Southwest – RuthMichael's Weblog

The town of Williamsburg boasts it’s share of resale shops like Goodwill, Habitat for Humanity, CHKD, the DAV, along with numerous other stores that specialize in authentic Colonial Williamsburg antiques, Auctions and Estate Sales, and Middle to Higher End Furniture Consignment stores.

I love it. There are some stores that I will hit at least once a week, if not twice. When I need to get out of the house because I feel like the fabric, thread, sewing machines and notions are going to topple on top of me, I make a trip to a couple resale shops.

My main ones are Goodwill and Habitat for Humanity. There are so many reasons why to shop at these places rather than at the typical places one thinks of when an item is needed — Everything that is bought at these stores keeps it from being thrown into a dump somewhere. The money that is used goes for a good purpose – Habitat builds houses, and although I will research Goodwill more and post it in a later post, I DO know that they offer FREE classes on Office products, which you can check out here.

This Bohemian Tote Bag that I am selling on Etsy is made from items that I have found on my ventures out, along with new materials. It is a HUGE, Sturdy Tote Bag or Diaper Bag which boasts tons of different textures and colors. At Goodwill, I found this 80’s / 90’s style southwest jacket – Green, Rose Pink, Butter Yellow, and it was trimmed in like a hunter green twill all the way around.

The front of the bag has two huge pockets that are made from the southwest jacket (of course, I did wash it first!) and used that same southwest jacket to make the flaps on the side pockets. The side pockets are from an vintage wool sweater from Scotland (also found at goodwill).

I used the hardware from an old handbag, so the shoulder strap can be taken off if you don’t need it.

The blue Ikat fabric on the sides is from some cushions I made – for my swing in my back yard, as well as some cushions for my sister – in – laws kitchen. The yellow background on the front is fabric from my Parisian Buttercup line, and the purple on the bottom is from my old Plum Crazy line of handbags / accessories.