Library Bag Makeover

I love our local library, and usually pop in a couple of times a week.  The library buys a selection of new books each week, and I like to see what is on offer.  Any new books by my favourite authors or others that take my fancy can be ordered for $1 each and I take advantage of this service.  This saves me from having to keep looking for them on the shelves. I purchased a Book Bag from the library some months ago and it is certainly handy to keep my library books all together in one place.  But……..these bags were all the same, and I decided to give mine a “makeover”.  My bag started off like this.

My library bag

Flicking through some magazines, I came across a stitchery pattern featuring books which would work quite well with a change or two.  “Scrappy Vintage Favourites”  was the name of a quilt featuring stitchery blocks and designed by Michelle Ridgeway.  This pattern was published in Creating Country Threads, vol 10, no 9.   I stitched the names of a few of my favourite authors on the book spines, added a narrow border, and stitched the panel on the bag.

My library book stitchery panel

For the other side I stitched a heart with the words “I love to read”.  Then I undid the stitching holding the handles in place, added the floral band to the top of the bag, then stitched the handles back.  I’m rather pleased with how my “personalised” library bag turned out.

  The other side of the bag

Yesterday was the monthly Book Club meeting and the theme was “Kiwi Made”.  This could be books written by a New Zealand author, or something about New Zealand, fiction or non fiction, the choice was ours.  To me, Barry Crump is a real Kiwi bloke who writes books, and I talked about one of his which I had only just discovered, called “Scrap-Wagon” – quite a light read I thought.  My second choice was written by Barry’s brother Colin Crump, “In Endless Fear”, an autobiography which tells of the the horrendous violence the whole family endured at the hands of their cruel father.  Colin Crump decided that the thing he most wanted in life was “not to be like his father”. One of his aims in writing this book was to explain to Barry Crump’s sons why his brother Barry, their father,  turned out the way he did, who with his upbringing, was never going to be happy living the family life in the suburbs.  When relationships went wrong for Barry, he just “went bush”.  Even though this book was hard to read in places, I can certainly recommend it, and I was moved to tears by the story.  Well worth a read for those who want to gain an appreciation of the early years of Barry Crump, New Zealand’s  original “Good Keen Man”.