Frustration and the Denim Bag

Do you ever do something you know will frustrate you? You know, maybe things are going a little bit too well and you need a little tragedy in your life, so you drag out a can of paint—and open it. Or worse, you browse The Cheyenne Edition.*

I do it all the time—frustrate myself. Recently I thought, I have so many denim scraps and old jeans, I’ll make a straitjacket to severely restrict my ex-boyfriend from giving my phone number to all his creditors.

Upon reconsideration I decided to simply sew a tote bag. And that I did. I headed downstairs, dragged out the sewing machine, set it on the ping-pong table, and began sewing pieces of old jeans and a sofa arm cover together.

As usual, I had to rip out almost as many seams as I made. I thought I had put both right sides together before stitching, but I hadn’t. Frustration numbers one and two. But I was in a good mood that day, so irritation didn’t find its way into my life easily and I kept at it.

Within an hour, I had a really cool-looking bag! So the cat jumped in.

But it needed a handle (actually two, I later figured out, which resulted in ripping out several more streets of stitches). To make a handle, I took an old director’s chair back, cut a portion of it lengthwise, and sewed the long edges together.

Attaching the handle to the bag led to a deeper type of frustration (guys, think no love in 18 months). Trying to stitch through 12 layers of canvas and denim was like using a finishing nail on concrete—I kept breaking needles and my top thread kept breaking. Ahhhh! I moaned and groaned and wailed and wished for someone to rescue me.

And when I came back to reality and realized that most people want me to rescue them, I finished my bag!
It’s for sale: $40. The cat’s free.


* The Cheyenne Edition is a little local rag with more errors than a government bailout. This pseudojournalism has been riddled with more mistakes in the 25 years I’ve lived here than kindergartners trying to recite Shakespeare with an accent. But don’t try to help them: their cup is full.

If someone publishes anything, it should be printed using correct and accurately spelled words, verified facts, proper grammar, and perfectly placed punctuation. Continuity in style would also be a sweet feature. This goes for the ArtsFocus too.

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