poor to photograph them, but after some web searching I did find images of some of the prints:

Most are mid-weight bold prints in a semi 1970's color pallet... They are going to give me a fun mental challenge!


These flowers are enormous... a yard wide each!


Flowers sprinkled over large, wonky stripes


Giant waves of color.


The super large, colorful circles on this print remind me of the game "Twister!"

Also got some wonderful light-weight bird and leaf prints, which I will show another day. I'm looking forward to playing around with all this new yardage and will show you the results soon, I hope!