Upcycled Messenger Bag

Oh, blog land, how I miss you.  September is proving to be a rather trying month.  Grad school is a lot of work, a very dear friend of mine is getting married (on short notice) two weeks from today, and my sweet son has also decided to evade naps.  More specifically, I have a 5 page paper due Tuesday, a 10 page paper due Thursday, over a 100 pages of reading total, I've been commissioned to make that bride a guest log for her wedding and her headpiece as well (and I don't think I've gotten permission yet to show off the wedding stuff here which I think will be pretty cool), I have been trying desperately to get some stash busting projects done, and today is the first time my son has taken a nap in four days. 

I'm a bit over-whelmed.  In fact, I need to thank my husband for this post because he was watching me just sit there doing nothing while trying hard to find out where to start.  He said, "it doesn't matter what you pick, just do something right now."  Thanks, babe.

But I did finally finish a stash buster.  I turned this old, well-worn, much-loved pair of cargo pants:

into a messenger bag for school...

I swear the pants looked better on me than they look in this shot of the back.

I'd been using my bird seed bag, but my larger and very rectangular folders didn't fit well inside of it since it was a bucket shape, plus I needed something with a divider so I can separate the books from stuff like lunch and keys and wallet.

Not only did I try to keep intact all of the original pockets of the pants, but I added a divider inside as well as a double pocket.  I like to keep all of my junk sort of organized.

And I didn't have to buy a thing to make it.  Obviously the pants were upcycled, the lining and pocket fabrics were from my stash, as well as the burlap and the magnetic clasp.  I used some template plastic to shape the base of the bag and lined the whole thing with batting, both also from my stash.

I had big plans for Stashbusting September, but I'm not sure how many I can complete before the end of the month, which is dangerously close already.  I have already separated a bunch of old t-shirts and baby clothes to make my son an upcycled quilt, but I know for sure there is no chance it'll be done this month.  I have started a sweater for him, though, from my stash of yarns.

You can't tell in the pic, but there is some ribbing at the bottom.  As usual, I am ad-libbing the pattern and this is my first attempt at fair-isle knitting.  I kind of like it.  Either way it's a great project to take along on my commute in and out of the city for class.  I've found that I can read or study on the way in, but am usually too exhausted to on the way home.  This will be a better use of time.