Lately, every time I sit down at my computer to write a blog post, I glance at the clock on my screen and find out that I'm out of time. Again. Like yesterday morning. It wasn't my blog, but I'd just finished sewing the veins on my "poinsettia" pin and I was going to start exercising when I realized I had an appointment in a nearby town to get my winter tires put on. I hate being late. Most times, being late is not even an option. The weeks between Labour Day and Christmas are a blur where I work. Summer is dead as everyone takes time off. Once September rolls around, everyone makes up for the lost time. Then January comes and the place is dead again.
I've been making a few Christmas presents in the spare minutes I collect here and there. I made this wallet for a co-worker I've only met a couple of times, even though we've worked together for about three years now. She works in a town about three hours from here, but we connect just about every day by internet. I know that she's an outdoorsy type - she tells me about her weekends on the ski hills and hiking, and shows me pictures of her backpacking vacations. She says she loves sea turtles, so when I began looking through my drawers of fabric for something suitable, this gorgeous Robert Kaufman pattern screamed "Pick me! Pick me!"
As I attempted to make it as perfect as possible, I proceeded to make more mistakes than usual. See the cool looking clamshell? It covers a hole from the metallic clasp which I put in the wrong place. And the little red stitches at the edge of the wallet? That was my attempt to tack down the fabric edge using "decorative" embroidery stitches because I cut the corners off the wrong end. The zipper opens at the wrong end, too, but hopefully that won't be a big issue. I couldn't fix that without taking too much apart. And then, I was trimming the excess fabric inside the wallet that was part of the D-ring tab - I turned my head to hear what Mr. ZQ was asking me just 
as I made the cut, and cut through one of the inside pockets. I just some stiff interfacing and glue to reconnect the pieces, and fortunately you can't really see it since it was inconveniently located next to the seam!
I'm becoming rather adept at fix-its. Just have to practice those "decorative" embroidery stitches.
The “Live in the Sunshine” graphic I got off the internet somewhere and printed it onto a bit of cotton fabric with my inkjet. It’s a bit tricky to get fabric moving evenly through a printer – you have to reinforce it with something – in this case, I ironed it to freezer paper, taped a sheet of paper to it and watched carefully that it fed correctly. It worked the second time.
Been also working on some bags that others have requested. Cats and music are the popular themes. And speaking of music, my recorder is back in action. My musical partner and myself have six Christmas concerts booked this year. We play with other acts, so we only actually play for less than half an hour at each one. Still, six is more than usual. I just love the sound of Christmas music being played by recorders. We’re talking about video-ing ourselves playing one of these days and posting it to the internet. I’ll let you know if that (ever) happens!
Until next time,
