January's Bag of the Month

                                

In December I posted about joining the Bag of the Month Club started by Sew Sweetness.  On January first, bright and early, I received the first pattern.  The name of the pattern is the Bye Bye Love Bag by Sara herself.  I wasn't quite sure if I would like the bag for myself but, boy oh boy, was I mistaken!!  I LOVE THIS BAG!  It makes the perfect bag for work.  It is nice and roomy with gobs of pockets inside and out.  A girlfriend ordered one to take to the beach for all her lotions and potions and towels.  I never thought to use it as a beach bag but it would be PERFECT to use for that!!  anyway, here is my version of the Bye Bye Love bag....

I made my version from outdoor fabric so it wouldn't matter if it got rained on while walking into work.  I really love how it turned out!  My one tip for using outdoor fabric would be to iron on the fusible interfacing before cutting!!  I have gotten tons of compliments on this bag and no one can believe it is homemade.  So THANK YOU SARA for helping me to impress everyone with your wonderful bag!!!

Here is a pic of the inside full of work stuff (minus the Kindle Fire full of games!!!).

I highly recommend joining this club to any and all bag makers!  Have a fabulous day everyone!

                                                           

                                                                        OMG!!!!

I really can't believe I messed up this bad!  I had written down on my sticky note that my day was the 17th instead of the 16th.  I feel just horrible about this.  I am so sorry to all those who have had to come back a second time to see my project. Well, one good thing is that you won't have to read through a long winded post like I normally write for the hops!!!

  So I decided that this year when I join a hop I will make an item for the guest bedroom.  By the end of the year it should be fixed up right pretty!!  The curtains in there were cheap hideous muddy water colored things.  Don't know who ever thought buying them was a good idea!!!  I came across a beautiful picture while browsing Pinterest and it inspired this lovely valance...

      

I thought it looked somewhat like a blue sky with fluffy white clouds with a little sunny yellow on top!  I am going with a garden theme in there and I didn't want the window dressing to be plain and boring.  This was my way to spruce it up a bit!  Now, for what to put on it... Wel, with a name like Robin and a garden theme....what else?!!  Some beautiful blue birds of happiness!!

Here's a close up of the lovebirds!

And just look who popped in for a visit!!  She loves the new window treatment, but then, she is A Little Bit Biased!!!!

                        

I hope you like my project but even more I hope you accept my appology for being late.  Now I must go grovel and throw myself on the mercy of Madame Samm and Carol and beg them not to put me on the naughty list!  While I am eating crow you go on and visit these other hoppers for today...

January 16

I Piece 2-Mary

A Reformed Heath’n

From This To That

A Quilting Sheep

CeLynn’s Sunflower Patch

Robin’s Fabric Nest

Quilted Delights

Sew Me Something Good

WINNER!!

                           
I had Mr Random pick my winner and he chose #101.  I would love to post the pick of the Mr Random widget but I can't figure out how!!!  So, anyway #101 was Laura.  I have contacted her by email and will have her basket and scraps out this week.  Congrats to Laura and a HIGE thanks to all those who left a comment!  I love Give Away day and hope to see you all in MAY for the next one!!

Giveawawy Day!!!

                                
Today is the day folks!!  It's time for another Sew Mama Sew giveaway day.  This will be my very first time participating as a "giver"!!  So I'm not going to write a long post I'm just going to get right to the good stuff!  This time around I am going to send to US only just because of the expense of sending international.  I am already broke from buying presents!!  Hehe!  Next time I promise to include my over seas friends.
  So I wanted to give away something I made but I thought....why not get rid of add in a pile of scraps.  I have two HUGE bags of scraps that never seem to go down no matter how much I dip into them. This is a win win giveaway!  Someone wins the scraps and I have room in the bag when I make more scraps!!  And who doesn't love other peoples scraps?!

I am going to make a fabric basket like the one above.  I will not be using holiday fabric since it will probably not make it to its new home with much tie to spare for Christmas.  The items above will not be included either.  Instead I am going to stuff that thing so full of scraps it will feel like a Thanksgiving turkey!!  I would show a pic of my scraps but they are all just thrown in big bags an are all wrinkled and not very presentable!  The scraps are all sizes, colors and themes!  Oh, and the winner can pick a favorite color for the basket. Just leave me a comment about any old thing to be entered.  One comment per person please!  Now to figure out whether to put this in Handmade or Supplies!!!  Have fun everyone!

No More Entries Accepted.  Time To Pick A Winner!!!

Best Club EVER!!!

                                    
  I was going to write a post about the Christmas presents I have completed since Thanksgiving.  I thought that posting my progress would keep me on track to finish all I need to make BEFORE 2AM Christmas morning!!!  Good intentions and all that malarkey!! 

                                   
 So I wake up this morning and go through my routine of deleting the five thousand emails telling me how to cure what ails me, enlarge things, lose weight, buy the best____ I've ever owned and a myriad of other things.  Once all the important spam was out of the way I move on to the good stuff....quilt related emails!  I notice that there is an email from ChrisWDesigns in there. I LOVE her patterns (and herself!) so I click in to it right away.  And what to my wondering eyes does appear?!!!!!  No, no Down Under reindeer!!!!  A brand new bag club venture hosted by another of my faves, Sew Sweetness.  I could hardly believe my eyes!!!  A membership into their VERY exclusive club comes with a brand new bag pattern on the first of every month for 6 months from 6 different designers.  I have bought patterns from most of them and, I must say, they were all very well written.  There will also be a Facebook page set up for any and all questions that club members may have regarding the construction process.  How cool is that?!  It will be a community of bag makers!!  So, as I'm reading about the club I'm thinking bag patterns are usually $10 - $12 a piece.  Since this is a club the price will probably be a little less than the cost of six individual pattern, right?  I'm thinking maybe $50.  So that's cool because I loved all the previous bags by these designers so I know these six will be great.  BUT WAIT!!!  I get to the bottom of the post and Chris is trying to tell me that it's only $40 to join.  WHAAAAAATT!!!  That's even better because I just got paid $40 for a bag I made for a customer!!  Holy snowman Charlie Brown!  How perfect is that?!  BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE......if you join in the month of December it's only $35!!  There really is a Santa Claus Virginia!!  That's less than 6 bucks a pattern.  I think it took me all of two minutes to click over to Sew Sweetness and sign myself up!  Merry Christmas to me!!
                                     
   So if you want to join in on this club, and you know you want to, click on over HERE and sign on up.  All the cool kids are doing it!!!  Come on, I want to see lots of finished bag pics on Facebook.

 Hopefully tomorrow I will get up my present progress report!  Come on back and check out my stuff!!

GUESS WHAT DAY IT IS...

Anybody...anybody...  it's Black Tie Boogie Day...YEAAAAAAHHHHH!!!  Okay, it's Wednesday too!  Hehehe, just a little commercial fun for all those that love the Geiko camel.  I really am excited about my turn though.  Thanks to Madame Samm for coming up with such a fun idea and to Vicki for cheering us all on.  If not for those two I probably wouldn't have gotten my project done in time.  It is a Christmas present for my brother and sister-in-law.
  About a year ago, or so, they decided to keep some chickens.  So my brother set about building a coop and bought some hens and a couple of really cool roosters.  Here's some picks of his boys...

And here's the coop only partially finished.  Since this pic, my brother added on all kinds of additions, painted it red and gated it in.  So for Christmas I wanted to make him a simple wall hanging.  I was going to do two (one of each rooster) but I ran out of time.  The tan rooster is my favorite so that is the one I started with.  So here's my version of Brownie...

 And here's the roost he rules!!!

Doesn't he look handsome on my wall with the fall decorations?!

 

UH OH someone must have just looked in the hen house and found it empty!  Brownie went outside to look for all his lovely ladies!!!

Well, I hope my brother and his wife enjoy my present.  I'm pretty sure they don't know I have a blog so they won't see this post.  Brownie says cluck your way on over to all the other Black Tie affairs in blog land today...

November 20

Debby Kratovil Quilts

Seams To Be Sew

Robins Fabric Nest

                                                 Scrapbook-ChickADoodle

Stella Bag

This is going to be just a quick post of mostly pics of a few bags I have recently made.  I have been meaning to write some bag making post to link up with ChrisWs' Brag Bag Tuesday posts for MONTHS!!!  She was kind enough to let me test a few of her bags and I wanted to repay her kindness by playing along on Tuesdays.  But then Tuesday would come and go and no posts.  And so I'd think "next week, for sure"!  Well, 28 weeks later and it's finally NEXT WEEK.  Okay, so I missed Tuesday but I'll work on the DAY of the week......next week!!!  Bahahahahaha!!!  As I tell my husband, the whole time management thing is quite a mystery to me!  So, Christine, I am sorry it took me so long and I really will try to link up more often!
  Here are two cross body bags that I made using the Stella Bag pattern from Sewing Sue.
 

We are big Penn State fans in this family!  All the college age people in the family attend Penn State at one campus or another! I ran out of plain black fabric so it still needs a handle!!   Here are a few more views of it...

And here is a Christmas version that I made to donate to a basket raffle at work benefiting CMN.

So that's all for this week.  Check back in NEXT WEEK (hehe) for the next installment.  It will be Chris Only bags!!  Oh yeah, have a great weekend and...Sew On, my friends!!!