Pocketbooks

That's what my mother used to call them. And that's what I called them until I went away to a college where most of the students came from a higher social class then mine, and I learned that they were called purses or handbags. To be fair, I don't know that the use of the term pocketbook is associated with any social class in particular, though I've only heard it pronounced with a certain kind of accent, and if you're from New York, like I am, you probably know which I mean. I myself spoke with that accent until adolescence, when I became self-conscious about it, and I snobbishly began to eradicate it. But nostalgia is a funny thing, and here I am calling purses pocketbooks once again, but sans the correct accent, as it is lost to me, and my attempts to reconstruct are invariably comedic.

Groovy pocketbook (Well, I think it's groovy)

Both of these bags are based on the free Burdastyle Charlie bag pattern. For the first one, I lengthened the straps, tapered the sides, added gussets, and added a flap with a button closure. It has two large, but simple interior pockets. I used an cherished old decorator fabric- in its last incarnation it was a pillow cover- that I brought with me when I moved here. It doesn't match the style of most of the furniture in our house (much to my chagrin) and so it languished in my drawer of things to repurpose until I imagined this new, pleasing use for it. I lined it with fabric from an old curtain, also brought with me when I moved and unsuitable for our house.


The second bag is a more faithful rendition of the Charlie pattern. I made it perhaps three years ago to replace the diaper bag that came with the car seat-stroller-bassinet combo that we bought when Pata was born. I don't remember making it- I don't remember much from the first several month's of Pata's life- but I can tell you that I used the same Ikea fabric for the exterior and the lining, and like the groovy green pocketbook, it has interior pockets, though more of them. I haven't used it as a diaper bag for quite a while, but I continue to carry it around with me because it's capacious enough to carry all the sorts of things a three-year-old might need on a walk around town, like copious amounts of bubbles.

Blowing bubbles, and the bag, erm pocketbook