Merry Christmas to All... and to All

Peace, sanity, strength and the discipline to pray regularly.  I haven't had that discipline,....and it was not by my faith that my mom survived an aneurysm, crainiotomy and all the brutality that comes along with such an event.  She is a very young 70 and seems relatively unchanged in personality.  What??  The stories I have heard about these things are beyond imagination.  We've been so very blessed that it has brought me to my knees.  To my knees.  

My sister is 5 years clear now of a devastating breast cancer, and my husband has his vision despite detached retinas in both eyes.  These are my Christmas gifts.  My children are beyond well, my nephew is to become a father shortly.

This next year I will spend significant time on my knees.

I wish you all the very happiest and peaceful of holidays, and may the promise of the Christ Child keep you where you need to be.

~Lis

Bags, Bags and More Bags!

I mentioned in my last post that I was constructing market bags to use as gifts for my peeps, and so I've made about 16 of these.  I scanned some illustrations from an old La Fontaine book of fables, I purchased some images from graphics sellers, one of them was a rubber stamp I scanned and blew up.  Using t-shirt transfer paper, and an assortment of fabrics from ye olde stash, it was not an expensive project.  The transfer paper was the pricey element, but Michael's and JoAnne's coupons defrayed the cost considerably. 

That interesting rubber stamp, I think it is from a Tim Holz collection.

This peach bag was the back and front of a linen blouse!

I used different scraps for linings, old pillow tickings, this one has a sweet 1930's textile.

I was pretty amazed with the detail that the transfer paper picked up.

I don't intend to make a career out of market bags, but it was a great way to use up some osnaburg and other cottons that I had piling up. The adhesive from the transfer paper made a darker area but because I used such detailed images, no way was I trimming all that excess off. I would like to try silk screening at some point and see if the same detail is possible. Once the fabric was cut and the transfer applied, I could sew one up in about 20 minutes, seriously.



Credit is due and most gratefully given to  oldgreymare for her basic bag construction tutorial. I roughly duplicated her measurements and flew through these.



I intend to use them instead of gift wrap wherever possible. So there you go!