The most fantastic playbag you ever did see

This playbag is the best one yet. It is really totally excellent and fantastic. Everything, just everything, you could ever want from a total colour-filled, sensory play experience, perfect for your toddler, all as a bag.

When ELC come knocking, you will know why. It is thanks to this, the one and only, playwiththebag bag.

I forgot to photograph it.

So you just have to take my word for it.

Cherokee demin skirt, size 10

Good grief, which insane woman would ever wear a denim skirt? Would she be drunk, mad, dead in a ditch? There is no useful point to denim skirts. Ever. They all deserve to be made into bags.

The main problem with heavy denim is that it does not fold, bend, or do anything interesting at all. It just is. A patch of dark blue. Wear it, and look like a kid drawing. It just begs to have legs coming out from the corners so it looks like a real table.

The bag, however, is exceptionally strong and durable.

But I could never really escape the denim. I suffered a failure of imagination at some point and starting sewing pockets on it at random angles.


Hope it comes in useful to someone, because I am so very glad it has left this house.

Cotton linen skirt, size 14

When I saw this skirt in the charity shop I thought maybe, just maybe, I could wear it. It's a natural fabric, inconsequential colour, and I could mix it with black.

When I looked more closely, I didn't even try it on. There was a pocket at the front. I don't mean at the front and to the side, I mean, at the front. What is the person who wears this meant to be? A kangaroo? Even worse, I knew that if I did wear this skirt, that pocket would be a perfect substitute for a tool belt. Then I would be seen in the outside world with a pseudo-womb busting with stuff like crayons, fabric offcuts, spanners, bits of paper and the week's TV listings, which I keep meaning to look at but never do. Aha! I know what to do! I'll shove them in my pouch and look at them later!

It made a great drawstring bag, anyhow. Thanks to the enormous front pocket I'm running with that idea of tying kiddy playtoys to bits of string and hanging them from the top of the bag. I'd like to think some little kid will have hours of fun putting teddy into the pocket and taking him out again.

That is fond fantasy rubbish. Teddy will be snatched off the shoelace and nailed to the local tree with a bag round his face sooner than you can blink.

Kid's denim tunic top, brand unknown

This top I bought for Shark at a jumble, 50p. She looked between it, and me, and felt guilty enough at the sight of my hopeful fizzog to wear it. Once. After that she declared it did not fit. I waxed lyrical about the embroidered neckline for a few days, then gave in. You can see where I've sewn up the neckline on that bottom pic. It looks a bit vaginal, which I'm sorry about, because the rest of the bag turned out fun.

Once I made the basic bag shape, we sewed on these beautiful touchy-feely shapes from an African-animal inspired upholstery fabric range; the sample book for that I found in Scrapstore. The bag is great to hold and feel, and it has a rather useful pocket I cut from a pair of Maine jeans (50p RSPCA shop).

I tried to wear those jeans, I really did. They looked foul. The zip didn't work. I held it up with a bit of metal attached to an elastic band hooked to my belt. You can bet I looked like Kate Moss. With string.

I might not give this bag away for a while. I like it.

Liz Claiborne fleece top size 12

I bought this cream fleece top in a sale in the 1990s when they were already marked at 75% down. You can judge what a hotshit fashionista I am. I was trying to replicate a top that I owned in the 1980s. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse.

The top I bought in 1984 - somewhere in North London - I loved to death. At one point in my hormonal cycle I would have happily done myself in, so I could have been buried in it. It had a trendy gathered panel front and tapered sleeves.

Oh go on then, you have to take my word for how fantastic that was. Anyway, I thought I looked like the world's most fetching graphic designer. Even when I wasn't one. I finally had to get rid of my beloved when the proximity of my body just bust the seams.

This, the nearest cream fleece replicant I ever found, never worked. I still wore it, and despised it, and me, everytime I did so. It looked like a dishcloth, and so did I. Eventually I turned it into a bag to stop myself wearing it.

It's made a better playbag than a top. I put a variety of small patches all over it in different textures. I've also sewn in cream zips and pockets which don't come out in the photos. The zip, which doesn't come out in the pic, I cut from a pair of Dolce and Gabbana jeans. They always looked shit on me as well.

Green cotton BHS skirt size 14

It made a strong drawstring bag with laces threaded through eyelets. The pocket is functioning; the circles are of felt, fur, velvet, nylon, felt, leather, glued and stitched in place. On reverse is a similar mix. And there's a photo of Tiger, who's helped me create it. I picked up the skirt from the Salvation Army shop. I think I come to the conclusion I hate this type of skirt; I'm glad I didn't persuade my easily-led brain cells to wear it instead of making a playbag from it.