An Artist in my house

Actually... there are more than just one! SO maybe I should say the 

'featured' artist in the house.

My daughters boyfriend, Dorian, has been staying with us this summer. (Mostly to help me out while I am recovering but I suspect that it is just a good excuse for them to not be apart!)

He recently spent some time painting. Both of these were gifts that they wanted to give while going on vacation to NYC this week.

Dorian in deep concentration

 My dining room turned into a temporary art studio.

 Lighthouse painting, acrylics, a birthday present for Melissa's grandmother. (not the best picture, a little angled, but you get the idea!)

 A thank you gift for Melissa's Uncle Willie, my brother, for letting them crash at his apartment in NYC for the week.

This is from a photo taken on Assateague Island, MD. In it is Melissa with her Uncle Willie and a wild pony. 

It was very thoughtful of him to paint for my family. The nice thing is my family will truly appreciate them, after all there are quite a few artists that have come down the line!

Finished the second Amy Butler Handbag

I finished the second Amy Butler purse today, this one is for me! I have found that I can last about and hour to an hour and half max in the sewing room before I need to get the leg up and put some ice on the knee. This was all the time I needed to get the purse finished. Although, I will have to wait a bit to use it since it is not quite conducive to crutches!

 Sewing with my healing leg. I still am not aloud to place any weight on the leg but got the OK to use the sewing machine.

I did remember to bring my camera into the sewing room so I could document the last steps in finishing this project. (only took me 4 months to complete!!) 

The lining over the outside of the bag.

An opening left in the lining bottom to turn the bag right side out. Needed to be almost the entire length of the bottom since this bag has so much structure.

Pulled the bag right side out through the opening in the lining.

edgestiched the opening closed. I thought about doing this by hand as I would have with a garment. But with so many layers (6) to go through this option was the best and seeing that it is the inside bottom of the purse it is not likely to be noticed by anyone!

Holes for the handle insertion were left unstitched. I pressed them under by a half inch then inserted the handles.

Close up of handles pinned in place.

Prior to stitching the handles in place and edgestitching along the entire top of the purse I use pliers to squish down any bulky areas. This really helps to make the sewing machine run smoother over these areas. 

The final product!!

And of course I needed to make a tissue holder to match. Tissues are a staple in my purses... allergies!

So in a final review of this Amy Butler pattern and fabrics... I LOVE it. There is also a larger tote version that I plan on making for my daughter. It was fun to make this in Amy Butler's signature fabrics. The patterns and colors are bright and happy and of very good quality. I could also see myself making this purse in more traditional fabrics.

There are a lot of pieces, and the cutting and prep work is long and tedious. However, well worth the work! The final product is beautiful. I just need to decide on whether or not to spray it with scotch guard. Any thoughts on the scotch guarding?

I made it into the sewing room!

 And HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my MOM!


Saturday I ventured into my sewing room! I had an Amy Butler purse to finish for my mom's birthday gift and it was leaving with my daughter on a 7am flight to NYC on Sunday morning.


In retrospect, I may have over done it a bit on Saturday... Sunday was exhausting and no fun. With this in mind, when I ventured back into the sewing room this morning I gave myself a time limit and stuck to it. I set my ipod on a playlist of 15 songs and once it was done then so was I. 


I think that was a much wiser move on my part.


Back to Saturday... I played on a few scraps to get the feel of sewing with my broken, now healing, leg. It took a few minutes to get the feel but then I was off and sewing. The hardest part is that my quadriceps muscle on my right leg is still not functioning very well. So I had to really concentrate on controlling the pedal. Probably good therapy as long as I keep it in limited doses!


One of the purses is done and from the phone call I get from my Mom yesterday, she LOVED it! Yay!

The finished purse 

and a matching tissue holder to go in it.