A couple of years ago I was “taking a break” from the world of the employed while “seeking a better opportunity.”  That sounds nice, doesn’t it?  As in voluntary?  Anyway, I was only “on a break” for a few months and it really was a much-needed time of recharging and relaxation.  I didn’t craft much.  (Yes, I’m using “craft” as as verb.  I think the prevalence of words like “ginormous” in modern media still put me at the “literate” end of the pendulum.  Yes, I like quotation marks.  No, I can’t accurately define a metaphor.  Moving on ….)  I guess I thought that sitting still and twisting string around sticks was a frivolous and irresponsible use of my time.  I should have been more gentle and forgiving of myself and just knit and crochet to my heart’s content, but I needed a different kind of accomplishment, a true sense of productivity.

didn’t want to follow someone else’s pattern to create someone else’s thing.  I wanted one of my own.  Something I could use, could make exactly as I wanted, and could label mine.  I wanted a market bag to beat all market bags with all the things that I wished mine had.  I started on a pattern and made one that wasn’t quite right and then the phone rang and I was employed and that was the end of it.  (Run-on sentence.  Check.)

OK, maybe that wasn’t quite it.  I might have also researched names, designed a logo and set the foundation for an etsy store.  But that was all.  No inventory, no sales, no need to call the accountant to ask, “Oh, by the way, do you handle sales taxes, too?”  I put everything in place and then happily went to a job where other people deal with icky things like taxes.

But I never forgot it.  The bag, not the store.  I haven’t forgotten that either, but it’s a long way from fruition, so let’s do forget about that for now.  The bag was still on my mind and I’d think of patterns and colors and sizes and cutesy names and most of all what I think it should have.  It should have a pouch for money and maybe a drivers license.  It should have a tab to snap your keys when you don’t have pockets in your yoga pants and just want to pick up some fruit on the way home.  It should have a solid bottom so you can put in a couple of honeydews without worrying about the integrity of the bag.  It should have a handle long enough to put over your shoulder and yet not so long that if you carry it in your hand, those honeydews are dragging the ground.

It should be pretty.

It should look something like this – the “This Little Piggy Market Bag” version 2.0. in “Tea Party.”  I’m never going to be one of those people who gets a fleece from a sheep farmer, washes it, cards it, spins it, plies it, designs a shawl or sweater pattern and knits it, then proudly wears it about town.  That will never be me.  For one thing, fleeces stink.  For another, I just don’t have that kind of time.  But a string bag to carry to the Farmers Market that allows me to leave my purse in the trunk of the car and is my original design?  That I can accomplish.