Not your average thrifted tea bag!

The parts of the tea towel bag

Sandra, Amanda and I went a thrifting on Friday night. We trolled our usual haunts. Sandra found this old timey Swiss dot muslin bag and admired the frame, but she has some styling purse frames coming her way soon, so she passed the bag and its frame to me. Yay!
I am a great admirer Swiss Dot Muslin, I had several special occasion dresses made from the stuff during my long ago childhood, including one made for my Grade 7 music concert, which was also my Grade 8 graduation dress.
This Swiss dot muslin, however, had seen better days. But, no worries! I had repurposing plans for the bag frame.
It just so happens that I had found a cotton waffle weave tea towel a few weeks ago at Value Village. It was brand new, and by April Cornell, who designs things with bright florals and vibrant colours. I was hanging on to that tea towel until the perfect project came along. I had also scored some plain yellow cotton in the remnant bin last month, so I had all I needed to get started.

The outside

On the weekend, I carefully pulled the old musty bag off the frame. Then, I pulled the bag apart to use the parts to make a paper template. The old bag also had a coin purse attached to a chain, which was clamped onto the sides. I carefully pried it off for use in the new bag.
This is my project for Wendy's repurposing challenge (which closes today, so yay me for actually meeting the deadline).

The inside and the coin purse

The best thing about this project is that I knew exactly how I was going to do it as I went along. A little triming here, a little curve clipping there,  a lot of serious pressing as I went along, and I was finished in under two hours. Yay me!
Now I have to get myself invited to a garden party so I can show off my 50s inspired bag. Or maybe I will just start using it for no reason. Life is short, and tea towel bags don't come along very often!