"I'm not dead..."

Update: The universe has decided not to punish my rose plant after all!



Late last week I noticed some new growth on it. I removed all the crunchy stuff and gave it some more water. This is how it looks today. I think it might just make it. Hooray!

As promised, here's the other sewing I did over the weekend. My friend, Beth, gave me a new purse for Christmas, which was handmade by her sister. My old purse had a little zippered organizer area on the back where I kept things like gift cards and frequent shopper cards. It was very handy, and kept those things out of my wallet. My new purse is much prettier than the old one, but lacks that organizer feature. So I made my own:



It was really easy to make, following this tutorial. I made a few modifications, of course. I used the measurements at the end of the page for the card wallet, but made 4 pockets, spaced multiples of 3/4" above the bottom. And the interior and exterior fabrics were cut 6" across and 6.5" down. I think it goes really well with the purse, don't you?



It's impossible to see the prints in the picture, but the green fabric I used is the same print as the brown print in my purse. Pretty cool that I just happened to have that piece of fabric in my stash, huh?

I wasn't sure how long I was going to make my wallet, so I fused a much longer piece of interfacing onto the green fabric than I needed. Rather than wasting the leftover strip, I made another little pouch. This one is lined on the inside with the same green fabric.



It's just the right size for those things one would normally put in the little zippered pocket inside their purse. You know, girl stuff. :)

The only other concern I have about my purse is that it has a snap closure instead of a zipper. I work downtown and I don't want to encourage those with sticky fingers. I'm currently noodling with an idea to add flaps and a zipper to the top of the bag. They won't completely seal the top, but it should add a little more coverage. I hope Beth and her sister won't be offended that I'm tweaking it a bit. I really like the purse, it's just my own paranoia sneaking in.

Meanwhile, Blue and Max get the birds' eye view from the top of the bookcases.


"Come on, Max, let's play!" "Go away, kid, you bother me."