So Much For Sewing Today

This tiny tote is made from the left over fabrics and I had fun making it. I actually began it very early this morning and it was to be one of a dozen.

Today I had planned to sew all day, decided not to walk, decided not to leave the house, but to just sit here and sew and get all of my tiny totes order finished, but as luck would have it, that was not to be the activity of the day! Noooooooo, instead we had a flood of water cascading into the basement and all day was donated to that mess, turns out we had two problems, not bad enough to have had only one mess, but two. The sump pump was pooling the water back into the basement and the bladder went in the pressure tank.....great stuff. I had promised everyone that should another flood happen I would pack my hobo bag and hit the rails, taking the first freight train out of town going anywhere there was a desert. Well, it really was traumatic cause we've lived through major damage cause by flooding into our basement of our last house and I never wanted to see that type of incident again. Now you may think I am being a bit melodramatic, but once you live through that not once but twice and lose every stick of furniture, and personal possessions and deal with the mess and the spraying of chemicals for mold and deal with contractors in the rebuilds, and make decisions on replacing things, and fighting with the insurance company you paid premiums to for umpteen years, only to discover some clever need to show the company how good he is at saving their money denies your claim, or finally paying up but making you wait forever, well, you get my drift I'm sure. I really was thinking I would hit the rails and become a real live hobo... yeah right, can't you just see it now, humping my fabrics and sewing machine around.... Maybe if I go to sleep now and wake fitfully in the morning I may just talk myself into believing it was all a bad dream and I won't have to endure this drama.

Lunch was forgotten, supper was had too early and mother decided to sleep it all off leaving me to clean up the mess, but, surprise, I actually left the supper dishes and will take care of than in the morning, I am just to tired and fed up with water problems and its pervasive mess so I abdicated as general dogsbody for the night and watched a movie instead. IF you want a wonderful movie to watch from the latest new releases, watch Marley and Me - a good movie for a change.

A Teeny Tote

This is the tiniest tote I have made so far. It measures 6" X 4" X 2"...
Inside the teeny tote
Outside front of teeny tote.

Over The Hump I think

This is a tiny girlie tote bag, ready for Easter or summer.

This is also a summery tote, I enjoyed working with the colourful fabrics and the summer insects, dragonflys, ladybugs and butterflys.

I found some Mary Englebright fabric and decided another tiny tote could be made for some little Miss to enjoy.

My Red Hatter tote, much taller than some I have been making with lots of inside pockets.

This has not been as productive a week as I wished it would be. Already I have had three trying days ending with yesterday and two physical mishaps. One when returning from my daily hourly walk, I managed to turn my ankle on a broken sidewalk, wrenching my neck and my back trying to stop the fall, then, just before having my supper I managed to miss the bottom two steps in the basement and went flying into the air and landed on the concrete floor, this time skinning my knee ( a real boo boo) and doing more damage to my hip and my neck. I am now sporting a nice bandaid and smeared with a nasty smelly rub in an attempt to make my neck feel better.

To top it all off the beautiful 55 year old crystal pinwheel bowl got smashed to smithereens by mother wanting something and decided to pick it up and dropped it. (Can you all say Ahhhhhhhhhh for me!!!) I'm still finding shared and bits of glass even though I swept, vacumed, swept again and used a dust mop, glass will be found for the next few weeks to be sure, as glass scatters everywhere.

I feel like an 18 wheeler ran me down, so with two tylenols' ingested and some nasty smelly rub I am back in front of the computer and am ready to start another new day and hopefully my misfortunes of the first part of the week are over and done with and the remainder hopefully will go off without a hitch.

I have managed to complete a few bags, those I posted at the top of this post. I must somehow find that creative point inside of me to develop something more interesting than just making these rather retangular or squared totes. the tinies are for my sister-in-laws' store and she hopes to sell these for Easter along with some pastel coloured easter baskets. I do hope these will sell, I could use the money to buy more fabrics - YIPPEE another excuse to visit a fabric store.

Will have to work on that creating theory next week, I wouldn't want to try something new this week, it may just frustrate me. LOL!!!

A bright spot in my morning was the screaching of a Mama Blue Jay sitting on the rof edge just outside my window arguing with a Red Winged Black bird, who seemingly also wants to nest in the same area of the huge pine tree as the Blue Jays' apartment. She wasn't having any of that. I did try for a picture, but by the time I retreived my camera she'd already flown to the tree and was assaulting the black bird.

Okay, off to see the wizzard right now, too many chores to complete before I can allow myself to get near Nellie - my much loved and used sewing machine.

Silken Treasures

Today I would like to introduce you to my mothers' silk floral arrangements. At age 86 her creative spirit is quite alive and well. These arrangements are no longer in her collection as they were all sold last year. Once the Hut On Mill Street opens for the season this Spring, she will once again begin creating these wonderful one of a kind arrangements.



Florals by Johanna are ordered by so many and orders are beginning to pour in once again.



I hope you enjoy this collage.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

I have discovered that blogging is not an easy task and I applaud all bloggers and their beautifully presented blog posts. Many bloggers seem to create such interesting posts and well organized photo's to accompany the message. This is the umpteenth try at getting my pictures in the order I wanted to view them so, I do hope for those who are following will forgive my ineptness while I learn as I go along.

I have decided I needed to try my hand at creating for myself a reversible tote which would be strong and large enough to hold several different items, and could be neatly folded and either carried within my handbag or in the side pocket of the car and ready for those times when on the spur of the moment you find yourself inside a shop and decided to bring home a few things. In the alternative, it also will make a good travel companion either for air travel when you have bought one too many souveniers to bring home, or going to the beach and bringing back that wet suit or dampend towel.

I have used some left over fabrics from other quilted bags I have made and put these together to come up with the bag you see below.

This first side has the mottled batik and the solid orange parachute fabric for the interior of the bag and the outside pockets which you will see at the bottom of the outside of this first side.
This is the inside where I used the mottled batik for the pockets and the solid orange as the linging.

Turning the bag inside out it now becomes a similar bag only with the fabrics rearranged to give it a different look.

These two looks while similar are still different when turned inside out and completely washable.

These looks then can become this folded little rectangle and placed inside your purse or the car. I am pleased it turned out much better than I had hoped.

This is the folded travelling reversible tote bag.

Windy In The Bay Today

My four legged friend Mitzji and I went out walking this morning and almost got ourselves blown into the land of Oz along with Toto and Dorothy.

Storm clouds hovers over the Bay but those strong winds keep blowing them east and the sun continues to bravely show itself every hour or so for a few moments. The weatherman says tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and the temperature is supposed to rise.

Now these are not the exact flags which are being blown about at out Legion park, but this is certainly what the flags look like in these strong winds.

I haven't seen signs in the garden just yet but must keep a lookout because there are supposed to be crocuses planted in this garden of the home we just recently moved into.

My sister-in-law and I have had my walk for the day and I must admit half way through it I was ready to sit out the rest of the way. Both of us moved rather slowly. Hopefully those lazy winter muscles will be in better shape for our walk tomorrow!

I have begun a new bag so once it is finished I am going to post it. For now though I think it is nap time and as one of my many acquaintances manages to say I think I will inspect the pillows.

Time to Switch Things Up A Tad

I have begun walking every day since basically I am always sitting either behind the wheel of the car, or on the sofa watching television keeping my mother company, or at my most favorite of places, in front of the sewing machine.

This first day the sun was shining and we went down to the point.

The second day it rained. Wasn't too comfortable but we persevered and did the same walk to the point. This takes us a good half hour.

Yesterday it managed to snow and the walk was rather mucky, but we were determined to do our daily walk so off to the point we went. Took us a bit longer than usual because we had to keep moving out of the way of traffic.

I don't mind telling you that today is the fourth successive day for the walks and both my sister-in-law as well as myself were just a little lagging in our strides. Hopefully tomorrow we'll feel more upbeat and can do our 3/4's of an hour without dragging our steps all the way back home. http://exercise.about.com/ Visit this site, it has wonderful information on the idea of choosing walking as a good fitness exercise. The nice thing about our choice to walk is that besides the toning of muscles out cardio vascular systems are also getting a very much needed workout.

Hopefully I will lose one whole person of the two I seem always for the past many years to be carrying around with me.

I belong to a wonderful online quilting group and our group has managed nine annual gatherings out of the ten years we have all be together. SO this summer I hope to see my friends as a much improved and healthier speciman.

More bags

Firey Dragon Tote

This is the firey dragon. Don't you just love the vibrance
of the colours?
Inside of tote with pockets
Bag from the outside

Swimming Penguins in Vibrant Tourquoise Blue

Again pockets were fitted to the inside.
This mid-sized tote turned out not to shabby at all.

Among the many choices of fabrics this colourful Batik was chosen for one of the bags inside the order. I enjoyed working with it so very much.

This is the inside of the bag with items in the pockets to show it off.

This is the front of the bag with pockets galore.

This is the back of the bag showing off the vivid tourquoise butterflies.

Busy, Busy, Busy

From the bags I made and donated to the Frost Festival in February I received a number of orders for a variety of bags. Many wanted penguin fabrics so that next year these will all be sported about town during the Festival.

I also received a nice order for quilted bags and these are becoming alot of fun to create.

This first bag I am showing here is a Market Bag and I lined it, because the lady wanted something different than the usual style for when she went shopping.


This is the inside of the Market Tote



This is the front of the Market Bag and I added three pockets to the front of it.

This Market bag was just made last week, forget the date stamp cause I had to borrow a camera and their camera must not be used very much cause they hadn't changed the date stamp.


This is a copy of Joan Hawley's Gracie Bag. I used 100% wool for the outer shell and 100% cotton for the co-ordinating fabric and a batik for the pockets. This is the inside of the purse.

This is the outside of the Gracie bag. Turned out not too poorly at all.

This is a tote with mesh and 100% cotton.

Mesh and 100% cotton novelty fabric.

Every body here in the Bay ordered penguin fabric for their bags - these will be out in full force next February when the Festival begins all over again.

MY Totable Totes

As the Bag Lady from The Bay I would say that for the present time I am going through a phase, making totes and purses or handbags seems to be the order of the last several weeks.

IF you see a loose thread or a mistake I've made (and I make many) then please point it out cause my vision is only 20/20 :))


I made the following totes and donated these to our Community for the Frost Festival held the first weekend of February. All proceeds from the Festival are spread out to various non-profit community groups. Some even to purchase or refurbish the community center or purchase equipment for the recreation area, constructing for instance a baseball field and bleachers, or adding a walking trail, or refurbishing playground equipment, etc. Our Fire hall has the best pumper truck in the whole region, thanks to the efforts and energies of the FROST FEST COMMITTEE and all of the participants of this Community. The entire Community benefits from this Annual Event.

This purse was made with animal fun fur and such fun to construct. Not only does it have pockets on the inside but some nifty pockets on the outside making it practical to carry all of our "stuff"!

This tote was created out of upholstery fabrics which were samples and the colours were phenomenol and vibrant so I couldn't resist using it. It has lots of practical pockets in it. We put a pair of croqs inside it and it made a wonderful prize for one of the button prizes. The buttons are purchased every year and all bear consequtive numbers. Throughout the month of January and the days preceding the actual commencement of the Frost Festival, the Happy Penguin Spotter will choose button numbers and these then are prize winners.

This tote was made using mesh and 100% cotton fabrics. Again, a gal needs lots of storage in them thar totes and I added lots of practical storage pockets inside.

This is the first quilted tote I ever made and wasn't too unhappy with the way it turned out. Someone won it as a prize from the Penguin Spotter.