I managed to break another double-point needle,

this time by not taking out a pin before stitching over it, so I had to back off from the sports bra I was working on (I was topstitching a seam allowance into place- I altered a pattern to have two colors rather than being one solid piece). I had the urge to sew yesterday, though, so I did these for my sister's kids because I'd been meaning to for quite some time.

( Crossbody bags for a pair of nine year olds. )

The pattern I started from, more or less, is at Singer's website. I took one look at the 'pattern' pieces and drew my own, cutting them a little larger, and then made an asymmetrical tail piece and an additional dorsal fin- because one of my sister's kids likes mermaids but the other likes sharks. Fabric for the mermaid bag is Joann's Multi Color Scales Keepsake Calico, fabric for the shark is Cloud9 Glimmer Solids in... I forget what, it's light grey/white with silver sparkly lurex, mermaid tail fabric is Special Occasion Fabrics Confetti Dot in fuchsia, liner fabric is Glitterbug Satin Fabric Solid Royal. The straps are 7/8 inch wide grosgrain ribbon. The tails, the fin, and the edges of each bag all use Stiff Stuff sew-in interfacing to hold their shape (the Singer pattern originally used pieces of metal measuring tape with the corners filed down, I am not sure why they thought that was a good idea in a product for children), and there is a layer of Pellon Wrap N Zap all-cotton interfacing between the outer fabric and the satin.

I tried to serge the inner seams to keep them from fraying, but they were thick and not easy to maneuver, so it's a mess and I'm not turning the bags inside out for anyone other than maybe my sister or her kids. After I was finished and had applied fraycheck at several points I realized I probably should've serged the edges of each 'sandwich' individually before sewing them together. Oh well. Next time.

I'm not even a little bit Native,

but I might have to look into this one.

How to Stock Your Pantry With Native American Foods From Across the Continent: A new online marketplace sources ingredients from New York to Nevada.
by Tsanavi Spoonhunter August 13, 2021


When Ben Jacobs was a child, his parents launched a business in downtown Denver, Colorado. Grayhorse: An American Indian Eatery, was the first of its kind. But two years into the venture, the family closed the restaurant and moved on.

Decades later, the memories of Grayhorse’s mission inspired Jacobs and his business partner, Matt Chandra, to launch their own restaurant in Denver in 2008. Today, the duo runs Tocabe, the largest Native-American owned and operated restaurant chain in the United States. “What we wanted to do was take my parent’s original concept and re-adapt that,” says Jacobs, a citizen of the Osage Nation of Oklahoma. “And create a space for not only Native food, but Native community at the same time.”

Jacobs and Chandra developed a menu featuring products from Native American tribes and tribal citizens in the United States. But when the pandemic hit— forcing them to temporarily close their restaurants— the duo pondered the idea of opening a Native American food marketplace, online.

In June, they officially launched Tocabe Indigenous Marketplace, making it possible to purchase ingredients featured at Tocabe directly from the producers. “We decided to work with the partners that we already had in the Native supply chain,” explains Jacobs.

The products are often heirloom ingredients local to a particular region, such as traditionally harvested wild rice from northern Minnesota and cornmeal from Colorado. Making regional foods more accessible is “the whole point of what we’re doing ” says Jacobs, noting that a single online marketplace “can help bring a broader reach” for Native producers across the country.

Creating an online market was also an attempt “to keep the food system thriving,” Jacobs says, referring to the food supply chain for many tribal nations across the United States. In many cases, the supply chain isn’t sustainable, often because of a lack of investment. A recent study found that many Indigenous communities, particularly in rural and remote areas, have very few nearby places to buy food, or none at all. Buying products directly from Native American farmers, cooks, and craftspeople, then, brings cash flow to communities while making locally made food even more accessible...