Not long ago, I came home from school pick-up to find a collection of bags on the front verandah.  There was yarn in one, machine knitted samples in another and fabric scraps in the other…refugees from a friend’s de-stashing. The bags got as far as the lounge room floor.

The next day, a few hours before kinder pick-up, I had a peek in the fabric scrap bag while uploading files which were taking ages…and ages.

Oh goodness, that bag was a treasure trove!  It was full of small scraps of Nicola Cerini fabrics.  Nicola Cerini makes bags and rugs and homewares.   Her designs often feature Australian flora like banksia and grevillea.

Nicola Cerini is a Melbourne phenomenon, a textile designer who was able to turn her fabrics into a sustainable, successful, international business.  She began by using her fabrics to make bags – hardwearing, utilitarian bags featuring blocks of beautiful screen printed fabrics.  

My first Nicola Cerini bag was a sample bought at her open studio sale in the late 90s.  It was all I could afford.  Later, when I was more grown up and financial, I bought a striking orange and red banskia bag from a real shop.  I wore it till it was so scuffed and worn, it looked more like an artefact than a bag.  You can see the fabric in this next picture.

As I waited for those files to upload, I pulled out more and more bits and fiddled around with them. So many of the fabrics, were designs I recognised and desired over the years.

Before I knew it, I was sewing pieces together and cutting up other bits.

The screen printed fabric was bonded to a heavy duty cotton canvas, perfectly prepared for making a bag.

I lined the bag with some sturdy Indian cotton remnants I had.

And the bag was celebrated with a trip to the market.

That bag of bag scraps had sat at my friend’s house for a few years. It would have sat at my house for years too, waiting for me to get around to making something with those really useful looking bits and pieces….but for the boredom of waiting for files to load, a few precious hours and that the bag just happened to be next to me.

Sometimes, creativity is just curious happenstance. It is the pleasure of doing something not on any list. It is the joy making something useful come into being from scraps.