Friday, December 28, 2012

Purse-onalized

Thirty years ago, I traveled to San Diego to participate in a cross country meet at Balboa Park as a member of the University of Hawaii cross country team. It wasn't my best race but that's neither here nor there. The point of telling this is that during our short stay in San Diego, the team went across the border to Tijuana for an afternoon of shopping. 

While at the Tijuana market, the one thing I wanted to find was a brown leather purse.....which I did....which is also incidentally the most perfect small purse ever invented by man. Mine is also 30 years old, and time is taking its toll on my old formerly perfect small purse.

For whatever reason, probably because of being perpetually broke, because I'm a sucker for punishment,  I've made it a practice to make gifts for loved ones, especially at Christmas time. This year the gift was determined by the perfect leather purse and an outgrown pair of black leather pants. With the clock ticking, I cut the patterns out for five purses and straps by closely matching the design of the 30 year old leather purse from Tijuana. But honestly, time kept getting the best of me, and even though I made small baby steps of progress, it wasn't going to be enough to get everything done by Christmas morning. Plus, I couldn't even figure out how to thread the sewing machine and doing everything by hand would have taken  way too long. Enter the Amazing Reese. Reese saw my dilemma and offered to help. First he threaded the machine God bless him which I couldn't figure out for the life of me. Then he threaded the bobbin. Then he proceeded to sew the front, back, and zipper together.

With daughters out of the house on Christmas eve, and grocery shopping and cooking prep for Christmas dinner completed, I had enough time to hand sew the straps to the body of the purse. Whew.


Now, over the years, Reese and I have gotten mixed reviews from our homemade gifts. Not everyone appreciates the thought, time, and effort that goes into something handcrafted.  I guess some of those negative vibes were floating around in my head and therefore I had very low expectations about how they would be received.

To our delight and my surprise, all four daughters love their new purses!

And remember, we made one for me, too, which I also love and which was used today while taking Tilly (the wonder dog) to do her volunteer work at Methodist Hospital. It really is the perfect purse.

No comments: