Finished Shopping Bag

Sorry for the picture quality. I couldn't remember how to blur just one spot in an image.

This was good practice for letter applique and I found that the light color works well on the dark, but the middle pattern was really hard to see, and the thread got lost in the pattern so it was hard to define the inside of the letters. It's okay up close, and our local libary will give it to someone who can use it to carry their books. It's certainly sturdy enough for books. The cloth is thicker than most duck cloth and my sewing machine, Jan, said "O me, Oooo me, Oooooooo me." So I won't be making another bag just like this again. I'll alternate a lighter weight cloth on the sides next time.

Linking to:

Week 2 Sewing Linkups

To-Do Tuesday

I had all week with nothing to do, but still didn't complete my simple list.

Last Week:

❌ 1. Finish Sugar Pie. Shopped my stash for backing and binding. 

I did pretty good finding backing and binding fabric. I had to piece the backing though and not in an even way. I hope the fabric is busy enough so it doesn't show. I quilted it with the walking foot and it was more of an undertaking than I anticipated. It probably would have been better if I had done a simple wave. I have started hand stitching the binding, but it may take awhile. I've been having some hand pain lately, probably carpal tunnel, and holding the needle between thumb and forefinger puts pressure on exactly the wrong place.

❌ 2. I need to get my Christmas decorations put away. 

Just about the time I think I've got everything put up, I spot another decoration in plain sight that I have looked at so many times that I just don't notice it anymore.

3. Make Sugar Pie pattern into a QAYG. 

I worked on it and decided it wouldn't work to join rows the way I wanted to make it.

4. Finish my Book Club book. Where the Forest Meets the Stars by Glendy Vanderah. This was a good read!

5. Don't get Covid. 

I wish I could tell you how hard I worked on achieving this, but of course, it was totally out of my control. I am grateful not to get it after two weeks of the flu and grateful that Mom had a very mild case of Covid.

♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥

Since I didn't complete any real tasks, my to do list for the coming week won't change much from last week.

This Week:

1. Finish the binding on Sugar Pie.

2. Put away Christmas decorations. 

If I don't get this done this week, I'll have New Year's decorations to put away too.

3. Rearrange sewing space and see if there is room for a bigger sewing table.

4. Reorganize my UFO boxes. 

Hubby moved the cabinet they were in but first had to unload the cabinet and he put the boxes wherever he could find a space.

Since Mom is still confined and I have no appointments this week, I predict another good week ahead.

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Design Wall Monday

Even though I posted this design wall before, I'm including another picture of it. I've been gathering some of the duck cloth scattered about. Years ago, my daughter wanted a purple daybed cover and I made it out of solid purple duck cloth. When she tired of it, I made a couple of pillows out of the cover and put the rest in the scrap bin. I've made a couple of books bags that I donated to the local library and the duck cloth works very well for that. However, it doesn't take me long to get totally sick of sewing purple bags. I cut the purple into pieces for future bags so they will be easier to store than a bulky cover.

I'm hand stitching the binding on Sugar Pie right now, so technically, it is off the design wall. After I cleaned off all the fluff and threads, I went through a few stacks of fabric and found these shopping bags I started making years ago.

I don't know if I will make them a goal for the coming week, or just find all the pieces and put them in a project box to work on later. Right now, my priority is repairing the wall behind my cutting table, and getting better lighting over the cutting table and design wall. Maybe next week, it won't look like I took pictures in the dark.

Monday Musings
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Sunday Stash

It has also been a good week for fabric usage. Even though I'm not keeping up with the total yardage of my stash right now, I am glad I counted and labeled each one for the last few years. It's really handy to have the yardage marked on each piece so I don't have to measure the pieces to find one that has enough yardage. That is one thing I'll continue doing when and if I add any new fabrics. Who am I kidding, of course there will be new fabrics.

I found exactly three yards for the backing of Sugar Pie and a half yard for the binding. I chose the backing fabric for the red coloring, but while cutting, I noticed the bits of sheet music. It doesn't exactly match the fabric on the front, but it matches the theme.



2023 STASH TOTALS
Added Jan 8-14                   0 yards
Added year to date              0 yards
Used Jan 8-14                 3.25 yards
Added year to date         6.25 yards
Net used in 2023 6.25 yards


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Stitching Stuff

This has been a good week for sewing since our family has been exposed to Covid and staying in. Mom flunked her Covid test on Monday but started feeling better today. So far, fifteen people at her assisted living have it. Somehow, Hubby and I avoided getting it from her although we were confined with her for a few hours Monday. Since we were just getting over the flu, we fully expected to catch it easily. I have finally stopped coughing but Hubby's cough is hanging in there.

15 Minute Challenge for 2023:
Jan 8-14                  7 of 7 days
2023 Total             12 of 7 days
86% success rate

More Shopping Bags

After I started feeling better, I got tired of watching tv and reading all day. My face looks like I've been out hunting with Dick Cheney without a shotgun proof facemask and I didn't want to leave the house, so I finished a project I started over five months ago - shopping bags for my little group of childhood friends. I wanted to have the bags finished for our annual summer trip, but part of my procrastination oath was that I would start things and not finish them, and I can't break my oath.

Now I know what you're thinking: This took five months?!! I know because that's what I think too. But you see, I'm not an artist. I'm artistic, but not an artist. The difference being I can think it, but I can't draw it, at least not easily. I knew the picture I wanted to put on the bags, but I can't draw without looking at something, and even then not well.

I had asked a neighbor to sit in a lawnchair and let me take her picture so I could try to make a cartoon drawing from the picture, and she said she had a friend who was an artist and she asked him to draw the picture I described: a pretty woman sitting in a beach chair with a drink, wearing sunglasses and a tiara. It's a nice picture, just not quite what I wanted.

The girl just wasn't quite Diva-ish, and the tiara a little too crown-ish. I didn't know what to do about it, so I did nothing for a couple of months. Then I decided I could take the parts I liked and draw them into what I wanted. So I ended up with a composite sketch that I could draw onto the bags and then paint.

And the back


I only have two bags finished so far. I ran out of the tan canvas fabric. Eeek! I don't even remember where I bought it now. That's one of the drawbacks of procrastination. If I had made the bags right after I bought the fabric, I could have gotten more. Now I have to improvise.

You're probably wondering about the tiara, since it's not really part of the typical Diva ensemble (like I know what is). Several years ago, well nine, in fact, one of the ladies in our group decided we needed to start having an annual weekend together. We had gone on weekend trips together before, but it was usually impromtu and not at all organized. But on this first organized girls' weekend, we met in Dallas, and talked, ate, and shopped. Oh, and laughed. A lot. While on one of our shopping outings, we went into a jewelry/accessories store, and K spotted some tiaras in a glass case. I think the trip must have been around prom time that year. So K pretended to swoon, right there in the crowded store, and proclaimed loudly that she just had to have a tiara - that now that she had seen such a priceless wonder (it was $4.99), she didn't think she could live without one. We all laughed at her joke and at the tiaras, and walked on. All except M, who dropped back and bought the tiara.

The next morning in the hotel breakfast room, M walked up behind K and crowned her with the tiara while everyone else bowed down to her. She hammed it up and let the hotel staff call her 'madame' and 'your highness' and wore the tiara throughout breakfast.

And from that moment on, we were the Tiara Group, kind of like the Red Hat Society, except I think we laugh a lot more.

So you see why my Diva had to have a tiara.

Design Wall (Floor) Monday

Still laying on my design floor is this:

Remember this quilt?: (click the picture to read the post about it)

Now that I've finally got the backing ready, I'm nervous about putting it on. I know it needs to be done to keep the wool from falling out as the original backing deteriorates, but I'm really not sure how to baste it. I don't want to use pins because I think it could tear the old fabric. I'm going to put a few gentle stitches into the seams to hold this backing in place, but I need it basted first. So I'll probably study it awhile, or until Hubby tells me to get it off the floor.

In other areas of design, I've been working on my shopping bags.  Have you ever taken your cloth shopping bags to the grocery store, handed them to the checker, and seen a look of annoyance on her face? I've been using cloth bags for years and have seen that look a lot - to the point that at the Wall of Mart I finally told the checker to just put my groceries back in the basket. Then, after pulling the cart out of the way, I loaded them into my cloth bags. Why? Take a look at my cloth bags:

I got the two in the top left corner about 1986. They were freebies - one at the grand opening of a Hypermart (a precursor of Super Wally), and one at the grand opening of a Page Drug (before Tom Thumb had their own inside drug store). The two in the lower left corner were company freebies at a trade show. I actually bought the Brookshires bag in the top right corner (and it's the poorest quality of the lot), and based on the construction of all these bags and a paper bag, I made the one in the bottom right corner.

The reason most cashiers despise these bags (and the person who brings them in) is mainly because of the handle. For one thing, the handles are too long, and for another, they are attached side to side instead of front to back. Because of the handles, the bags don't fit well on their wire rack made for plastic bags. The long handles also make it harder to carry them without dragging on the ground.

I've been meaning to remake my bags for quite a while and a handle on the Page Drug bag was unravelled so it was a good time to try a remake. (I had replaced the other handle to match the size of original.) Oh, and this is the other side of the bag.

I took both handles off, cut a shorter piece of strap, and reattached front to back.

Better, and fits the wire rack but not well. The construction of the bag could be improved.

So I made a new bag based on the typical grocery store plastic bag.





Marti