So, yesterday I drove into San Francisco to see the periodontist (which I don’t even want to talk about!), and I came up to this intersection.
My heart skipped a beat.
Do you see the sign on the left there that says “Hill”? It might seem relatively innocuous until you look straight ahead. Into the fog. And the nothingness. The hill is so steep that you literally can not see any road in front of you.
Check out the second telephone pole on the right (follow the yellow line down the center). You can only see the top of it. Because it is so far down.
I have learned to be very wary when the city of San Francisco feels it necessary to warn you there is a hill coming up!
(And, yes, this hill was REALLY steep!)
It just so happens that I am in good with the coffee roaster at our local independent coffee shop — ya know, the kind where they actually have a giant roaster in the middle of the room and roast their own fresh coffee. I have talked him into letting me have (for free!) the giant coffee bags when he has emptied out the 50 pounds of coffee. These coffee bags come from all over the world and have some great graphics and text on them. And they have a fabulous, rough, burlap texture. I now have four of these huge bags on a shelf in the closet, and when the coffee roaster asks me what I have been doing with them I have had to sheepishly admit that I hadn’t done anything yet and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them. I just felt I had to have them.
Sheepish I will be no more!
I have been dying to see how it would be to sew with these, so the other day I finally cut into one of the bags where a big blue stripe ran down the middle and made . . . a zipper pouch! Okay, I realize that a zipper pouch in and of itself is not that exciting, but this one is really cute.
The stripe runs down one side and up the other.
It was actually a bit of a challenge to get that zipper in there with all that bulk, and I had to stabilize the burlap with some muslin before even starting to sew. Look at that beautiful texture!
After I had it all sewn together I realized that I really should have topstitched the zipper to keep the fabric more away from the teeth. So, I made do with hand stitching the lining to the tape on the inside. Coffeepots on the inside? Get out!
This little cutie will be winging its way to Anne in Alabama for so quickly guessing the secret message in my Zen Quilt. And along with it will come a note with another secret message!
If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy:
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Web Site
Flickr
Facebook
Twitter
Hurray for coffee scented fabrics and recycling! I also have a strange love and fascination for those burlap sacks but alas I have no coffee shop owning and bean importing friends. The zippy pouch is adorable…a change purse for coffee funds perhaps? I’ve also seen some pretty cool framed bags…no glass…in case you get sick of stabilizing and sewing with it. Can’t wait to see what else you come up with
I was scrolling down through the post and thinking how adorable that coffee bean pouch was and then saw it was coming to me!!!!! I’m so excited! I hope it still has the smell of coffee beans. The inside fabric is perfect. And the SO cute card – Way To Go!
what a fun pouch! My sister used to work at a coffee shop with a roaster and she said they just threw all the bags away…I could have put those to good use!
Amy – is that picture the corner of California and Jones? It looks so familiar. I used to live on that block! And the first couple of times down that hill was almost nauseating, it’s so steep. It took some getting used to.
Love your blog!
So great! You should make a little coin pouch for the coffee dude and say, “See? See??!”
You are so clever, Amy, with your cute little coffee pouch and note card with the message that I cannot for the life of me figure out. The burlap fabric is very cool — I guess it would make a pretty scratchy quilt, so I would probably try to embroider on it.
Amy, I love those!
You know, just a few days ago I was looking at pictures of furniture upholstered in “vintage” sacks, and it made me wish for something like it. Somehow I managed to overlook the fact that the parents of one of my students actually own a coffee shop and a roasting facility. I have to ask them what do they do with their sacks, maybe I’ll score a few and cover a couple of things around here.
I love the coffee sacks too! I have two large boxes of them I purchased off e-bay. There is more bulk there than you realize until you start working with them! I love how your zipper bag came out!
Amy, totally love the coin purse!
But you guys are all amazing! I am from India and in here, we call the burlap cloth sacks as gunny bags and boy are they lying around in plenty.. we ship cotton, sugar, rice, wheat, onions, and almost everything in those… they’re so coarse and itchy, they’re almost not used at all…
I’m totally sorry, but its quite funny that you guys would actually have to go out of the wayto get hold of one and then use it…
Amy, I just love-love-love what you have done with the cloth… the linig fabric is just too cute…
I still can’t get over the fact that something as coarse as that could actually be put to such a cute use as what you have done.. to Indians.. this would either seem as plain mediocrity or an absolute magical transformation! (I’m in for the 2nd one
)