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One of the things we did while my mom was around, was go into town and hit up the little quilt shop. They have awesome fabric for cheap prices and a ton of patterns, including some I wanted and knew my mommy would get for me. (See previous entry where I mention I am spoiled.)

I’ve been on a quest for a decent purse for me for *ages*. Part of the problem is I’m not sure what I want. I like small bags, but I like being organized. Despite my messy creative tendencies, there’s organization in there, I swear. I am also picky about straps and how they feel and hang off my shoulder.

For some reason, I have been drawn to the Miranda Day Bag from lazy girl designs, and mom graciously bought me the pattern. We didn’t roll our eyes at each other oncethrough the whole store. (It’s tiny though.)

This afternoon, I figured I was too tired and scattered for anything else, plus I was surrounded by fabric, so I made the bag. It took four hours, including picking out fabric, familiarizing myself with the directions, skipping over a chunk of them and figuring out my alternatives. Initially, the sides are designed ot be quilted, but since my chosen fabric is a heavy canvas type I decided to skip it. Also, I was going for quick gratification. (ie; I’m LAZY. ) I also cooked a bit for Emma, cuddled Ron and talked to the girls. The other thing I skipped was interfacing - I’m ether out of it or I can’t find it to save my life. Like I said, the fabirc is reather heavy, and when I ironed it with the batting, the battign stiffened up a bit too. My lining turned out rather sheer for black, so I’m definitely going to make sure I interface the next bag.

See? I already said I’d make it again, it’s that nice. I really like it. Now I have to make a wallet. They have a pattern for that as well, but I’m gonna wing it. You can get Lazy girl Designs online, but hit up your local quilt shop first to support the little guys. I thought the Miranda bag was well-designed and cleverly constructed. I’d definitely look for their patterns again.

Picture will be added as soon as my batteries recharge, both for the camera and my own.
I used a beige & black fabric ofarchitectural drawings of Roman columns with a black heavy twill with a fine woven stripe. I lined it with black cotton and more of the colum fabric from the end of the piece I had that was all wrecked with the dye runs. That made it look really interesting though, and inside I’m the only one who sees it.

Well, probably only me will see it, as the bag seems sturdy enough to keep me from dumping it upside down accidentally like the one I have now.

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Some awesome things I found today whilst surfing:

I am glad Thanksgiving is over in Canada, otherwise my mom would have found some way to wear this hat. I am not sure what is more remarkable - the skill level, the ugliness, or the fact the model is actually smiling.

On the other hand, I kinda wish I’d seen this tutorial on making roses from maple leaves back when we still had leaves. At least not dried up ones.

My friend Heather writes in two blogs. At Chocolate Bytes, she’s giving away a theobromine molecule t-shirt. Mmmmmm, theobromine. On her other blog, The Food Bowl, you can send in submissions for the Pet of the Week. I know you have pets out there!

And to finish, a quiz:

91%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

That was a no-brainer. Duh.

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I came across the cutest Advent Calendar Pockets recently and thought I’d pass on the link. So simple I bet kids could do them.

Also, I found a great quilting blog my mom would love to read. Crazy Mom Quilts. Are you on my sidebar? Chances are my mom reads you to. Sorry about that.

In related news, I got my craft table all cleared off and my stuff together to make Christmas cards. I had a burst of energy when Ron ticked me off because I ticked him off, but we’ll gloss that over and revel in the fact I got three rooms pretty clean while we stewed.

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I was actually pretty excited to make my own laundry soap. Especially when I found a recipe to make the dry powdered stuff. Laundry soap goop looks fun and all, but I was going for speed & ease of preparation. I prefer the poweder and it has become harder to find the scent-free stuff without paying a fortune. My local grocery store had somehow stopped making their name-brand.

Pretty much every site I saw replicated the same recipe:
2 cups grated soap
1 cup washing soda (No substitutions! Washing soda is nowhere near the same thing as baking soda.)
1 cup borax* (see note below)
Mix well in a container, like a large empty coffe can. The amount suggested per load was 2 tablespoons.

My brain kicked in. Two tablespoons was not much, even for concentrated laundry powder and I have never been one to put in the full amount. I checked both boxes of borax and washing soap and they recommended from 1/3 to 1/2 cup of each per load, just to boost your regular laundry soap.

I decided to err on the side of caution and put in one rather heaping half-cup scoop of my new powdered laundry soap. It worked! Mostly. My clothes were indeed clean, and better yet, scent-free. Static free too, but that could have been from the splash of vinegar I sometimes put in (about a cup). From a random sampling of an unsorted load, regular clothing was fine, dishclothes were actually great, but socks and undies I was unsure of. A big “eh” there.

I have read about other alternative laundry washing things and they talk about soap residue in your clothes and machine. I never use the required amounts anyway, and I’ve even run my machine with no soap in a load before (accidentally, duh) so I know how a load looks with no soap.

I am not a laundry goddess. I want to be able to toss everything in, all at the same temps, and have it come out reasonably okay. I use scent-free products as I have allergy and asthma issues with them. I don’t use dryer sheets or fabric softener. No fuss, no muss, wash-n-wear fabrics only. So you see I like to keep it simple.

Now, I was all over this like a hippie in a hayfield until I got down to calculating the cost. The ingredients are cheap, as I can get bars of laundry soap two-for-a-dollah at the local Dollarama. It’s a bit of work to grate the soap on the backend of a regular cheese grater and it creates quite a bit of lung-hurting dust if you’re sensitive to that. But I was *willing* for the greater good. The washing soda is over $5 a box here and the borax a bit over $4. I can get quite a few loads from that, but it still worked out to around 25 cents a load - less if you use less. Maybe 20 cents. Sure, if you use the recipe’s amount of TWO TABLESPOONS it will be cheaper, but it won’t clean all your clothes. At least not to my satisfaction.

I compared this to two different kinds of laundry detergent. One a super-sized bulk box of name-brand powdered detergent, and the other a store brand concentrated liquid. The bulk box was slightly cheaper and the liquid around the same. This even accounts for more or less how many loads the manufacturer figured you’d get from their container. Sometimes I get less, sometimes more.

Bottom line is I’ll only do this again for times when I run out or when I have to pay substantionally more than $6 for 32 loads. It would also be worth it if your family had scent allergies and you had a hard time buying or finding those products. It would also be good if you needed a travel-sized batch.

(Note: while borax is a naturally occuring substance, it is *not* considered non-toxic. It is actually pretty toxic in any ingested amount, especially children. Then again, so is ammonia or bleach. But fair warning and all.)

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Heidi is helping spread the word about Stockings for Soldiers and this year is trying to rustle up over 700 ATCs. Help a gal out, will ya?

Added bonus: an online tartan maker. Coolness! I expect to see your blog all plaided up now.

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We took an impromptu road trip today, and wound up in my favorite huge fabric store. One I don’t go to very often (like once every couple of years) because I’m either not sewing or I know I’d spend money. I’ve got a few sewing projects coming up - namely, heavy window coverings for our old and draft single-pane huge windows. So we went looking for suitable fabric.

I actually like taking Ron into a fabric store. He’s got a good eye and good taste and he piles on more bolts than I would. He was the one who found the *quilted* burgundy fabirc just wide enough for the windows and 3.5 meters left for $2. Yeah, that said TWO DOLLARS a metre.

I was rifling through a bin of discounted flannel when I mused out loud how great he is. The lady next to me said she wouldn’t ever get her husband in the store unless they sold guns. I confess I gushed a little about Ron, and right when I grabbed a bolt and fawned over this *cute* retro pinup girl stuff, he popped his head around the corner with another bolt of the same fabric in hand. She turned to me and said, “Oooo, he’s gooood.” I know.

More pics and stuff later. I’m still recovering from the constant chatter all the way home.

Edited to add pic:

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