YESTERDAY ~ ~ ~

Miss Luci came to call!! She spent part of the day with me and when I asked what she wanted to do, she said "let's go to your hooking room and make crafts"! Music to my ears!! I had already decided I would make her a little purse and she loved that idea! And this is what I came up with ~ I have a cupboard of felted sweaters for just such a project ~ she picked this navy sweater! It's pretty dark, so to lighten it up, a yellow sweater worked just swell for the flowers ~ I let Luci cut out the orange centers from another piece and then she just cut little pieces parts the rest of the time! The centers of the orange are done with some glittery wispy angelhair type stuff ~ it just had to have a little sparkle!

I'm fortunate enough to have a Babylok embellishing machine so it was a snap to needle felt the flowers and stems onto the purse front. This is the backside of it and even that looks nice ~ a more subtle look but using that technique for a more simplistic design would look great as well! I also needlefelt by hand with those long barbed needles using a thick piece of foam as the base ~ but those needles must be used with caution!

The purse handle is just a piece of the sweater cut from the length of the sleeve ~ I folded each edge to the middle and used a zigzag stitch on the sewing machine to fasten it down. Then I applied this nice multi-colored roving-type yarn to the stitch line with the embellisher and I also flattened each end of the strap with the embellisher so that it would lay flat against the purse body.
The same roving was used to needlefelt the flower stems ~ I did that first and then applied the flowers to the purse front by needlefelting only the centers ~ that allows the flowers to be free floating! And one of my hand-make buttons from the class I took was perfect for the closure! I also hand-stitched in a lining made of a soft yellow cotton fabric printed with little navy blue hearts ~ my little stash of supplies comes in handy!

Here's the proud new owner of the recycled sweater purse ~ MISS LUCI !!!!! We had a nice day together ~ we made fruit smoothies for breakfast ~ for lunch, she had lettuce leaves and crackers and fresh strawberries with chocolate syrup drizzled over ~ if I ate like that, I would be a skinny mite, too!!!! Last night, we went to yet another little league game and there was Luci with her purse ~ in it she had a baggie of carrots and cucumbers and a little sandwich in case she needed a snack!! What can I say!!! Once you give a gift ~ you must detach yourself from it and let the owner do with it what they wish!!! Something I try to remember always!!!

Before we went to the game, which was at 8 p.m. ~ we went to a 70th birthday party for a friend I haven't seen in years!! We were friends as couples when I was formerly married and as happens, we kind of lost track of one another! Her husband ~ an interesting fellow ~ went to our local police department on Tuesday and asked if they knew us ~ everybody does (it's a small town) ~ and had the policeman call me to see if he could give my phone number to him!!! It was pretty funny ~ so, we went to her surprise party in a neighboring town ~ I saw people I hadn't seen in years ~ almost 30 in fact ~ and I was glad that we made the effort!! It was just odd the way it came about! Yesterday, I got a call on my cell phone from a lady who thought we had a house for rent ~ which we don't ~ I asked how she got my number and she said she called the water department and they thought we owned that particular house ~ so they gave her our number!!! Now is that a weird coincidence or what? The police department and water department are across the hall from one another ~ they must think we're very popular right now!!! And actually, we are in the phone book but no one spells our name correctly, so they can't find us!! Just a bit of weirdness to share with you!

Have a good weekend ~ make some memories!
Alice