Project 2: Making boxes

Who doesn't love a box? Boxes organize stuff. Boxes hide gifts. Boxes protect precious memories. Here are three little box-making memories that helped me through the summer of 2024.

Box project 1. As I was cleaning up my ground-floor workshop, preparing for my next life, I came upon a project from 2014. That was the year I discovered embroidery as an impromptu, freeform art. The saga is documented here: 25 Apr 2014, 1 May 2014, and 9 May 2014. The result was a pretty fanfold stitch book with no use whatsoever. It surfaced now in a bin of orphan experiments.

I remembered my lesson in creative boldness: don't be afraid to take a scissors to something you thought was complete.

💡 I rescued it by nipping it in half and hand-stitching each half to a fabric bottom. Voilà, two useful boxes to help hide clutter.

Box project 2. Suddenly enchanted by boxes, I researched making them on the sewing machine. By this time, I'd formulated the intention of transforming Jim's clothing into objects I could keep close to me. His shirts were mostly cotton flannel plaid, so that would be the signature look.

The first project was an open box that now sits on my counter hiding jars of dog treats.

Box project 3. Then I got ambitious. YouTube gave me lots of Japanese "rice bag" tutorials. These "easy" boxes (with handles and drawstrings) coincided with my desire to give Jim's three children a memento of his late-life serenity. A small rice bag made from Jim's clothing would be ideal to hold one of his Buddha figurines for each of them.

I struggled. My search for efficient short-cuts just made the project more complicated because every step was an exercise in mental gymnastics. The final results were floppier than I'd wanted. From the top, the three bags looked like baby birds begging for food. But they served their sentimental purpose.

The construction of these box-bags made me want to create a practical handbag from Jim's shirts, another way to keep his élan near to me. I found a pattern online, but first made a detour into placemats. Continued here>>>