What I meant to do today was ...

to carry on exploring my design ideas, and possibly begin to put some bits of fabric together.

Which is what I did in the end - although it had nothing to do with my design ideas.

I've had a birthday recently and as a belated afterthought present I got a lap top. Never had one before, never used one, all a bit scary.

Of course. it came without a case.

Well, I could have bought one, but where's the fun in that?

So I Googled around last night and found this.[PDF alert.]

Looks easy doesn't it? Two main pieces, made of felt so no finishing - won't take long to run one up, will it?

Of course, I wasn't going to do it today. Some time later when I had finished thinking about salt pans.

But, I thought, it won't take long, so I'll do it this morning and get back to the designing this afternoon.

Mmm - felt? I've got lots of wool felt but I've got plans for that and the colours aren't very exciting. I think I've got some big bits of Kunin felt at the bottom of the cupboard.

[Here you have to imagine me head down in a box of felt bits while Quality Control assists me by trying to get into the deepest recesses of the cupboard.

Unfortunately I didn't have one piece of felt that was big enough. So I'll use two colours! This lime green and blue look good together -[unfortunately I didn't have any suitable pink].

Mmm - decorative ribbon? Got ribbon in more or less the right colours but it's a bit boring - but I could put the narrow ribbon on the wide ribbon and embroider it. And I could embroider the contrasting band of felt and the bag itself... [I'm glad to say that I did not completely lose my sanity and do hand embroidery - though I did get as far as finding some suitable hand embroidery threads.]

But the felt seems a bit thin - so I could line it!

[Head down in a couple of different boxes to find some suitable fabric for the lining.]

While I'm at it, I could quilt the lining. [Fortunately the wadding was already out]

And there's lots of this lining fabric, I could add a pocket. Or two.

You get the picture. I eventually finished it about 4 pm.

This is the blue side.


And this, despite appearances, is the lime green side.

I'm glad I did line it though, I wouldn't rust those handles in felt alone.

And then I had a quick doodle for 'Doodle Day'. The topic is 'daisies' - so I am afraid I cheated and used my daisy stamp.

Today's orange picture is also plant life - real this time - January blossom from the Hillier Gardens. A cheering sight on a cold day.