Early morning work

My honey had to leave realllllllly early this morning. As in, it was still dark outside. Do you know how early you have to be awake on May 1st for it to still be DARK?! Yikes. Really early. Anyway, since I was awake, and the little one was still asleep (it being 2 hours before even HE likes to wake up), I took to the little red bag and got it finished. It's that Amy Butler bag I started over the weekend and now it's done! I added some Timtex to the bottom, to give it more shape, and I maintain that the stuff ought to come with a bottle of wine (or at least a cup of coffee) because it is such a colossal pain to work with. If I'd thought of it, I maybe would have just tacked the Timtex to the bottom, sandwiched in between the bag and the lining, instead of sewing it in. Maybe next time. For now, it's finished, and that makes a girl happy! The fabric handles were much easier than I thought they would be, but that might be related to the fact that my cording seemed much too skinny, so I put two lengths of cording thru each handle.

Edited to add: I never really thought about the leaves on my living room chair before. Now I'm pretty sure they are the same swiss chard as that red fabric!

All in all, I liked the pattern well enough. Amy Butler patterns annoy me a little, because she gets so chatty about how to thread a needle for hand-sewing, and then simply says, "using your zipper foot, sew the handle channel of the lining". As if the person who doesn't know how to thread a needle even knows what a zipper foot is. (And if that person is you, just shoot me a little email and we'll get you signed up for a sewing lesson!)

Anyway, we made it through the early morning and then ventured over to Michael's to take a peek at the new Martha Stewart line. I'd heard so much about it here and here and here. Now, I may have missed some of the offerings, and it did look a little picked over, but they didn't have the "bones" that I expected. I thought I could swing over to get some cute stuff for making Mother's Day cards. And while they have some cute stuff, especially kits, they didn't have the card-making supplies I'd hoped for. I will, however, be anxiously waiting our next little kid birthday party to get these Monkey Party Kits - they are darling! They include these great little cupcake decorations, paper cups that have monkey ears sticking off the sides, and super cute invitations!