Pieces A, C, and F done

The main body panels for the tote bag are all sewn together. Here is my little drawing showing the location of pieces A, C, and F

Here are the panels

I need to figure out how I did the contrasting piece at the bottom. I will have to study my bag a bit!

After that I will sew together the lining, and the final assembly will follow. This bag construction is a practice run for making another one of these for a friend of my sister out of that Georgia Bulldog fabric my sister sent me a couple months ago. I also need to make a couple project bags out of the same fabric so those are my marching orders for the weekend! Have a great weekend and stay warm! It was 7 when I got up this morning - burr!

Tote bag progress, my Advent box?, that's a tub of cream, and a Hibiscus flower!

I fell asleep after I got home from work for about 30 to 45 minutes. I haven't been sleeping very well because of the itching. After I woke up, I worked on the tote bag. The zippered pocket panels are done.

I placed two orders with the Fat Quarter Shop over the weekend. Everything was 20% off so it was time to buy a few things that are never on sale. I have been watching ladies on You Tube/Floss Tube open the Advent boxes they bought; I didn't buy any Advent boxes so I am calling this my first of two self-curated Advent boxes. I also bought enough I got free shipping.

I was able to snap a yard piece of Paperbark 32 count Fox & Rabbit cross stitch linen. This fabric is expensive, so getting it for 20% off is a win win!

I pulled out all my other Fox & Rabbit linen, and I have a nice collection to pick from for my stitching! I didn't realize I had so many different colors!

Also in my box was some of my favorite black and red Cosmo floss, a spool of white thread that was a doorbuster deal, and some Pony needles for cross stitching. I placed another order after I thought about one other item I needed. They had it in stock so my second self-curated Advent box will be here Friday or Saturday.

Here is my tub of cream. So much better than those little tubes I was getting. Some areas are much better, like my back, but now my legs seem to be broke out. Ugh!  I put the deodorant in the picture to give some size perspective to how big the tub of cream is!  

A new flower had opened this morning on the Hibiscus plant. It is 5 inches across!

More tote bag parts and the Hibiscus plant

Time was short last evening, but I did manage to get the bag parts cut and labeled. Tonight, I can start interfacing the pieces and sewing them together.

I lost an hour of working on the tote bag to go get a prescription. I thought it would only take about a half hour, but when I got to the grocery store pharmacy counter there were three people in front of me. Then the guy had a hard time finding my package. I picked up one other item and the whole trip took almost an hour! The store is like 4 or 5 miles away. The prescription was ordered three weeks ago and just came in. I am broke out all over with eczema and those little tubes just weren't cutting it so the doctor ordered a 1 pound jar. I guess it is not the size that the pharmacy keeps on hand! I was almost out of the cream so I had to go get the refill. There is the Hibiscus in the office that we are overwintering for one of the guys. He doesn't want to spend another $80.00 next year on another plant and he has no place to keep this inside at his house. We have lots of room in the office. It had a couple flowers on it and has a couple more getting ready to open. I have to get a picture when those open. It dropped a lot of leaves when it didn't get watered so I added it to my route when I water the other plants.

Developing cutting information, violets are blooming, and snow

It dawned on my yesterday that Xmas is coming fast! I got to thinking about what I need/want to get done and the list kept growing. I want and need to make a couple of those fancy tote bags with the zippered pockets for gifts. I happen to find a picture of cutting measurements that I had posted.

I got started last night recreating the cutting information using the information from the photo and cutting the accent fabric. I am going to use the darker green dotted fabric for the main body.

I received my first Xmas card yesterday.

My smaller African violet has bloomed!  Looks like I ought to get a few more flowers too!

The larger plant which bloomed a couple months ago, is getting ready to bloom again.

I woke up this morning to snow. As I headed out to work, it was still snowing. Apparently, they must have called off school because the roads were a hot mess! I had one hill that I was creeping up at 15 mph and I was in 4-wheel drive. That was all the faster I could go or the car would start sliding. The city trucks are still picking up leaves and they use the same truck for plowing so they didn't have the blades on them yet. Maybe we got 2 inches.

Heard the coyatoes howling the last couple of nights.

16th finish for 2025

The 6th of the 7 baby quilts is done! This cute zigzag quilt measures 39" x 52.5". The backing was the last big piece of this fabric I had. I remember I bought a lot of it and if you could look close at the fabric you could see it was s Halloween print.

Here is the quilt I made that used much of the dark blue fabric. It is queen sized and I made this one in 2011. That dark green print that I used on the back of the15th finish is the same print as this. I remember the fabric was priced so little, that I just bought all the shop had.

I got the last of the current bunch of baby quilts pin basted.

Progress on the 6th baby quilt and repairs

I nearly finished quilting the 6th baby quilt yesterday. I spent an hour and a half this morning finishing the quilting. I have the binding made so today I will get that sewn on.

I needed a break from quilting, so I tackled repairs. This bag needed a tear fixed

A pair of pants had a hole

Socks had holes at the toes that needed mended

A shirt needed a hole repaired

My neighbor needed some repairs done on his snowboarding mittens.

Also for my neighbor he had a jacket that the sleeves were just a bit loose. I put a little tuck in them. The is no way I was going to try and rip it apart. That would have taken hours. He was happy with the tuck

Today I will be watching football while I work on baby quilt 6, do laundry, and I already have chicken on the stove cooking to make soup for lunches this week. I would also like to get that last baby quilt pin basted and do a bit of straightening up. Most of the snow is gone since the temperatures are above freezing, but the wind is blowing! Sleet is happening right now. Even though it is 39 degrees, with the wind chill it feels like 24! Yikes! Winter is here already!

14th and 15th finishes for 2025 and snow

I am making progress on getting those baby quilts done. Here is the 14th finish for 2025 and the 4th of the 7 baby quilt tops. It was made with leftover blocks and sewing scraps together to make enough blocks to finish this top. It finished 40" x 44 1/2".

Finish 15 measures 40 1/2" x 47". The pink and green fabrics are ones that I dyed years ago. My friend in PA had cut them into strips and I paired them with the floral. I ran out of the pink so I finished it with the green leftover blocks from those other recent finishes. I wasn't sure about the stripe I was using for the binding, but once it was done I think it looks pretty cute. Only two more UFO baby quilts to finish.

We got snow on Thanksgiving and on Friday. Not a big accumulation. It sure is cold though. Here is what it looked like Thanksgiving evening.  Maybe I will get dressed today and get the mail.  LOL!!!