October 1, 2023
Dear Friends,
I actually had the opportunity to interview a bag lady. Jo Ella, whom we talked about before, holds a bag-making class here every month. We have to feed her lunch whenever she is teaching the class, but other than that, our part is just providing the facility and letting people know about it.
Speaking of feeding her, Jo Ella is no longer on that diet where she couldn’t eat anything, or at least anything that had any appeal to it. She was losing strength and energy, and the restrictions weren’t providing the benefits they were supposed to. So she’s off it now.
Before we get to the interview, here are two of the favorite Jo Ella bags that people love. The first one is a large Mary Poppins type bag, 24 inches wide and 20 inches tall. The bottom is held open with a large rigid oval. The top closes with a zipper on top, and the bag has a sturdy handle on each side. These bags are popular for use by many of the ladies that come in her. They handy for carrying supplies or carrying a UFO quilt top, backing, and batting to a quilt shop where you could rent a longarm to quilt it. Fox Country Quilts would be a good place for that.
The other bag measures 14" wide x 10" tall x 5" wide the other way (deep?) This is quite an amazingly-designed bag. On the outside on one side is a zippered compartment. On the other side are two non-zippered tall pockets. The top of the bag is zippered shut, but when you open it up and fold it back . . . wow! On one side is a net fabric non-zippered pocket, and on the other side if a net fabric zippered pocket. Then between the two, laid in sort of 3-ring binder fashion, are four sturdy fabric “pages.” On both sides of each page are different types of pockets, both zipper and non-zippered. 14 pockets total. There are double carrying handles plus a carrying strap. I’ve seen Donna uses both of these bags a number of times, which is a good recommendation. Both bags are extremely impressive and highly usable.
It was fun interviewing Jo Ella about this topic, but here is a condensed version of what we talked about. “So tell me, Jo Ella, how long have you been making bags, and how did you get into this?”
“I started three years ago. A friend brought back from California a bunch of bag material, and she and I started working on these together. I found this activity to be both interesting and challenging. Our first bag was a Mary Poppins Bag.”
How many different bags have you made?
“I think about 30 of them. I love doing it and will probably continue with it for a long time. And I’ll teach other people the techniques too, as long as others are interested in it.”
Call to action this time . . . . Taking one of Jo Ella’s bag classes is such a great opportunity, you need to sign up for the next one on the calendar.. They really are lots of fun. They’re held on the 3rd Tuesday of every month at Fox Country Quilts and Retreat.
Chip
