A Quilt Show, A Dinner Date and a Finish

It came upon a midnight clear…ooops wrong season, totally. Didja ever have one of those moments when you knew, just new that the next step would be incredibly painful? Me too! I torqued my back on Thursday. Making walking home just the most pleasant experience. Ow! Ow! Ow! Well it’s easing out and will be fine for Quilt Market. Speaking of Quilt Market I decided I needed a new carry around back pack, with good pockets, a few zippers and durable fabric. Several weeks ago while visiting Quilting Possibilities two yards of 

faux tooled leather, the texture reads quilty. I wasn’t sure what I’d do with it however Market seems a like a good time. A little measuring, a little thinking, a little cutting, a little zipper installing.

For the back part of the pack I used left over batting to give it some body. Later on I located some Soft & Stable from byAnnie that I’ll use to create a matching sleeve for my laptop. There are two distinct pockets here, one made of mesh and the other using faux leather and batting.

For the back straps I used 4 inch strips folding them in half, then folding the edges into the middle, and stitching both sides for something of a finished look.

The straps are adjustable, using d-rings stitched into a bit o’excess strapping. By stitching next to each of the d-rings they aren’t going slip sliding around like they do on a purse I made a while back.

Let’s take a momentary break in the action for a stop at The Blue Pig. A friend and I had dinner at Holy Smoke then went for ice cream. Black Sesame ice cream is the stuff I didn’t know I needed, it has a bit of a smokey depth that makes me want to go back for more.

This zipper. Oh so cool. There is a flap that covers it!! There is something about faux leather that just, makes me giddy.

This pocket has a pocket to hold pens. But I goofed, broke a needle and messed up the zipper. It is fixable I just have to remember the steps from when I worked in a home dec department. Or I’m going to cut it off to make another closure.

Keep in mind there is a double zipper installed in this mmmkay. I must confess to having a moment when stitching on the front panel I kinda freaked out a bit wondering HOW I would turn it right side out. This zipper doesn’t open to the main body of the backpack. I started thinking of solutions to turn it out and close it. As I’m thinking about the possibilities it dawned on me that I had the double zipper. Mmmm. Yeah. The backpack was ready for it’s first run at the Northern Star Quilt Show on Sunday. That’s when I had the zipper malfunction.

Watch instagram for photos of the sleeve as it goes together. I’m using cork.

In a day or so I’ll share a few quilts from the Cherrywood Van Gogh exhibit.

Happy Stitching,

Teri

PS – Sunday after getting home this popped up in my Twitter feed: The Antidote to Envy or Feelings of Inadequacy: Whiskey and Whine by Elizabeth Scalia – the Anchoress. I gave up being envious and jealousy some time ago and will share more of that at some point. That said Elizabeth’s article gives some good tips for dealing with envy and jealousy.