I admit I get a tingly feeling when I see the mailbox turned and the red flag up. It means “We got mail”! Even though it is usually a bill or twelve,  sometimes there is the odd little happy dance surprise.

This week there were TWO surprises for me!

The first was from my new friend, Nicole from Nicole M Designs. 
She was so happy for me  about my handbag contest win, that she sent me a little -no BIG- package! I was excited to find the new beach bag pattern and TWO -count ‘em TWO- Snap handbag frames in the unexpected package.   I can forsee my sisters getting purses for their birthdays..

Thanks Nicole! You are great!

And if that wasn’t enough, Joan from Lazy Girl Designs sent me the package of patterns I chose for winning the contest. But she didn’t just stop at what I chose, oh no. She also tucked in an extra pattern and some other goodies that she thought I would like to try. What a sweetheart! i have never tried any Lazy Girl patterns before and these look great!

Thank You Joan!

Can you tell that I heartily endorse these two wonderful women and their companies!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!
Sorry about the poor picture quality.  I am using a less than stellar camera this week.

Today’s postscript...  Two of my daughters (ages 22 and 24) are Brownie leaders, and are taking 9 excited little girls camping this weekend.  Wish them good weather and good luck with me!

I love purses, but I absolutely hate to buy them.  I’m  cheap frugal conservative with my pocketbook.  Having said that, my most beloved is, of course, the utterly gorgeous Coach handbag that my darlings bought for me for Christmas last year!  But one cannot carry a Coach around every day, and I did read somewhere that it devalues a designer handbag to carry it with, say, grungy sweats to the corner store!  Sewing a designer handbag seemed like the perfect answer.

When I was  in New York, I bought some handbag frames.  Cindy Ann and I both bought a couple, but were utterly at a loss as to how to actually use them!  So began my quest for the perfect handbag pattern.

Imagine my delight when I discovered Nicole Mallalieu!  18 designs and she has classes too!  Now while I could not justify a plane ticket for the class(she is in Australia), – now wouldn’t that make for an expensive bag!- I knew that I had to have one of her patterns. A couple of nice conversations via email, and a couple of weeks later, I had the handles and the pattern for the 300mm Square Snap  in my hot little hand. It is rated for advanced sewers.  

The directions are long, but after reading them through, Irealized that they are long in order to help out less experienced sewists.  Now, being a bonifide Couturesmith (that is where I need to insert a laugh track!) I pretty well could imagine it through.  If you take it step by step, it becomes more obvious as you go as to what is going on and what is next.  I had a couple of “duh?” moments, but usually I was trying to make it more difficult than it needed to be.  There is  a complete list of supplies needed on the website, and Nicole has them all available to order.  I will do a full and proper review when the version for the  PatternReview Purse Contest is done, but meanwhile here is a photo -a pretty poor one! Eventually there will be beading on it….yeah…eventually!  Summerset I am not!

The photo’s will be more in depth as I get into the new version.  I want to be able to show the construction process, and it will be infinately easier with the leather.

The new dilemma is the leather version I am making for the Pattern Review Purse Contest.

The fabric is a to-die-for greenish, brownish – actually olive-y alligator leather that I bought in New York City. Okay – not too sure about the alligator part- I guess I don’t know my reptiles very well(I must have been reading Nancy Drew during that 5th grade class!)  Question of the day is what to do about the handles?  Using the same leather would be too – um- too.  In my opinion.  Black? A greenish mystery fabric?  Gosh I just don’t know! I can generally tell when something is “wrong”, but finding the “right” is a bit of a challenge here.  Here is a thought. The mystery fabric for the body, then switch to the leather for the actual handles.  I am using rectangular rings so the option to change the fabric is there.  Here are the alternatives. 

1.  Black

2.  Green pigsuede 

3.  olive fabric for the body and alligator for the handles(using gold not silver rectangular rings.

I’m kind of partial to the last one.  In person it looks best.  

Hmm -Formatting difficulties abound! Well the indignity of it all- in the blog editor everything looked so pretty! Erica if you can fix this up please do!  Everyone else – the pics should be self explanatory.  Black first, green pigsuede second, yada yada..

Oh yes, and here is my Excellent Blog Award (Thanks Karen!)- I think everyone in the universe already has one, but just in case, Lorna and RHonda, and Kim- passing it on to you! 

And now back to our regularly scheduled blogging!

I can’t believe it has been so long since I last blogged.  The regular old excuses are there- a new job that for a while had me commuting an hour and a half away (and for a gal who is used to commuting a 2 minute walk away that is a big change!),  the latest edition of our community Dinner Theatre that I always have a large role in (this year it was onstage as opposed to stage managing), and now, an unexpected accident in the family that takes our new son-in -law away from the farm for a while.  He will be fine- if you want to read about it, head over to my favourite blog in the world, the one that belongs to my girls- http://www.fiveblondes.com/health/an-unfortunate-accident/

Then there was that whole insecure – every one but me is having fun blogging and giving each other those great blog awards and I was feeling left out… and undesirable…and started the “nobody likes me, everybody hates me” song. 

Luckily the sun came out, I got a much deserved kick in the pants (Thanks Karen, Kate, and Erica, and Leah, and Lauren!) and started to sew again!  I will snap some photos tonight and start blogging in ernest tomorrow.  Miss Lauren has a new house lined up in Ottawa for University next fall, and was so excited to text me with the information that “mom, our new house is a two minute walk from a Fabricland!!” Hmm – I’m not too certain how that last piece of information stuck itself in there right out of the blue- but it is cute!

Oh yes, a cool Patternreview-y thing happened to me yesterday.  I was in Guelph for work, and stopped by Fabricland to pick up these two Vogue Patterns                                   

I overheard (I confess that I eavesdrop on interesting conversations an awful lot) a lady talking about the dire need to get some pictures taken.  It sounded like a Patternreview thing(!) so I casually mentioned to the woman cutting my fabric- oh did I forget to mention that I bought some fabric too!  A few yards of red, and a few yards of a great yellow for jackets, but I digress.  Anyways I asked the woman who was cutting, if the other woman was taking photos for something for PAtternReview.  “Oh it was for some internet site thingy” she replied.  Some internet thingy???!!! I don’t think Patternreview has ever been described that way!  Any how, the lady I was asking about overheard me and said “well actually it is for the Timmel Swap, but I do belong to PR as well!  We introduced ourselves and were both tickled pink that we could go home and declare that “See, PR people are REAL- not just virtual friends”!  While I have met a lot of PR members, I do not think she has, and we are trying to make plans to get together again.

Next up – a comparison of two favourite pant patterns, and my new TNT pant pattern outcome and Tada! my first finished Nicole M purse - complete strangers have asked me about this one!  Here is a sneak preview of the purse in progress... 

Ahh – It’s good to be back – let me know if you missed me at all!