Home Sweet Home

It's so nice to be home but I did enjoy connecting with long-time friends and meeting new CQers also.  I had planned to work on my suffrage quilt there but somehow when I packed 3 of the blocks were left at home. I tried to be restrained during the fabric swaps but managed to get a piece of nice orange silk for my project for my granddaughter and this pile of brown ties...  I know it will be awhile before I do somber colors again but they were such beautiful silks.

I didn't get many pictures taken but Kerry has been doing a great job on her blog with the pictures she took....  Stop by and take a look...  It was a fantastic facility with lots of tables to work on... For me the only problem was the altitude again... 8000'. 

Morris has stuck to me like glue since I got home and eager to show me his new toy.   Other dogs have stuffed animals and squeaky toys...  Morris has become emotionally attached to a big old hammer which he carries around all over and occasionally chews on the handle.  When he is not carrying it around he keeps it on this pillow or hides it under my desk.

DH is leaving Monday for a job as an escort for a tour going to Croatia for 3 weeks so I will be busy helping him for the next few days...  Then I can stitch, stitch, stitch...

Nice to be missed!

Thanks for the emails inquiring whether I am still alive and well...  Yes but almost ever since Susie left I have been involved with preparing the slide presentations for the retreat... I am doing two... "What makes it work" and "Salvaging a Block"  First it requires actually defining my own thoughts so I can articulate  but also lots of time sorting and acquiring images..  I have settled on nearly 100 for each program but to get that I probably sorted through 4 times that many.. 

And as always life is there to throw in a few curves... When you are in the drought cycle the last thing you want to see on a farm is water appearing on the surface of the ground.... a sure sign of a leak in a underground pipe...and even worse it was about a 1' away from the foundation of the garage..which meant lots of hand digging..  It's now fixed but in the process there is a problem in the pump house and a yard pump that will need to be dug up... Both those will have to wait until I get back but the one by the garage was not one that could wait... fixed now..at a price.

Then Inga came from Leavenworth and bought my remaining ewes last weekend... Even though I know they could not be going to a better home, it was so sad to load them on her truck and I'd be lying if I did not admit to shedding some tears. It was not only losing the sheep but giving up yet another part of my life because I am getting older.....  very depressing.  She also took my ewe lamb and asked if I had named it... I hadn't because I was trying not to bond with it also... But she sent me a email and said she had named it "Gerry".  I believe this is a  photo   taken shortly after she was born...

If you have followed my blog for any time at all you know that they occupied the good part of my daily life and a large part of my heart.

How I handled my handle!!

I was lucky enough to have found this lovely soft suede belt to have for a handle on my bag and I could just stitch across the bottom and there was not worry about having raw edges...

 But I realized if  I were making a cloth handle (as I probably will on my next bag) that again there would be extra bulk and/or raw edges... So this is how I covered the straight seam on my suede handle and I could do the same with a cloth handle...

After I stitched it with a raw edge I layered a small round doily, a crocheted medallion and used a spectacular button to attach... the lace trim on the inside of the bag covers the button stitching.

And it turned out to be the  perfect finishing touch.  That metal button is about 1 x 1 1/2" beauty I've had for years and years and it was always just too big for anything...  It was one of three so on my next time I will use the last one on one side of the bag and a mismatch beauty on the other side...

As an alternative you could do it all with buttons... Just use a couple buttons on the lower part and THEN attach   lace and large fancy button. where the arrow is and the lower buttons would be covered and a stitch or two in the lace would keep any raw edges hidden...

Is this clever or what..?  Sometimes I even amaze myself....

Dealing with all the trims and bulk - Tutorial

The biggest challenge, as I see it, with the BoHo bags is dealing with the bulk at seams... bulk of the crazy quilting and the bulk of the trims. And if, like me, you want to use the richness of tapestry and decor fabrics, the challenge is even greater...

So I knew immediately I didn't want to add the trims to the seams as I sewed them. And I even didn't want to add them one at a time on top of each other...  If I stacked them directly on top of each of as I went it would be about 3/4" thick...  I needed to "feather" them out. So here is how I solved the problem for me....

First I selected the fringes I wanted to use and laid them out in the order I wanted to stack them..  .I cut a piece of ribbon or bias strip a little longer that than I needed to trim a pocket, flap or edge.   At the top of my choices of fringes is a piece of grosgrain ribbon 1 3/8" wide. 

Then I sewed the first fringe (the long black chainette) along the bottom edge of the ribbon.

The I added the taupe cotton fringe to the ribbon.... slightly higher than the top of the black chainette fringe.

Next came the heavy (and the bulkiest) bullion trim...again just a tad higher than the taupe fringe.

Finally I added the tasseled fringe.  You can see at the arrow that it is just a tad higher than the bullion fringe..

Now you can pick up the ribbon and attach it where you want on your bag...  Your fringes are all perfectly aligned and the bulk is at a minimum.  Once attached you  can add a layer of decorative braid (see arrow) to cover the ribbon or bias.

And you know I really love you because when I was not happy with my assembly pictures.... I TOOK MY BAG APART to get better pictures and then put it back together.  I'll put them up next.  Susie is doing her assembly this weekend and I'll add her pictures.  DH and I are playing also in a bridge tournament this weekend and don't you know I'll flaunt my bag..