Friday In The Garden, And A Few Other Things

There has been a fair amount of sewing going on here this week. I finished my friend's handbag, which unfortunately  I forgot to take a picture of before giving to her. It was done in Asian-inspired fabrics, and was quite elegant.

I also finished my own new bag. "Elegant"  isn't quite the word for this one, but it's bright cheeriness makes me happy.

There are lots of pockets inside, and a fabric whose message makes me smile every time I see it.

Now I just need to decide what to do with the old one, which still has lots of good fabric in it. Some recycling is in order.

Speaking of recycling, The Leominster Art Center  is holding a Recycled Art Sculpture Contest. Entries have already started to come in, and they are amazing. This is Colette A. Shumate-Smith with her  recycled young woman. I forgot to ask the official name of the piece. Colette works in many different mediums, but her ceramic tile murals made using the raku process are especially intriguing. You can see part of one in the upper right corner of this picture.

In this picture, the young woman seems to be looking with envy at the cyclist, made from spare parts by the kids in the Leominster High School's Center for Technical Education. 

Meanwhile, back in the garden, the green is bursting out all over. The Neighborhood Lion has been spending a lot of time in our yard, catching rays, and other things.

He seemed to be determined to get in every picture today.

He followed me all around the yard, occasionally attacking my shoelaces. Here he is popping out from underneath some of the grasses that are waiting to be cut back.  

Finally, adding a little movement to the daffodil and red-twig dogwood picture...

And then gone, off to visit someone else.

We are supposed to have a very nice weekend here, with just a little rain overnight on Saturday to water some freshly planted seeds. I hope you have a good one, also, with lots of sun. 

Friday In The Garden

We've come a long way in the last couple of weeks. It had seemed like the bulbs were a couple of weeks behind this year, but they are catching up.

By next Friday, we may even have some blossoms to show off. I can't wait.  Don't you just love the cheery yellow of daffodils in the spring? Or is there another spring flower that is your favorite?

I had promised to show some handbags that I was making. These were made because I agreed to provide an item for a raffle being held as a fundraiser for the Leominster Art Center. I made two, so the woman running the event could choose. I thought she would pick this one, as it suits her personal style.

But instead, she picked this one. It matches the colors that they are using to  decorate for the event . It will have other donated goodies/gift certificates inside. Hopefully, it does well for them. The center mostly  relies on grants for funding , and we all know how that situation is these days!

They are both made from Quilts Illustrated Mini-Bow-Tucks Tote Pattern. I love this pattern. It's very easy, and you get to include a lot of different fabrics. It's fun to coordinate the fabrics. Over the weekend, I am making two more, in the larger size. One for myself, as the one I made last year is wearing out. And one for a friend who bought everything to make one for herself, and then realized that she wouldn't ever really make time to do it. So, I get the fun of playing with her fabric, without having to spend money on it!

Since the weather is supposed to be good, I also plan to spend a lot of time in the garden this weekend. I hope you all have a great weekend, full of whatever you like best also.

Playing With Wool (Again)

Remember the little monsters that I made a while back. Well, I decided I needed more wool colors, so I went on a shopping trip to the Salvation Army. I did get more wool in the colors I wanted, but I also came home with this.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it, but after felting it, I decided to channel my inner Birdlady, and make a handbag. First I measured the sweater to see how much I had to work with, and then drew up a pattern.

The spatter shield was just the right size to get the curve I wanted on the flap. It wasn't real easy to cut the pieces to size, as the wool kept slithering around, and even after felting it still had some stretch that made for interesting edges on my cuts!

Sewing was tricky, also. I almost always use my walking foot, and it took longer than it should have to dawn on me that this was the source of most of my problems.The wool was so thick, it rendered the walking foot unusable! Switching to a regular sewing machine foot made it much easier.

Then, I cut up the waistband of the sweater to use it for for the strap.

I added a lining with a few pockets. This was stitched in by hand.

With the addition of a nice, BIG button, the new purse was good to go. Even the daughter who doesn't like pink liked it. Although, she did say that she wouldn't carry it!

This next picture has nothing to do with wool; it's a house in the neighborhood that was looking very beautiful in Tuesday's snowstorm. Shell, this picture is for you. I know how much you love a cute cottage!

One final note. Karen, over at A Creative Kick In The Pants passed on an award to me. This award is for small blogs with fewer than 300 followers. She said some very nice things about my little blog, and I am very grateful to her. I'm not sure where I will pass it on, because I never pay attention to numbers. I'll have to do a little research. Anyway, click that link to pop on over to Karen's blog, and check out the other blogs that she nominated, they are very cool. And don't forget to roam around Karen's blog while you are at it. She is wonderfully creative, and there is a LOT to see. Thank you, Karen, for your kind words.

Another New Bag, And A Bunny Picture

I finished another handbag. Making these is like eating chocolate or potato chips. It's so hard to stop!

I wanted the ties on the side to match the bottom, but I ended up piecing scraps just to get enough fabric for the handle. I have hoarded this fabric for 12 (?) years, and there isn't any more!

A couple days ago, I walked into the kitchen to see this.

"Ginny, I think something has come between us."

Purple Horse Bag

This new bag is finished. Well, almost. It still needs a button, but I don't have the right one on hand, I will get that this weekend. The pattern is the smaller version of this bag that I made for myself.

The fabric on the front pocket is from a vest that was given to one of my girls many years ago. They had no interest in it, but I could not let go of the fabric. Now a piece of it has found a home.

It gets a little wilder on the inside, and has lots of useful pockets.

I'm working on two more, which I hope to show you soon.

Now I am off to North Adams, to pick up a load of stuff from First Daughter's apartment. Hard to believe that she graduates from college next week. WHERE does the time go?

Sesame Chicken

Yesterday while the Bat Man was here working on our house, I cut out fabric for a couple new handbags that I was hoping to sew today. I can't show you though, because I had forgotten  that I needed to cook for tonight's high school Band Gala. Back to a tried and true recipe, Silver Palate Cookbook's Sesame Chicken.

Really, how can you go wrong when you are basting with butter throughout the baking process?

A New Bag

Way back in January (why does that seem so long ago?), I showed a bag made for First Daughter. Recently one of my Monday morning quilting buddies decided we should do a project together, and she chose the Bow Tucks Tote pattern from Quilts Illustrated.  This was designed by Penny Sturges, like the bag I made for First Daughter. The fabrics I chose were shown here, and here is the finished product.

For the closure, I didn't have a large button or toggle in a good color. Instead I took a corner of the lining that I cut off while boxing the bottom of the bag, and stitched a smaller button on to it. It seems to do the job, and looks kind of cool.

The inside is roomy, with lots of pockets for phones, notebooks, pens, drawing supplies, etc.

I am very happy with the bag, and highly recommend the pattern. It is easy to follow, and allows a lot of room for creative use of fabric.

One thing that I did change was to use a different fusible batting, because I have had problems with the one called for in the pattern. As it turned out, I liked the one I chose even less. It was too stiff and thick, and left lots of bits of itself around. The remainder actually went into the trash, which doesn't often happen to leftovers around here. Now I am wondering if my issue with fusible batting is really an iron issue. Do you think maybe I need a hotter, or steamier, iron? Have you had some experience with fusible batting not sticking?

Ginny seems to be doing very well the last couple of days, so we may be out of the woods with her GI stasis (knock on wood). Yesterday, we had a little kale competition here.

Ginny (on the left) pulled the kale right out of Weasley's month, and ran into the cage with it. I had to give him a new piece.

Sometimes when she steals a treat from him, she runs around the whole house, and loses the treat along the way!

A Worried House

Ginny is at the vet today. She seemed to be getting better yesterday (producing well, if you know what I mean), and then took a hard turn for the worse overnight. She is spending the day with the nice folks at the vets office, getting fluids and medicines. We are keeping our fingers crossed.

If I can get my head together, I am going to work on finishing up a project that I started with my friends yesterday. You can get a glimpse in this picture.

No, I don't mean finish the quiche. That is long gone. My friend M. (forgot to ask if I could use her name) is a great cook, and generously supplied us with food, and a beautiful place to work. It is always energizing to spend time working with friends.

Unfortunately, I had to leave early, to go feed Ginny.  I'm going to go sew, and maybe I'll have another picture, and better news, later. 

I Get Out of the Car, and Regain Possession of the Computer

While I love having First Daughter home from college, it does mean additional work as "Taxi Mom". She was a premature baby, and while not legally blind, her vision is not good enough for a driver's license. Since Second Daughter doesn't have her license yet (and is back in school, anyway), I drive them both to their many activities. While I love the chance to have a captive audience, it's nice to have a morning off from driving.

First Daughter has spent alot of this vacation filling out grad school applications, all of which is done on the computer these days, and none of which is standardized. It also  requires that you repeatedly bug the people you asked for references to go to yet another website, find the proper forms, and submit your references themselves. (Note to any admissions staff: this is much more of an imposition than just a letter that they can make copies of, especially if they are not computer savy.)

Since her laptop's hard drive had recently suffered a meltdown (during finals week, with papers on it, but that's another story), she has hogged occupied the home computer. But, yesterday her new laptop arrived (yeah, Fed Ex guy!), and I can get on the family computer again!

Not everything I have been working on during my brief stints out of the car is camera ready yet, but I did photograph a checkbook cover that I made First Daughter to go with a handbag and notepad cover that I had made her for Christmas. Over the summer, she had joined me one day when I was painting fabric. I used this piece of painted canvas for the bottom portion of the bag.

This was made with the Desk Deli Lunch Tote Pattern, designed by Penny Sturges, and available from Quilts Illustrated. It is called a lunch tote, but she plans to use it as a regular bag. The made-to-go-with napkin is becoming a handkerchief (try not to think about it). This was an easy and fun pattern to use, as it lets you combine many different fabrics into one bag. If I were to make it for use as an actual lunch tote, I would probably try using Insul-Bright batting for temperature control.

With leftover scraps, I made her a notebook cover.

Then she requested a checkbook cover.

This pretty much uses up all her fabric, except one 3 inch square. Now what could we make with that....

This house has been feeling cold and drafty lately, so the rabbits have spent the last few days tucked up against the heater.

                         

That is Weasley, the hedonist, with his backside up against the baseboard. Even Ginny cuddled up, but it's warmer today, and they are Up To Stuff. I'm off to remove Ginny from the old chair that she is eating, and stitch a binding onto that charity quilt. Or maybe take a walk while the sunshine lasts.

Daughter's UFO and Mom's Purses

This is a quilt top made from blocks that my First Daughter started making about 10 years ago , when she wanted to try sewing. She made 3 1/2 blocks, and then they sat. Recently the unfinished blocks started calling to me. Maybe it was the bright colors, lightening some cloudy days. I certainly have plenty of UFO's of my own, but I found myself finishing that 1/2 block, and then making 2 more.

Each block starts with a chunk of animal fabric, and then random strips are added crazy quilt style. The piecing was done in a flip and sew style, on a paper backing. You can see the paper being removed in the following picture. This will be sandwiched up with a pieced backing, and quilted, and then given away as a charity quilt. Hopefully, this quilt of many colors will go on to brighten someone else's day.

These next pictures show First and Second Daughters after unwrapping purses made for them by my mother for Christmas. She made 8 in all, for eight granddaughters. Beautiful work as always, with each girl getting fabric that suits her personality, with sparkle, and lots of pockets. They were well received, see the big smiles?

It has just stopped snowing here, but the clouds are still very thick. I'm hoping they will break up, and let us see the Blue Moon this evening. Have a fun and safe New Year's Eve, and a Very Happy New Year.