Sunday, August 31, 2008

MamaJoan's Famous Bags

Many of you have had the joy of receiving one of those great bags that my BFF Joan makes. I want to share my story of Joan's bags with you.

It was almost a year ago on one of our Friday night stitching nights, that Joan brought out a few of these bags that she had just made. I immediately fell in love with one that had pumpkins on it. Which was very weird as I have been scarred by pumpkins. You see my birthday is in October so growing up my mother always got a cake that was a pumpkin. I hated it! I felt cheated as I never had a real birthday cake. Oh well, there was this pumpkin bag of Joan's. I had to have it. I told Joan I wanted it and she too was surprised. I bought it.

The next morning I woke up, still loving this pumpkin bag, and decided that I would use this bag for small projects to work on during my breaks at work. It quickly dawned on me that I would really only be able to use this during October. Oh no, did I buy the wrong bag? Should I have bought a more generic bag? One with a stitching theme maybe? No, I really liked these pumpkins. There was only one answer, I needed one for each month.

Since I am an early riser, I had to wait until I thought that Joan would be up. I called and asked her if she would be up for making me one of these for each month, themed for that particular month. Of course, she said she would and because she lives in "Joan's House of Everything", she knew she already had fabric for November and some of the other months. And she did. And the others we picked up as we could find them.

So here are pictures of my monthly bags. Be sure to zoom in on these so you can see all the details of these fabrics. They are all so cool!

This first picture is October, November, December and January. The themes for these months are pretty self explanatory.



Here are February, March, April and May. May is for Mother's Day.



And, June (Father's Day), July, August and September. August is the only month that doesn't have any holidays or special days in it. However, I think we hit it pretty good with the "family reunion" fabric.



Joan also makes larger bags. Unfortunately I do not have one of these for every month. I do have this one for winter.



You may have read a previous post here about our annual stitching retreat. 2 years ago, we decided to have a theme for them. Last year was flip-flops and this year was Patriotic. Joan made these bags which I received at our retreats.



I just received my last one (September) on Friday night. I love all of them and am excited to be starting over with them again come October.

7 comments:

staci said...

Ok Jill, I am drooling with envy lol! Your bags are fabulous...and Joan has certainly made a name for herself in the stitching world with them! I think you need 3 more of the bigger bags to complete your set (in the other 3 seasons, lol!)

Daffycat said...

I am lucky enough to have received one of Joans bags...I love it! I have one of her little chicken pincusions too. Joan is one creative lady!

You lucky thing you! Your bags are all awesome!

Melody said...

Jill, your bags are awesome! Lucky you.

Mama Joan said...

Jillis,

You are too kind with your comments. You really do need the large seasonal bags. I think I can make that happen:) Thanks for you wonderful comments.

Michele said...

love all your bags! I've purchased bags like these from an online company and enjoy them a lot. Joan definately has a talent for making them! What fun to have one for every month .. you are a girl after my own heart! lol

Carol R said...

I have one of Joan's lovely bags and a chicken pincushion too. After reading about them I now consider myself to be one of an elite group!

Maggitle said...

Those bags are sooooooooooo cute! Joan made me one for Halloween, so I know what I am talking about. I really love mine!