My daughter made the bag with the yellow flower and the braided strap. I copied her idea and made the one with the orange flower.

Most of my bags are simple with non-closing, oblong openings. I bought some zippers and messed around making bags that would accommodate them. As us usually the case with such endeavors, the first bag was OK and each subsequent was better.

I am most proud of a couple of these I made. Part of the reason is they turned out really nice. In addition, it was really a pain to make them. Getting the diagonal straps to line up evenly was difficult. Then I had to get the tube that forms the sides be the right size for the bottom. Pat, one of our dayshift nurses, got the best one and every time I see her carrying it, I am quite pleased and tell her she has the best bag I ever made.

This week, I thought I would show the largest and smallest bags I ever made. The size of the large one was determined by the mesh materiel with a draw string I salvaged from another bag. It ended up so huge, I didn’t know what the heck to do with it. Then one of our registration clerks said she would like a large bag for her kids beach stuff. Viola. An appreciative home for it.

The small bag was made to hold just what we need to take to the gym: car keys, wallet, phones, gym passes, gloves.

When the helicopters come in, they frequently have short blue straps on their boards. I have been saving them up and finally came up with some bags using them. The yellow-crossed bag looks like a Swedish flag!

The end of each strap is folded back and sewn to itself. When I had collected enough ends from black and orange straps, I formed them into a bag made entirely of the ends. Check it out!

These represent the basic bag that is designed for groceries, My wife uses one to take her stuff to and from work.