Now I know why they sometimes call a dog leash a lead. It's because one leash leads to something else. It happens like this...
I bought a new leash for our dog last week. He didn't need it, but I did. I liked the modern feel of these colors; they looked nice and clean.
That led to me washing the car and buying new floor mats. Then I eyed the dog blanket in the back of the car, which keeps most of the fur and dirt confined to one easy-to-clean area. It didn't look modern at all. Nor was it a fitting accompaniment for a spruced-up car and a new leash.
I decided to make a new blanket, out of fleece. I found these elephants that matched the colors in his leash perfectly. The store was 1/2 yard short of what I needed, so I added a border of houndstooth at the top. It adds a little more pizzazz than a solid grey.
Just the thing for a ride home from a long walk on the prairie.
Today we'll look at the third and final tote bag I made from Terry Atkinson's Happy Hour book.
I call it Swamp Purse, because that's what the fabric looks like to me. The top fabric is rayon; the bottom is cotton.
Buttons on one side look like sliced, petrified tree trunks.
Buttons on the other side look like - well, you be the judge of that.
The inside fabric evokes the thick grasses and vines in a swamp. Aqua shell buttons cover the stitching for the exterior buttons.
The wallet for this purse is a mini-tote.
Here are the three wallets.
And here are the three totes.
Several weeks ago, I started making some charity quilts - four lap quilts and three shawls. My plan was to make all the tops, then make all the sandwiches, then do all the quilting and binding. I thought this would be very efficient, and for some reason I thought it would be fun. Like doing laps.
Somewhere along the line, I got tired of that plan and came up with a new plan - finish all the lap quilts first. Mission accomplished.
Lap Quilt #1: I showed you this top in If It Feels Bad, Don't Do It. Now it's complete.
Pink fleece for the backing; straight-line quilting.
Lap Quilt #2: Pastel flannels on the front.
Pastel fleece back; concentric rectangular quilting echoes the Courthouse Steps on the front.
Lap Quilt #3: Mostly flannels on the front. Binding was pieced from the leftovers.
Brilliant yellow fleece on the back matches the fiesta feel of the front. Squiggly line quilting.
Lap Quilt #4: That stripey Kaffe Fassett in the border is the same print, but different colors, that you saw in #1.
Shocking pink fleece on back.
Now I'm off to work on the shawls; hope to finish them this week.
Back-to-school season is the best time to buy spiral and composition notebooks. You can stock up on the good deals (some are as low as 19 cents). But they have plain covers, and I can't study very well with those.
This is the first batch I bought in mid-July. I wanted a lot more, but I made myself be reasonable and only bought my favorites.
But I kept thinking about this lot, so last week I went back and bought them.
And then I found a few I hadn't noticed before. They say you can't tell a book by its cover, but yes you can. I used to write on three-hole-punched paper and transfer it to a ring binder, but this year I'm trying something different.
Here's another tote bag made from Terry Atkinson's "Happy Hour" book. I made it the same time I made the yellow/black/white one we looked at last week.
Not that we want to start thinking about autumn, but this one has a fall theme.
The buttons on the front are polymer. I'm pretty sure I got them at the International Quilt Festival once upon a time. Back then they were really exciting. Now you can find buttons just as cute at Jo-Ann.
I didn't have pink buttons bright enough to suit me, so I glued a 5/8" sparkly bead on top of the hand stitching that attached the handle to the bag.
A different fabric on the inside.
I made a different kind of wallet for this tote. It's a triangle that's held closed with a polymer leaf pin.
Here's the open wallet, so you can see construction details.
You wouldn't want to undo that pin every time you get something out of the wallet, and you don't have to. When it's folded back up and pinned, you can still slip bills and other goodies in and out.
