Small projects

My week has been a blur. 

Only two weeks left in summer term with the usual wake-up call going on that everyone (including me the marker) has to get a push on to finish.

And two days ago my step-daughter got installed in the spare room to start her four months of bedrest until her baby is due with breaks when her husband can get home from his job out of province.

Rascal is eyeing her two dogs (nice quiet Labs) with a full exhibition of his Little Man Syndrome and if the fur flies, well I have a new vacuum. And Labs are pretty serene.

This is going to work out fine. My step-daughter ( I need to find a new way of saying this because if I could have I would have chosen her) has one of those crazy even, easy going dispositions and is going to manage being trapped without being able to do much a lot better than I would. Now if she can survive my creative cooking we are all set. I serve a lot of meals with the words "well it may look weird but it's really healthy".

And now I know about botulism too thanks to the University of Georgia Preserving Food at Home self-study course which I finished this afternoon. Since I passed, they are apparently going to send me a certificate and that baby is going to get framed and hung in the kitchen I can tell you. The clientele may find it reassuring that I do in fact know about botulism, in case what is on the plate doesn't make that apparent.

The point is I figured out a long time ago that particularly when there is a lot going on, the one thing I cannot cut corners on is my creative time. It is what makes things work for me.

On that note I finished my useable muslin version of My Favourite Purse, my first purse project, and I am so pleased with it, pleased way out of proportion to how good a job I did, since the cotton duck I used was pretty thick, and some of the stitching is not flawless as a result.

I have used this purse a number of times already and am so happy with it every time I look at it. I even hung it on the back of my bedroom door so I could look at it in bed. It has been a while since I felt that way about a project. I think making something totally new to me made it particularly interesting. Lesson there.

I have a bunch of nice purses, but for some sectors of my life, like being at the pool with the little girls, or lugging groceries, it is nice to know I am not ruining something decent when I fling it onto the floor of the backseat.

And this purse has all sorts of pockets so I can, for the first time in my life, find things when I need them.

You want that car door opened? 

No problem I have the key right here. 

You call me on my cell? 

Guess what I can answer! 

No more waiting 15 minutes for me to find my phone at the bottom of my purse and another 15 minutes for me to find my glasses so I can read the missed calls and call you back.

So what if I can't use this purse after Labour Day, I love it and will probably make another one for fall, even better now I understand how it goes together:

See. A blurry picture of inside (I was trying to take the shot with the other hand) also the white interior helps. I think all the rest of my other purses are black inside, or at least it seems like that.

As if the purse wasn't exciting enough I also decided I really needed to sew a body pillow before my guest arrived. I remember when I was pregnant that getting comfortable in bed was not easy. In the theme of good baby vibes I covered it with Dr. Seuss fabric and here it is:

So that was my sewing week.

I am aware now that I need to think about back-to-school clothes, for me, when I go offline and back into the regular classroom in September. 

These small projects have reminded me just how energizing projects you can sew up fairly quickly are. It gives me a lift to go to bed at night and know I have something finished after even little time down in the sewing room.

This is definitely going to be my fall for knit dresses and I have three patterns I haven't tried before are taxing towards the runway.

More on that soon.