Thursday is Purse Day - Autumn Peacock Purse

Let's mix it up a little - sometimes Thursdays have a theme and sometimes they have purses.  
In the Thursday is Purse Day series, I'll show you purses I made and explain the process/inspiration behind them.

The body of Autumn Peacock purse is 4 x 8 inches.  The inspiration was the feather and the peacock fabric in warm, rich colors.  The outer fabric is faux suede home dec, a base on which I stitched various colored threads and yarn.  I wish I knew what that style of yarn is called that looks like little towels hanging on a clothesline; I bet my friend Debbie knows.  The edge of the flap is a different yarn; I did about six rows of plain knitting to make a skinny strip.

The black/green/rust feathers are one piece; the yellow feathers are extra ones I added.  They are tucked into a large mica-looking bead edged with Swarovski crystals.  I was playing with the purse while writing this post and found out that the other side of the mica beads are green.

Here's a good view of the peacock fabric on the inside of the purse.  The rust-colored triangle is just another decoration, this time knit with chenille yarn.

The back...

and a close-up view of some beading on the handle.

Tea for Tuesday

Each Tuesday I'll be featuring a vignette of tea-related items.  Most of them will have one of my teapots; they all have at least one thing you could use at a tea party.

I love my Art Deco pitcher.  The fans to the right and left are of an unknown (to me) functionality.  They have a hole in the top, like they might be planters.  They look like bookends, but are too lightweight.  At a tea party, you could safely use them as vases or someplace to hold the silverware.

This is the apron that you would wear when serving that pitcher.  I made it with three layers:

1. The bottom layer is a tea towel of plum and green.  I edged it with pastel peach and white lace.  
2. The second layer is a lavender handkerchief.  
3. The third layer consists of three - gosh, I don't know if they are more hankies or if they're napkins.  

The green and lavender layers are from Wendy Richardson. 

I decided they're napkins.

Close-up view of the teapot pin, made of polymer clay.

November Firsts

Jamie Lee Curtis had a lengthy interview in the October 2012 issue of Good Housekeeping.  She talks about a friend's daughter who had a "summer of firsts".  The point is that children have lots of firsts; adults - not so much.  They quit trying new things.

I was surprised to find that I had four firsts in November (usually I don't have any!).  They all happened to be quilt-related, so it wouldn't hurt me to branch out, I guess.  Anyhow, these are my firsts and what I learned:

MY FIRST FIRST: QUILT RETREAT
I learned that I don't know how to pack!!!  I had a very large plastic container on wheels, with a handle.  You'd think I could've fit everything in there, especially since I didn't bring a sewing machine.  You'd be wrong.  I also carried a sewing basket, purse, skinny (but huge) carrier for my cutting mats, and an even huger bag of extension cords and power strips.  I'm pretty sure there was other stuff, too.  I need a new plan for the next retreat in February.

I also learned not to pack water next to handmade name tags that I made with non-permanent ink.  I was lucky that seventeen came out OK, but two were smeared.  Those two women were gracious and wore them anyhow!

 
MY SECOND FIRST: EMBROIDERY

I started this at the retreat, and was I ever glad I did.  I learned to do the smoothest stem stitch in the world from my friend Mary, an excellent crazy quilter.

MY THIRD FIRST: ENGLISH PAPER PIECING

I used fabric from a charm pack to make this coaster, and used Insul-Bright for the batting.  I cut the hexagons from paper.  I learned how time-consuming that is, so in the future I'm going to buy pre-cut paper templates from Connecting Threads.  They're worth the money and will be more accurate.  

After I meticulously sewed the hexies together so you couldn't see any of the stitches, I debated if I should hand applique or machine stitch them to the front.  Did I want to look at machine stitching after all that work?  I decided yes because it would make it more sturdy and do double duty as quilting.

MY FOURTH FIRST: QUILTER'S COMPASS

If you like modern fabric, do yourself a favor and go to Quilter's Compass in Monticello.  My friend Barb took me there this weekend and we had a fantastic day!  It was Small Business Saturday and almost everything in the store was 20% off.  I KNOW!!!!  When did you ever hear of a quilting store doing that?  

I learned that I liked that store and that I like when Barb drives me there.  Here's some of the fabric, along with a few things I got at Patches and Petals in Belleville on the way home.  Nearly everything you see, though, is from Quilter's Compass.

    This fabric was on a rack that was already 20% off.  I got ANOTHER 20% off!!

Art Gallery, Robert Kaufman, Moda.

1930s reproductions.

 Loralie Harris (spools and sewing machines) and Benartex text.

 

I needed reds for a fabric color wheel I'm making.  I don't know what I'll do with the leftovers, since I don't like red!

 A stack of miscellaneous. PLUS there's another dozen and a half fat quarters - I got tired of taking pictures.

I learned that what's even better than firsts, is finding ones that you want seconds and thirds of.  That's what I'm going to do with all of my November firsts.

More or Less

Hi and welcome back!  I missed you!

Since I started this blog in late August, I've learned a lot and had more fun than I ever anticipated.  But I've done very little new sewing / purse making / book making since then.  I've seen this happen with other bloggers.  Some slowly wind down; some stop altogether.  I don't want to be either one of those, so I decided I needed a new plan.
 
I spent last week catching up on some things and thinking.  Each time I did something, I found myself asking if I wanted to do more of it or if I wanted to do less of it.  Sometimes I didn't know what I wanted to do!   For example, I spent the first two days of my vacation cleaning.  I got on such a roll, and things were looking so clean and shiny, that I halfway wanted to keep at it the rest of the week.  Luckily, my husband set me straight on that being a bad idea!

In order to regain some balance in my life, I'm going to cut back from five posts a week.  Most of you don't check in every day and probably won't notice a difference.  I'll keep my same features (Not Just Another Pretty Face, Tea for Tuesday, Thursday Theme, Thursday is Purse Day, From the Vault), but in most cases you won't see all of them in the same week.  

By spending more time on new creations, I'll be sure to continue to fill my energy pie.  And I hope to have more of a balance of new to old on my blog.
 

This is an ad from the November 1935 issue of McCall's magazine.  I bought it last month on a trip to a vintage store.  It looks to me like these women are coming up with a new plan, too.  Autumn is a good time to start re-evaluating, what with the short days and all.

I'm excited for the future for me and, if you decide you need a new plan as well,  for you too!!

Refocusing

We'll be taking a little break in order to take some of my own advice.  See you next Sunday, November 25.  Have a good week and be sure to spend your time in a way that is important to you!

Thursday is Purse Day - Poodle Purse

Let's mix it up a little - sometimes Thursdays have a theme and sometimes they have purses.  
In the Thursday is Purse Day series, I'll show you purses I made and explain the process/inspiration behind them.

 

This is the front of Poodle Purse.  I was inspired by the poodle appliques with the 3-d pom pom tails.  I think this is my only purse with a V-neck.  That shape and the black lace help to emphasize the poodles and give the purse a really feminine feel.

Pom poms everywhere!  The fabric is seersucker - you can somewhat see the puckers around each of the tiny rectangles.  Lots of texture on this purse!

This is the back of Poodle Purse.  A strip of sparkly beaded trim frames the poodle picture.  The vertical sides of the outer frame are velvet ribbon woven through cording.  I can't take credit for it; I bought it that way.

I had two tassels left over from the front, so had to use them of course!  I love tassels; they're so silky and soft like a poodle's ears.

Interior pocket, attached with bugle and seed beads.

Nearly all of my purses have cards where I write my name and the completion date.  (Elephant Purse doesn't have one.)  This is the front of the card, made from a wallpaper sample.  It looks like she's talking into her shoe.  I wonder what's in that cup?

All Packed Up

When I bought the embroidery books and hoops that I told you about in Hoop Dee Dah, I naturally bought more embroidery floss.  Well, I had to, because it was on sale.

This is the new floss I bought, twenty skeins.  Are they called skeins?  Anyhow, this is how they always start out, nice and parallel. 

 

This is what my old stash looked like when I took it out of the drawer.  I didn't try to make it messy, either!!!  No way was I going to put my nice new parallel lines of floss into the piggy drawer.  I need a new system.  But what???

This is one of the new pigs that recently joined the sounder.  He tells me he has an idea on what to do.  I'm all ears.

Sorry, I misunderstood.  I thought he meant he had an organizing solution.  We better leave this to me.  This calls for another shopping trip...

This is my 3-ring binder.  They sure make some cute binders nowadays.  I'm going to store my floss inside the cute binder, so that every time I open it, I get excited, instead of annoyed with a piggy drawer.

This is the storage solution.  You wrap the floss around the cardboard bobbin, tuck the bobbin in a slot of the plastic sheet, then file the plastic sheet in the cute binder.

Monday night I wound 58 bobbins in four hours.  (I couldn't help it; I had to keep track.)

Let me tell you why I'm glad I did this:

• I got rid of intra-floss tangles: Some of the paper on the old skeins was really stuck to the floss and pulling on the tail just wasn't working.  How frustrating that would be, to be needing another little piece of floss, and then running into a tangle when you go to get more!  It would destroy your embroidery karma. 
• I got rid of inter-floss tangles:  You were there - you saw the picture from the piggy drawer. 
• The floss is easily accessible.
• You can see at a glance which colors are heavily represented, and which aren't.  I found out I have LOTS of green.
• I learned  which colors have enduring appeal to me.  There were four new ones that were the exact match of ones I already had.

So here it is - all packed up and ready for me to go embroider.