The case for the defence....

After some years of good and decent service, my craft tote broke.  Really broke.  The carry handles made of webbing split, and not long after, the telescopic handle went too. Sheared right off. Just too much use I guess.  Well, over use.  
So after a short period of thinking I could manage with a not very good repair, and then a long period of denial about needing one at all, I determined a couple of things.  I couldn't afford a new craft tote.  And I couldn't go without something to tote my craft about.  I need to tote stuff three times a month.  Twice to workshops, which involves plastic baskets filled with supplies that need to be kept upright, card stock that needs to be uncreased on arrival.  You get it. And then there's crop.  Which involves toting almost everything I own, so I won't list it.   So you see, despite my need, the sixty pounds plus price of a decent sized wheeled craft tote seemed luxurious for something that sits and gathers dust for the equivalent of 3 weeks a month.  So I cast about a bit and finally accepted the suggestion from Shopkeeper Gal that I should look at a shopping trolly.  I know.  Took me a while to swallow all the granny jokes and get on with the research, I can tell you.  I discovered that I was desperately over loading my craft tote in terms of ideal weight.  And that a shopping trolley may not have a dozen pockets but is engineered to hold far more in terms of weight than a tote.  I discovered too that the wheel assembly of a craft tote and a shopping trolley is very different.  Big wheels, further apart on a trolley.  This reduces the possibility of the thing tipping over on cornering.  I laughed at this. And recall how often I'd nearly broken my wrist when my tote went off the rails whilst I was cornering, hurrying, going up and down kerbs. It isn't any wonder the telescopic handle finally snapped.

Finally though, it was the shocking prices that really caught my interest.  After all, you can get over most things if your pride and street cred are at stake, huh.  But no.  I felt I had no choice.  So this is my new tote.  It was £14.99 and holds as much as my old tote, but in a different stacking format.  It corners like it's on rails and is ridiculously manoeuvrable.  I don't love it, of course...particularly after Miss Dunnit, on first sight of it, asked me if I'd lost my mind. There are a couple of practical problems that I have to address; the 'bag' is only secured to the trolley with velcro at the top (truly, it gets worse and worse for the street cred, huh!) -  it actually needs to be take-off-the-trolley-able, so I need to think about that. And it needs a similar anchor at the bottom..just in case it decides to slide a bit whilst cornering....but otherwise, so far, so good.  The little shelf part of the trolley folds flat too, so it takes up much less space than the old tote did. Overall then, it's a positive experience for me.
But I do understand if you don't want to go anywhere with me that involves actually walking from A to B with our craft stuff.  I'm slowly getting over it.