Honorable Mention

It's been a while since I said it but THANKS once again to all of you kind folks who leave such sweet and inspiring comments for me. I am always touched that you lend me your attention.

Along those lines, I can't tell you how excited I was when I recently visited Paula Prass's blog Show & Tell to find I was featured there - it totally took my breath away!
Paula is a fabric designer for Michael Miller Fabrics and creator of the beautiful Flights of Fancy collection. Of all the lovely things being made with her fabrics, I am incredibly honored that she chose to include my magazine sized totes ("mag bags") on her blog. This was several days ago and I'm still reeling! To have a fabulous designer such as Paula recognize my humble work makes me feel as if I've been sprinkled with stardust.
Thank you Paula, what an honor!

Here are the featured bags.

And another, later creation from the same line.

Switching channels now, I got another little thrill this morning when I got see my quilt block stitched into place on one of the Project Improv quilt tops over at Jacquie's Tallgrass Prairie Studio. Jacquie and her helpers are working to transform these donated blocks into lovely work-of-art quilts for charity. I am so grateful for their hard work and proud to be a part of such a meaningful project. What a nice start to my day. :)
Can you find it? Center row, far right.

In the Sewing Room

As is my nature, I've started to panic this week. With less than three weeks until our departure and so much left to do, I've kept my head down and barely come up for air. There were a few distractions of course. Like yesterday. I spent a good part of my day with my dad who called on his newly installed phone, first to tell me how thrilled he was to have the phone then later to summon me over with his latest crisis of the moment. Of course, it wasn't really that serious but with my dad everything is top-priority, red alert! He's funny alright, in a high maintenance kind of way but you can't help but grin and love him, you couldn't find someone with a bigger heart. I mentioned my dad once before and his difficulties in dealing with life in general. Shortly after that my husband and I caught the movie "You, Me and Dupree" on tv. Boom, there he was! If you've seen that movie, Dupree is my dad! Totally. Only my dad is not 24, he's 69. Although, he thinks he's 24 . . .

Anyway, it was mid-afternoon before I finally got to my sewing room and I was panicked and frustrated that most of my day had disappeared. Nevertheless, I worked late and dear Randy provided carry-out dinner(!) so it turned out I got a lot done after all. I got a sample sewing parcel this week and here's what I've accomplished so far . . .

I was so excited to see Paula Prass's Flight of Fancy. The pattern provided was Amy Butler's In Town Bags. These were done in keeping with the drawstring bag pattern but I was instructed no drawstring. I did make it a little taller because the cuts given in the pattern would have chopped the fabric designs into oblivion. Actually it worked out well because the end result is the perfect size to carry a magazine. The 'mag bag' look is such a trend now.

And I had enough fabric left over from the totes that I was able to put together this Smart Bag off the same pattern. But that button which is only pinned on, has got to go. I'm seeing something large and filigree, preferably in silvertones and sparkle. I'll be heading down for a class tomorrow so I'll see what I can find at the store. I didn't have anything appropriate in my stash.



And last but not least here are chalice veils. They came out lovely, mostly due to the gorgeous fabrics of course.

Have a great weekend everyone. Don't forget to attend the church of your choice. If you don't have one, you can go with me! :)

I'll catch you soon!