blah blah and mother's day...

you know those weeks when everything that's going to go wrong will? yeah, that was last week. the third week of the month is always a little stressful for me because it's guild week, and i always feel like i have a million things to do, but last week was all that and a whole bunch more. i DID get my iron craft project done - super early, actually, but i still haven't had a chance to photograph it. maybe i'll get it done by this week's deadline. ;)


however, i did manage to make a simple header and change the blog around a bit. what do you think? i overestimated my photoshop skills, but i'm still pretty happy with how it turned out. (and i managed to embroider a word in metallic thread without it breaking! score one for the fancy $7 metallic needles!)


and while i'm getting my butt in gear to post about current projects, i thought i'd post another catch up - i've gotta get caught up eventually!


so, wanna see what i made my mom for mother's day?


i bought her a bunch of books, because we're big book lovers in our family, but the night before, i decided that i should sew her a bag to hold the books in.

i'd picked up this fabric months ago, because i knew she'd like it. it was a slightly odd fabric because the metre of fabric was actually 4 different prints. remember panels of fabric, when you would buy a length of fabric with a pattern pre-printed on it, usually an incredibly ugly vest of some sort? it was like that, but with coordinating fat quarters printed on it.





two of the prints had a black background, and two of them had a white background. i knew i wanted to use the cat print on the outside of the bag, and it had a white background. a white totebag seemed very impractical, so i decided to use vinyl for the bottom of the bag. not only was it black and easy to clean, it would also hold up much better than quilting cotton.






in theory, this was supposed to be a very simple bag.... i cut the vinyl 15"x5", the two outer pieces 15"x11", the two lining pieces 15"x15", and two pieces of quilt batting to match the lining, and pieced together some scraps to make two 22" long strap. i quilted the batting to the lining and assembled the bag, but somehow it ended up taking me way longer than i thought i would.... maybe it was the crime shows that i was watching while sewing it!