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I think there are still two missing but these are most of the puses I have made over the past couple of weeks. The weather had been cooler than normal and I am babysitting kitties so have spent more than the usual amount of time indoors. I have had a wonderful time making all these purses, putting extra zippers in a lot of them. I am going to combine a lot of the techniques and come up with my own purse design. At this point I feel pretty "purse literate".
I am very very happy to report that I finished all the quilting on the inside of the Baltimore Album style quilt. Most of these blocks are from various Elly Sienkiewicz books. I still have four or five more blocks to find a use for. I am doing lines parallel to the vine in the border outside. Lines will be about an inch apart. I wanted something different for the outside and something more organic. Now just have to finish the corners. The quilting in the border is going quickly so I will probably have it done for our quilt show in June!
I think the Mourning Doves are pairing up. I believe they mate for life. These two were hanging out on a gorgeous day down at Ft. Fisher.
I couldn't resist this Laughing Gull who was meandering right in front of me.
In the winter, the Ring Billed Gull was the most common one down here but now it is the above Laughing Gull. Everyone is moving north I guess!
My Oystercatchers were down at the beach but I couldn't get anywhere near them -- they remain my favorites though!
The next few days are the Azalea Festival down here and luckily I have a friend coming from up north so I will have an excuse to get involved in some of the festivities! Our first trip will be the Nature Conservancy Tour on Bald Head Island though!! Hopefully we will see something interesting!
This is the market bag I made for my daughter -- she wanted one that was big enough to hold the 12 packs of Diet Coke cans. I changed the pattern yet again to her specs. Her kitty Paka decided it was the perfect place to take his nap. The kitties would not leave my daughter's side while she was visiting (they're hers and I am only cat-sitting).
This is LJ's other kitty Jahi who is clearly too much cat for his bed -- just too fluffy!
Another new purse from the Purse-sonality pattern pictured the other day. I thought this would be my favorite but it isn't!
Another new purse from the Lazy Girl purse pattern. I have about four or five more all put together but think I will await doing more after this until I get home where I have a big box of zippers from years ago. I have been going to Joanns too many times but at least I have my smart phone so have gotten some substantial discounts.
Still another purse from the Lazy Girl pattern. I had brought down a bunch of 1/2 yard pieces of fabric that I just liked with no thoughts about what I would do with them. I just knew I probably wouldn't have enough for any of the quilts that I tend to make.
I am almost to the point of designing my own and may buy some gridded flipchart paper to make some patterns. Making all these different purses has given me some good ideas of pluses and minuses and what I like -- LOTS of zippers!!
There are very few ducks left from the winter visitors. This male Greater Scaup seems to be hanging around though all his friends have departed.
I was surprised to see this Tri-Colored Heron yesterday with mating plumage -- I hadn't seen one with that plumage before even in Florida!
Here is a closeup of the feathered headdress of the Tricolor which certainly lives up to his name! I keep forgetting these birds are about the same size as the Little Blue Herons as this one from a distance just looked so small. The Little Blues are nowhere near as colorful!
Wisteria is a pest plant down here and this was the first I had seen down at Carolina Beach Lake growing next to a drainage ditch. In a couple of weeks, all the wooded areas will be colored with this flower.
This was the first time I have seen a Gadwall down at Carolina Beach Lake. This is a female and I loved her pretty patterned feathers. She allowed me to get pretty close as she was very busy feeding.
Oh No, the azaleas aren't supposed to be out for another week and a half when the Azalea Festival is going on down here in Wilmington NC! Someone forgot to tell them that the Azalea Festival was being held later than usual this year. I am starting to see them blooming everywhere. The weather has been cool so hopefully they will still be beautiful for the festival which is Wilmington's biggest yearly celebration.
It has been extra cool down here but at least we have nice blue skies. This looked like a scene from The Birds with all the Laughing Gulls in their summer plumage making a terrible racket!
This is another of the purse I have made already using a nice Kaffe Fassett print!
This is another pattern I had brought down with me and had yet another zipper technique -- my favorite so far! This was super easy to make as most of the Lazy Girl patterns are. I didn't have enough fabric to make the stripes go in the other direction but they look okay anyway. I made the outside of the purse out of two random 1/2 yd pieces of fabric. One of the pockets is lined with the stripe and one is lined with the flower print.
The zipper is set down about an inch from the edge of the lining.
This is the pattern I used for this purse. I am making at least one more from this pattern but instead of making the inside pockets like they are in this pattern, I am going to make one side a zippered compartment like the ones on the outside of the top purse. I am also going to add fleece to that outside pocket as it feels flimsy. We will see how this goes. I am also using a much shorter zipper. The pattern calls for an 18 inch zipper but you end up cutting off about 4 inches near the end. There is a reason for this extra length as I am sure it makes it easier to deal with putting the zipper in. I may use the technique from the first purse above to make the zipper longer as well. I have now completed five purses in the past week.
I had a really bad month with a recurring whiplash injury last month so am now making up for lost time!! I was afraid to try any kind of repetitive activity while I was getting over the muscle spasms.
No day is complete without some of my birds. Here is another one of my favorites -- the oystercatcher. There were two down at the end of Ft. Fisher today along with the dozens of squawking laughing gulls.
The Savannah Sparrow stayed still long enough for me to get a couple of decent pictures. He hangs out in the rocks and along the beach at Ft. Fisher.
He stopped and posed for me before crossing the walk.
This is the sand that they are pumping onto the beach as part of the renourishment -- hope it looks cleaner later!! They are dredging the sand from further north and bringing it down here. They are supposed to be done here by the end of the month but they are one dredge short according to the paper this morning which has slowed things down.
Last night there was a full moon and a clear night so this is the moonrise over the Atlantic in front of our house.
I am having a great deal of fun making these purses and pretty soon the dining rooms chairs will have many colorful bags hanging from them. It is fun to try to make do with what fabrics I brought down here (just some miscellaneous fat quarters and 1/2 yard pieces of fabric that I liked). I can make do to get the handles, the decorative flap and the main part of the back from 1/2 yard of fabric. I just do the linings out of a different fabric.
This is the back of the same purse with its nice set in zipper. I just need to add some of my decorative pulls from my stash at home. Also want to add a button as well on the flap and they are also at home.
The Yellow Rumped Warblers have even invaded our yard now. I took this looking down on one in my next door neighbor's yard. I didn't know they had yellow on the top of their heads as well but they do!
This is the Red Throated Loon minus the red throat which he only has in the summer time. The Laughing Gulls have changed to their summer plumage but not this guy.
This is a Common Loon who also still has his winter colors. It was kind of a grey afternoon so not so great for taking pictures of birds which can only be seen with binoculars!
This is my new bird which is a Dovekie. According to the lastest Stokes book (The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America), this guy shouldn't be this far south but guess it is extra cold up north! He is a small stocky bird with a tiny triangular shaped bill. He spent most of his time diving or shaking out his wings so was very difficult to get a good shot. Good enough that my bird guy Bruce down here in Wilmington confirmed my sighting.
He was doing a lot of this posture.
Still trying out purse patterns and this is the latest. This is the front and under the flap (which should have some velcro and a button but I didn't bother although I may add the button when I get home), there is a nice welt pocket.
This is the back of the purse which has a zipper. Again, there was supposed to be a second zippered compartment sideways for a phone but I figured I would be in more danger of forgetting to zip and having the phone fall out than anything so again, I skipped that.
This was just laid on top of one another to see how it would look.
This pattern was quite easy and had a couple of very clever things whIch I can definitely make use of! The simplest was the trim treatment. It solved a couple of problems. The gold pieces are just decorative and lay on top of the main part of the purse. Now normally, you would fold over the edge and sew down after pressing carefully to get that 1/4 inch. Well, here you just lay a piece of 7/8 inch wide (folded to 7/16 wide) along the edge, sew a 1/4 inch away and it just then kind of lays flat. You sew along the dark trim and never see a stitching line. Very easy. I also like putting in the zippers by just making an opening so will be doing that again as I do like zippers. I will be making more of this purse although I think most people would like it bigger. I rarely carry much in my purses anymore and it is big enough for my Kindle and that is all that counts these days!! I might also make a squared off version as I suspect I would like that shape better as well. Looks like I will be going home with 5 or 6 new purses as my daughters will just turn up their noses!!
This is the pattern for the purse.
You can see that I have almost finished all the gridded quilting in the Baltimore Album sampler. Just have a bit more to do in the middle and then figure out what to do around the outside and in the corners. I am thinking of adding some ruched flowers in the corners. Has to be done my our June quilt show as I already sent in the paperwork to enter it!!
A Forster's Tern was among the Laughing Gulls down at Ft. Fisher this afternoon. Haven't hit the tide right to see any of my Oystercatchers for awhile now.
I believe this is a Savannah Sparrow that was lurking and moving very quickly by the rocks at Ft. Fisher today. If you look closely, you can see the faint yellow on his head. Some of the other pictures show it a little better but he was moving too fast!
Some dolphins also swam by in the surf. Buffleheads were also still there although there aren't many other birds these days.
This is a closeup of the little yellow flowers which are everywhere now. The flowers themselves are no bigger than a pencil eraser.
Of course there were a lot of the Yellow Rumped Warblers which have invaded this area the past few weeks!! There were a lot of them but they are skittish and don't let you get close.
First, I have to confess that I love purse patterns and have quite a few and do try to make at least one of each. I haven't bought a real purse in years now as I definitely prefer these fabric ones as they fall apart all at once rather than the handles falling off when the purse still looks new! They are so nice and washable as well!
This is the latest purse that I have made. I purchased this pattern because it had some different techniques which I thought I might incorporate into other bags. I generally only purchase purse patterns these days that have some new technique that looks clever or easy. This purse was not easy...especially the preparation.
This is an "in process" step where I have finished part of the front of the bag (the picture above shows the back). It has a pocket on this side but I added one to the back as well. The only difference in the sides is the trim on the front.
This is the view from the top that shows the zippered top. It is open on either side but it is a nice treatment and very easy. I kind of like that you can drop things into the purse without opening it up and yet a thief couldn't get something out.
This shows the inset zipper on one side. This was also easy and an application I can use anywhere.
There are pockets on the other side as well much like many purses with several slots and a nice binding on top.
This is the pattern for the above Brentwood Bag made by Pink Sand Beach Designs #106. It contains 14 pattern pieces but gives you pattern pieces for five and then measurements for the rest. These are found on the pattern piece layouts. You had to make the pattern pieces to be able to lay out the purse. It took several hours to do all this. Making the purse was a piece of cake after this. It uses fleece as the backing on many pieces and if I ever made this again, I would eliminate the fleece and just use a nice stiff fusable interfacing. The layers of fleece made the top stitching on the finish of the bag really almost impossible and I was glad to have my heavy Juki sewing machine. There are four pages of instructions with pictures for making the bag and these were pretty clear although I did need to read several steps more than once.
This is my favorite purse pattern to date. I have made many purses from this pattern in all different fabrics. I have used purchased handles as well as fabric ones like this. This purse has been through the laundry a couple of times and is beginning to show its age.
This is the pattern for the purse although it is called a tote for some reason (Laura's Zippered Tote). It comes in several sizes and is easy to make. I always find it easier to make my own patterns which I did with this bag. The pattern is made by the same people who do the Professional Tote which is probably my favorite tote pattern and has many clever techniques. This bag is easy and fast and very practical!
I did bring one more purse pattern down here to try out by the same company that did the one above so we shall see...
I have also made several of the Market Bags and have loved that pattern although have made quite a few alterations by this time in size and straps and fabrics.
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