Congratulations! It's A...

..A bouncing, well not bouncing, but JAGGED, knarly, sharp KIDNEY STONE!  This not so little bundle of pain was born yesterday around 10:00 am.  Luckily, I was in the hospital under the care of my super sweet doctor, Dr. Nguen when Kiddy decided to make its way down.  The doc was able to knock it into twins and scoop it away!  He is my new hero.  I am happy to say that I am home and doing just fine.  Thanks to all for your thoughts and prayers.

Needless to say, I am taking it easy for the next few days, so no ballroom dancing or running marathons, but I don't do those things anyway.  I've done quite a bit of lounging lately and frankley, it is getting boring.  Oh I would love to say "how grand it would be" to lounge about eating bon bons and watching soap operas, but really, it has been difficult.  That said,  I did my share of faffing, watching The Young and the Restless (I haven't a clue what's going on), web surfing, and eating creme filled donuts, until I decided to start on a new bag.  I made way to my sewing studio and came up with this project:

Simplicity bag 2685, the bag in the upper right corner.  I decided to use the fabric I got from one of my flea market trips.  In case you forgot, I scored some great fabrics several weeks ago from my local Goodwill Store.  I bought a few skirts and a linen dress.  I decided to use the summery fabric from one of the skirts.

Simplicity 2685

I deconstructed the skirt and managed to salvage a super cool hidden zipper as well as the fabric I'll be using for my bag.  I decided on yellow for the lining.  Sorry, my photos don't do justice...the fabric is really nice.  I cut out my pieces for the bag and lining, but I'll have to make a run to the fabric store to buy some interfacing before I can do much more.  Hopefully, I will get the rest of my supplies purchased tomorrow and complete the bag by the weekend.  I'll keep you posted!

During my websurfing today, I did come across a few great tutorials.  The first will actually help me with the bag I started today because it deals with pleats; specifically, a pleated purse, which is what my bag is.  I found this tute at Modest Maven.  Jodell posted some great photos of making the pleats.  This is wonderful and I wish I would have found her blog when I was making the Crafty skirt because I had never made pleats before.  I would have loved to have been able to SEE the pleating.  The purse Jodell made is also great.  Check it out.

Modest Maven Pleated Purse

Another tutorial I came across is at Deliberately Domestic.  Here, Monica wrote a tutorial on making a clutch style purse.  Her tutorial is great; she used a leather-like material for her purse, which is totally something I want to try.  Here is a picture of her clutch purse:

Deliberately Domestic Clutch Purse

Oh, I added a few photos of bags I have made to my Purses and Bags  page.  Have a look!  Have a great night!  Toodles for now!
Angela