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Maggie's Pop-Up Cards


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A Beautiful Gift from a Website Visitor
 crafts, Print Artist, Sierra software, gifts, children crafts, birthday parties cross-stitch, embroidery, knitting, machine embroidery, sewing, Janome, quilt fabric, digitizing, embroidery designs, quilts, blankets, totes, tote bags, custom totes, designer purses, embroidery thread, embroidery library, recycling denim, blue jeans, rag blankets, rag quilts, batting, rotary cutter baking, cooking, recipes, contest, birthday cake family photos, photography, grandkids, grandchildren, family fun
A visitor to my website, who also test sews some of my embroidery designs, surprised me with a beautiful gift she made especially for me.  I'd never before heard of the "plarn" technique she used to crochet the outside, but am now intrigued and must learn more about it.

The inside of the tote is crafted from recycled blue jeans.  Love that!

Thank you so much, Beth!  I will treasure this always!
(Click photos for larger view, which will open in a new window)

 		    
The bag is crocheted using "plarn", which is narrow strips of the blue plastic bags that newspapers are placed in to protect them from rain, wrapped with 3 strands of crochet floss.  The finished bag doesn't feel at all like plastic; it's soft.  The shoulder strap in the first photo is removable.  The hand strap shown in this photo is woven through the inside belt loops (see first photo in the row below).  Beth, who lives in Kingman, AZ, entered the bag in the "Recycled Crafts" division of the Arizona State Fair and won First Place!   
     
The inside of the bag started as a pair of blue jeans, legs cut off and zipper area removed.  Additional pockets and embellishments were added.  These 2 additional pockets were added (one on top of the other) where the jeans zipper used to be.  I love how she embellished it with the embroidered version of my website logo.  Beneath it she added "Made 4 Maggie".  She removed some of the width by taking in the center seam of the jeans.  These pockets were embellished with embroidery designs from my "Pockets Full of Love" set. 



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