Being Creative Without Spending Money

My challenge this month for knitting guild was to come up with a very nice gift for our speaker without spending any money. To that end I cut up 2 pairs of worn out jeans, one from each of my kids. I then went on a fabric hunt through my quilting material to find larger scrapes of fabric that were the right color and size.  Then the pinning and sewing commenced. 

I have created 8 unique project bags for knitting, spinning or crochet projects. I also found 6 other larger pieces of fabric that could stand alone and made them into project bags too. 

Then it was off to the ribbon box to find the right ribbon or cording to finish the bags off. So after 2 days of sewing I have 13 bags for the speaker to choose from without spending any money. The rest will be sold off on a first come first serve basis. The project bags are all one of a kind. No 2 are exactly alike.  I like the fact that I could be creative with the bags. They are more artistry than production line ones too. 

The sad news from this is that I did not make a dent in my fabric stash. I only finished 1 spool of cording and only bits of ribbon. No spools of thread got finished either. I will have to work on that stash getting smaller too. 

Yes I know that 6 + 8 = 14, but I decided to keep one of the bags for myself. Here is a picture of mine at the top of the post.