February is here

Well I have come to the conclusion it is not possible to write and make all these bags. Hence the blog suffers :)I have been thinking about the difficulties we have encountered during this challenge and they are mainly to do with man/woman power and transport. I do not drive and as such have always walked everywhere. Now that my knees have given up the ghost and no hope of replacement due to a genetic disorder shanks's pony is slow ands cumbersome. Material is heavy, especially the wonderful cottons we have been donated. Nothing like the cotton bags you normally get given for free which must weigh milligrams, these bags are beautiful and substantial. It has become my role to keep everyone supplied with all their needs i.e. overlocked bags and handles, cotton for machines, needles, light bulbs when they go out on overworked domestic machines and training every time we get some new young offenders. This in itself is challenging to say the least. We can only hire the hall for 4 hours and as everything must be locked away it takes a good 45 minutes to get up and running and the same to clean up after the session leaving us 2 and a half hours during which time we get visitors who must be accomodated. Not a lot of time. Because of this all materials and scissors, rulers, tape measure etc etc. have to be carried back and fore and believe me Cilfrew is well and truly built on the side of a mountain; you are constantly either going up hill or down hill unless you go sideways and then you get nowhere. I was donated an old pushchair which I have taken to lowering down the steep hill rather than dragging my huge Ikea bag along side me which caused the disintegration of the base and more washing of material than necessary. I might look a sight but where needs must the devil drives - or is it necessity is the mother of invention? So every session I must carry down to the community centre dozens of overlocked bags and handles, which I have alone had to cut out and overlock and then carry them all back again to sort out at which stage what is and treat accordingly. I have also had to wash a lot of material before it can be used; this means transportation up the mountain of the unwashed material and transportation back down of the clean stuff. If it was not for Daniel and his trusty steed, oops motorbike, I would be in trouble. Every session Daniel transports bags and sewing machines up to my abode and deposits them outside my home for me when I get back up the mountain wheezing and gasping. But we are on our way to 600 bags and on a roll. So no time for more typing, these hands are made for sewing at the moment. I cannot afford to waste time :)Not enough hands on board - we have had a fantastic response for material and sewing machines but sadly no bodies to join with us.