Thursday is Purse Day - Elephant 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 Elephant Purse.  The back and the front bottom are made of elbow patches - hence the oval shape.  The fabric is rayon and has an African vibe.  I pulled the turquoise color from it and used it in the beads and yarn.

The front flap is supposed to look like elephant tusks - the three large glass beads in the center also had a tusk-like feel to me.  The flap is a Timtex sandwich with the rayon fused to the front and back.  I did two rounds of zig-zag stitching around the edge - one in black thread, one in turquoise.

The front and back are hand stitched together with regular cotton thread (dumb idea!!)  This was one of my first purses, before I learned that Silamide (waxed nylon beadstring) came in a wide range of colors - including turquoise!  I used the prepunched holes in the leather, but it was still hard to get the needle through and line up the front and back holes.

This is an inside, upside-down view.  Most of the beads have a functional purpose.  The horizontal line on the rayon "tusk" front cover is used to hide the thread that attaches the glass tusks.  The small rows of vertical beads between the front and back are the hinges on which the front lifts up.  A little bit of eyelash yarn trims the bottom front edge (which is in the top of the picture.)

This is the back and was the inspiration.  It was a piece of an African bedspread I bought at Wisconsin Quilt Expo many years ago.  

I really put my sewing machine through its paces by using a satin stitch to sew the cotton to the leather.  Hurray for Elna sewing machines!!  

My First Quilt Retreat's Name Tag

At the end of My First Quilt Retreat, I told you I'd show you my name tag today.  Here it is...

All the other name tags I've made, I free motioned my name.  For this one, I made marching letters out of fused fabric.  Of course I still needed to free motion the edges to hold them on nice and tight.  

The name tag is about three inches square, and the letters are one inch tall.  The worst part was cutting that little triangle out of the "A".  The giraffe is another thing I stole from my miniature house.  It used to be a statue on a shelf.  At first it worried me that it was going in a different direction than all the other giraffes, but I soon got used to it.  There's one in every crowd.

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.

Out of all the teapots I own, I think this is the only valuable one.  It's very small - would hold one cup of water.  Maybe it's not even a teapot - maybe it's a creamer.  At any rate, it is really old, probably from the 1910s - 1920s, and is of obvious Arts and Crafts styling.  Most of the lettering on the bottom has worn off, so I can't find any information about it.

The book of plates (printing, not food) is the work of Eugene Alain Seguy (1889 - 1985).  Seguy was a French designer in the Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles, whose popularity peaked in the early 20th century.  His prints provided source material for designers of wallpaper, fabric, ceramics, book illustrations, posters, and advertisements.  His motifs were based on the natural world, particularly flowers and insects. 

Although the teapot is not a Seguy design, I always find it cozied up to this book.

What a leftie sees.

My First Quilt Retreat

Remember the first day of school each fall?  Were you the one that looked forward to it or were you the one that dreaded it?  I LOVED going back to school.  When I was in grade school, I used to practice my handwriting the night before the first day.  Then on the last day I would stay behind and help the teacher clean out the room.  I would take my papers home and then go play school.

I'm going to my first quilt retreat this month.  It's a one-day retreat, which is about all the time I can stand to be away from home.  One of the things you do at retreats is meet new people, so I thought the occasion naturally called for a new name tag.  Now, I could have chosen one of the ones I have planned, based on the clues in Who Am I?  And I still plan to make those eventually.  All except for the one that is supposed to be inspired by the green ruffle -  I don't remember what that was going to be.

I was at Stitcher's Crossing the other day buying some black fabric for my dress form quilt, and I saw extraordinarily cool rolls of ribbons near the cash register.  Now THAT'S what I need for my retreat name tag, I said to myself.

I've been listening to an audio program on The Art of Critical Decision Making.  I have trouble making decisions, and I think it might help me out.  But I'm not sure.  In one lecture, he talked about cognitive biases.  The idea is that if you're aware of them, you can tamp them down a bit.  One of the cognitive biases is called Sunken Cost.  A sunken cost is a past cost, and in a totally rational world, it shouldn't influence a future decision, particularly if that first decision was a bad and expensive one.  (You're familiar with the phrase "throwing good money after bad.")  Each decision should be made on its own merits. 

Let me expound on that, in an opposite sort of way, based on my upcoming first retreat. We start out, not with an expensive purchase, but rather with 60 cents (including tax!) worth of ribbon.  I got to thinking about all the pretty watches I saw last month.  Gee, I think I need a nice colorful one to match my new name tag-to-be.

Score!  This is just the thing.  But I don't have a sweater or shirt or top that can live up to the glory of my fancy new watch and name tag-to-be.  I decide I must have one.

My, that's a fine-looking shirt and it looks like it was just waiting for me to come along.  I was on the fence about deciding to get new jeans, because I saw some great colors, but they're that stupid skinny jean style.  Ha! Temptation averted!  That doesn't mean I can't have a cute pair of socks to go with my fine-looking shirt, fancy new watch, and name tag-to-be.

That was quite a decision-making process I had to go through in the sock department.  It was the hardest decision I made all day.  There was solid orange, solid aqua, all kinds of polka dots, argyles, and more.  I'm proud of my restraint in the sock department, since I decided to get just one pair.

 

Now it's time to make the name tag.   Remember the name tag, the reason this all started???  

After the pigs got done making a mess with my new hand-dyed fabric, I corralled them all into this suitcase.  The fabric, not the pigs.  I keep the lid shut, but don't worry, the pigs can open the latch.  As long as they put things back when they're done, I'm fine with it.  I'm going to use the 5-inch squares on top - navy and yellow/green.  You'll see the finished product on Wednesday.

See how the Sunken Cost cognitive bias works in reverse fashion?  You don't have to start with a large expenditure.  In this case study, we saw the dominoes fall from ribbon into watch into shirt into socks.  Oh yeah, I also bought a rotating cutting mat.  I heard they're helpful.  At least I didn't buy an iron.  Yet.

Not Just Another Pretty Face

Each Sunday, I'll take a break from the material aspects of this blog and spend a little time looking at the finer points of pigdom.  Most people probably appreciate the ham and bacon side of pigs; little do they know they have a deeper side as well.  

We'll start the week with a peek into the favorite quotes of thoughtful pigs and also learn a pig factoid (pigoid?) in a feature called Pigipedia.

PIGIPEDIA 
Race car driver Mario Andretti used to have a pot-bellied pig named Martini and a Great Dane named Bosco.  He trained Bosco to go into his dog crate at night by giving him a biscuit before he went to bed.   Mario gave him the biscuit, Bosco took it to his crate, and then he'd stay there all night.  Martini only had to see that a few times before he understood what was going on.  One night when Mario gave Bosco the biscuit, Martini ran and snatched the biscuit right out of the Great Dane's mouth.  And then he ran into Bosco's crate, just like he saw Bosco do every night.

Thursday Theme - Solar System, Part 3

Each Thursday I'll feature items that have a similar theme.  They might be quilts, books, or purses I made.  Or, they might be ceramics or other objects (not made by me) related to the theme.  If there are too many, I'll spread them out over multiple, but not always consecutive, posts.

Today we continue with a series of books I made on the solar system.  We are walking through the planets based on their proximity to the sun, going from closest to farthest.  In September, I introduced you to Mercury, Venus, and Earth.  In October we visited Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.  Today's journey takes us to Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

Some of the books have riddles that I got from a children's book.  Sometimes the riddles gave me ideas for what the book should look like.   This is the cover of Uranus.

Now that you see the answer to the riddle, you can see (hopefully) that the form of the book is patterned after a Ferris Wheel.  To turn the pages, you flip them over on the rings.

 

A better view.

This is the envelope for Neptune, with a water theme, of course.  Lucky for me, the felt came with that shell embossing on the edge.

 Cover of Neptune peeking out of the envelope.

Centerfold with stamps and buttons.  The jumpy-things in the upper right are gummy candy.  I bought them to put on some Fishbowl cupcakes inspired by the book Hello, Cupcake! - but I never got around to making them.  Too busy making books.

This paper was nice and supple and  I was able to sew it on my sewing machine.  You may have noticed a line of stitching down the middle of the previous photo, and here you can see stitching on the edges.  The orbs are the pages in the book.

To read the book, pull out an orb (one of Neptune's 16 moons) and turn it over. 

This is a scary looking cover.  Pluto is so far away and so cold, that I picked this stark-looking paper.  I know that scientists don't consider Pluto to be a planet any more, but when I made the book there was still a healthy controversy.

Inside the book, back of the pages.

This is what it looks like as you flip through the book.  All the pages have words on the back, but the way they are attached to the accordian fold you sometimes have text and sometimes just the cold, shiny, metallic backside.

There's still one final segment in this series.  Look for it in December.  Until then, happy star gazing!!!