Creative, productive chaos

I finally made one wine bag, yippee!!! I have been wanting to set up my ETSY shop and sell these bags since I quit my job in May. It has been so hectic with this mess....

And traveling, and selling real estate, I have not had a chance to get near my sewing machine. I did have time to buy some new fabric though. I used my new Amy Butler fabric to make this one.

I even have my new tag sewed in....

I have previously made several wine bags with some great quilted throws and quilted tweed that I found. I always give them away though. You can see them on my FLICKR page.

I really wanted to make these with some of the great quilting fabrics that are out there and I simply must buy all of it. But, my dilemma was how to make these bags cushiony and sturdy enough without using the pre-quilted fabrics I had and was soon to run out of and not find anywhere.

I decided to give it a try, I put cotton batting in between the two fabrics. One the inside of the lining fabric, I applied fusable web to give it some stiffness.

My next dilemma, should I quilt the bag, how should I quilt the bag, ????? I played with my machine and my new free motion quilting foot. Disaster....looked really bad, I need to take a class or something. The stiches on top looked awful. Then I made a template and used my quilting marker to put a design on the bag and tried to quilt around it with the regular foot of my machine. Looked crappy, I probably should have used transparent thread ???

Oh &^%$#@! it. I don't need to quilt it, it is small enough, it just might be ok....

Well, I think it is. I really like this one. Let me know what you think. These bags hold two bottles of wine or one big bottle. There is a removable divider and bottom support. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, I would appreciate your input before I make more. Once I get about 6 or 8 made, then they go on ETSY.

KABOOM.....CRACK........RUMBLE..........No rain yet.

I'm back home in SW Florida from CT. I arrived last night and found that my new camera was back from being repaired. I just had to take it out and play with it a little. So, no CT pictures due to technical difficulties.

Katie, my daugher/photo teacher, said this picture shows good apperature. That means it is focused in the middle and gets blurry toward the edges. I think she is losing patience with me. Does she look a little bored with it:

She thinks I am hopeless. I had the camera set on the 'P', because I thought is meant 'Picture', but it doesn't. She won't tell me what it means, because she wants me to read the manual. YUCK, that would be so unlike me to do that. I would much rather learn from my mistakes. I guess that is the story of my life. After 50 years of doing things this way, it just might be too late to change.

Some things I saw in CT that you don't see in Florida:

• stairs
• basements
• red maple leaves
• rocks
• hills
• grass you can actually walk in
• parking lots without those cement barricaids so you can just zip across rather than follow the rows
• Hummel's hot dogs
• Good Pizza
• Portugese rolls
• Canolli's the real kind
• pigeons
• sidewalks
• clotheslines
• brick houses
• ivy
• day lillies

The only thing I really miss about CT is the grandkids and my family & friends. Otherwise, I am glad I am back here in Hurricane Alley. So far, it's been quiet, keep good thoughts!!!