Mending and what it led to

My son Andrew works for a clothing company. One of the employee benefits is that they can get clothing samples that have been used for testing. Each garment usually has about a 3 inch hole punched out of the fabric which is on a card and attached to the garment with various instructions on how to revise the manufacturing process based on the test. Anyway, Andrew sent me 10 shirts that all had large holes or slashes. I mended them all, like so.
This may sound tedious but I actually love mending. Why is mending so enjoyable to me? Each project is like a little puzzle to solve, mending can be done fairly quickly (immediate gratification) and it appeals to the recycle/reuse spirit of not just throwing something away when it has just a little defect.

Then I figured that this would be a good time to make a couple of shopping bags for Andrew and Sarah, so that I could return the mended clothing in nice bags instead of the cardboard box that they came in.

So, on to bags. I made two out of a decorator remnant that I purchased at Hancock's closure.
The one with the rick rack went to Andrew and Sarah. I am not sure where the other one is going.

I have been saving another remnant that I purchased at Hancock just for Sarah. This fabric is basically ugly, but it has olives. Sarah loves olives. I snagged some green pea fabric that seemed like it would go with the cabbage and olive print. So, here is the next grocery bag for the young couple.
Sarah is out of town for a long summer school, I am hoping that when she has to return to the boring chore of grocery shopping these bags will make her trip a bit more enjoyable.

Here's Andrew taking off with his mended clothing and two new grocery bags. He looks kinda corny "modeling" the bags, but he did agree to be on my blog. (Thanks Andrew)