D-I-Why would you make that? : Dykestrom Doings

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.