D-I-Why would you make that?

The Red Neck Purse

I'm on hitch right now.  That means 14 days of hanging out in the Gulf.  I don't have a regular job that I fly (I mean, my company has regular contracts, I'm just not assigned to one of them)...I'm "spare", which means I get one-off jobs as they come along.  Or I don't do anything.

But the other day, as I was hauling my stuff into my temporary place of residence, I was looking at this:

 This is my workout collection.  It came with that plastic carry case, but the case has never really done a good job of keeping the weights in place...whenever I open it up, everything has dumped all over on the inside and comes gushing out on the floor.  Plus, 30lb is a little much to carry in one hand, and so I was thinking of splitting the weights into different cases.

Now, I've been wandering around blogland lately, and I really like the whole shabby-chic thing other bloggers and designers have going on.  It's a little girly, a little industrial, (a little contrived), and very not-perfect.  I thought I'd head over to Salvation Army and see what I could find to make myself a portable weight rack that kinda fit this description.  (If nothing else, it'd be something to do during the day).

Now, I have no idea what that wood thing is, and for that reason (mostly) I am not going to give a tutorial of what I did.  Okay, besides, how many of you are in really desperate need of a portable, shabby-chic weight rack?  That's what I thought.

So I cut the wood thing with a flush cut saw and attached the two halves to one of the placemats by stitching just the top corners:

Now when I hooked the shower curtain hangars on the edges, I got a structured basket-type-thing.

Then I opened up a leg of the jeans to get as much flat fabric as possible...

 ...and stitched up a bag around the wood.  The leather belt (which is the only one I could find) was just barely long enough to go under the bottom and provide a good handle by which to carry all.  I painted the roses white because I thought the gold was just too tacky (ahem).

I meant this to be a "bag," not a "purse," but as you can see...

...
Um, 90's, ghetto, I-only-wish-I-were-so-fabulous, Red Neck Purse is ready for her close-up.

It does do what I wanted it to do...

 The bulk of the weights are contained, they don't dump out even if the purse ack bag falls over, and they're still easy to remove and replace.  You know, in case I ever work out.

 But if the strap were just a little longer, I'm pretty sure it'd be screaming Red Neck Diaper Bag Chic from my shabby-chic-wannabe shoulder.

Sigh.