Leaps and bounds

I could get used to this retirement thing! Getting a decent night's sleep, eating well, taking long walks. And sewing. It's all on the schedule I made up for myself.

Yes, I made myself a schedule. That's me. People told me that I'd lose track of time after I retired, and there are so many things I want to do with my time now that I have some for myself that I don't want to waste it. Only thing is, blogging isn't on my schedule.

Guess I'd better add it somewhere, but I'm not spending very much time at my computer these days. That's all I did at work.

My friend and next door neighbour challenged me last week to get some sewing done. Up until then I'd been staring at my machine, moving things around on the table and not getting much else done. It's awesome what a challenge will do!

I started making these little bags again. I made four of them. In one week. Along with music practice, lunch with the gals, house work, yard work, walks, visits and everything else. I made these half an inch narrower than the first ones. You can still fit a cell phone in the outer pockets or a Canadian passport (or money or keys or glasses or...) in the zippered pocket.

Have I mentioned how much I love Laurel Burch fabrics? Probably once or twice. I made up one for myself and had to stop and think about what I would really like on my own bag. Well, cats, of course. I have a not too shabby

collection of cat fabric, and a nice selection of Laurel Burch cats. It wasn't too hard to find some bits that went together nicely.
I'll probably make more of these little bags in the future, but for now I'm off on another project. After that I'll get back to finishing the "bingo bags" that I started well before Christmas.
And after that, I'd like to get back to making quilts. Before that, though, there's going to be a garden to work up and plant. It's going to be fun!
Until next time,

Slow holidays

It's hard getting back into the work routine after the holidays. I should be back in the office today, but I'm not. I could be sewing right now, but I'm not. Instead I'm sitting around, emailing friends and family members to see how their holidays are and to show them my lovely Moeck "Rottenburgh" recorder (the pale one on the right) that I bought used and got a great deal on. (The darker recorder is a Hans Coolsma "Solo" - no pun intended - which I bought a few months ago, also for a good deal.)
Hopefully I'll get to the sewing machine after this. It's one of my New Year's intentions - more quilting. And more music. And more gardening! Last night I finally got around to (my favourite phrase) soaking and cooking the black beans that I grew in my garden last year and dried. After I cooked them, I measured them into separate bags, with two cups of beans each in them, and put them in the freezer. All set to use now, in chilis, casseroles or what have you.






Back to the fabric wallets that I showed you last week (by the way, there's a link to the free pattern on the right side of my page under "My Favourite Tutorials" called Fabric Wallet with Strap). One of my co-workers wanted me to make one for her in her favourite colours - black and silver. No problem. She wanted it bigger than the others that I'd made.











That silvery fabric inside was a pain to work with. It was from an unknown remnant that I bought, and I knew that it wasn't cotton, but it was pretty. It was a pain to work with, but it looked nice once the wallet was finished.

I was really happy with the way it turned out, and that's saying a lot!

She liked it, but it wasn't big enough. She wanted it bigger. This particular pattern isn't really made to be bigger. It's designed to be what it is - a little clutch that you can throw your keys and glasses and some change in and go. But, she wanted bigger. The magnetic clasp was already not really working for the upsized version, so I decided to use a twist clasp. I had a couple on hand but I'd never used one before. Took me some time to feel comfortable cutting in to good fabric to insert one. I measured and measured and measured and finally I had no more excuses not to do it.

Crooked! Don't you hate that? Cutting out that little oval of fabric to accommodate the clasp was a real bugger and hard to keep straight because I was cutting through three layers of fabric and batting. Oh well.

I had also run out of that cool fabric with the wavy lines. And I wasn't going to struggle with that nice silvery whatever fabric again.

But I did manage to give up some of my copious amount of Laurel Burch cat fabric for the pocket because my co-worker loves her kitties as much as I love mine. Well, she loved her wallet - and not just because of the cats. So, my first attempt at a twisty clasp - Fail, but the world didn't end. I'll be making another attempt in the near future.




Until next time,