Friday, June 26, 2009

Just a little end of the week tornado

This was what we saw at 5pm from the windows at work as a storm passed through our city.

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It was on the water for a solid 20 minutes and traveled from one side of the river to the other. It never touched down on land (thankfully) but was an amazing thing to watch.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Father's Day Sunday

The family's coming over for some Father's Day spaghetti bolognese and it's a beautiful sunny (though super hot!) day. I think we would be grilling if the BBQ grill hadn't desintegrated when we last tried to use it, but it's ok..we like italian. I have finished another tote bag that I'll post pictures of soon. The ones I took this morning didn't come out as well as I had hoped so I'm going to try again this evening. I've been bopping to music all day so I thought since I was in the musical spirit I would leave you with one of my most favorite musicians, Glen Hansard with Marketa Irglova as the band The Swell Season. If you haven't seen the movie "Once" yet, I can't recommend it enough. I saw it last year and for Christmas bought more than one person the DVD. The movie won an Oscar for it's music and here's why...

The Swell Season - When Your Mind's Made Up from Artists Den on Vimeo.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Back to the grind

As you know, if you followed along with our vacation blog, we are back home now and sadly, back to our daily grind.  We’ve been suffering a bit from the post vacation blues now that London is a thing of the past and we have a long time to go until we plan our next vacation. 

One thing keeping me cheery is getting back to some sewing.  I know I haven’t been knitting much, but it’s because I’ve really been having fun with teaching myself how to sew.  The most recent project was just completed Friday evening. 

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It’s my first quilted bag and I had a lot of fun making it.  Especially since it was a joint effort with my sister, Anna.  She did the cutting and ironing while I did the sewing.  Now tell me if THAT isn’t the dream scenario. 

The tutorial for this Charming Handbag was made by one of my favorite sewing bloggers, Crazy Mom Quilts.  

It was a really easy-to-follow tutorial and I did the quilting myself (as evidenced by the puckers there on the side of the bag).  The fabric was from a fat quarter bundle my sister picked up at Joann’s and the lining is made of denim.  

 

 

 

bag2

I did add a couple of pockets to the inside but I skipped the snap because when it came time to add it, I couldn’t find it!  Oh well…   The bag is for someone my sister works with though I think if she could, she would keep it herself.  We have more fabric all set to go for bag #2.

Aside from that I’m about to start a zigzag quilt from fabric that I got in a kit for Christmas. I’m planning on cutting the strips this evening so I should be piecing it by next weekend. 

I hope everyone’s keeping cool in the summer heat.  Be back soon!