jamesq | (no subject)

Reading Fark today, I came across this story in the forums:

My favorite purse cost almost nothing. My Gran taught me how to sew leather when I was in the hospital one time (she was a costumer back in the forties,) and together we made three fabulous handbags out of the back seat of a junked 1980s Lincoln-Mercury sedan. We gave the biggest one to my Mom and have since carried them everyplace. The outside is soft, broken-in car seat leather, so it feels like an old baseball glove; and for lining, we used the fuzzy upholstery fabric from a plain ol' Ford. There are a multitude of pockets on the inside, including funny-shaped ones to fit my camera and MP3 player, plus the fuzziness muffles any rattling my stuff might make. I've never found one like it anyplace, though it's as effortlessly elegant as the finest designer ones.

In fact, my purse has occasionally been mistaken for Coach, Gucci and Vuitton, and that's just the girls on campus. I just smile tolerantly and tell them it's a 'Gran's maiden name.' They ooh and ahh even as I try not to crack up laughing.

A few of the friends who know the history of the car-seat purse have since taken up driving Gran around town in exchange for handbags so unique and spiffy that no one else could possibly have their match -which is great, as she's finally stopped driving. It's occasionally a little hard to explain to Gran why my male theatre-major friends are so keen to get car-seat purses, but I let her assume they have beloved mothers and girlfriends. If she knew her purses were the latest word in local drag-queen attire, I think she might well stop making them.

That, or add rhinestones.

- SpiderQueenDemon 2008-05-11 08:30:34 PM

I bring it up only because I know a lot of talented SCA geeks who could make stuff like this. If they pooled their talents they could come up with a table's worth of weird shit for the Farmer's Market in no time. I'm sure