My little bowl has grown up....

WrapBowl Becomes WrapBag

As so many of you know, I have a thing for bags.   So after admiring my bowl for couple of hours, it was only natural that I should begin to think of ways to make it a tote bag.    I could have added handles right then and there but it would have been a bit small and I had tons of cut fabric left to work with.  After checking my fabric closet with no luck, I pm'd a friend who had offered to share her rope (bowl to bag, must have rope).   To my delighted surprise, she showed up at my house that afternoon with a box of rope.  Bless her and thank the heavens for friends who get it.

WrapBag in Progress

The rest of Sunday afternoon was spent watching Space 2001 (still confusing after all these years), Space 2010 (much easier to understand), and wrapping rope in pretty fabric strips.   My plans to sew on Monday did not work out but I got straight to work on it this morning.

WrapBag as Hat

With the rope already wrapped, the bowl grew to bag proportions very quickly.   Before long, even T2 was impressed enough to take an interest (that is my little darling with my bag on his head).    A quick trip out to Joanne's for purse handles, and the end was near.    After perusing the web for a bit, I decided to attach the handles with strips of fabric covered felt.  Luckily, it worked like a dream.

WrapBag w/Handles

After dinner, I took my new knitting bag outside for some pictures.   Hubby amused himself by taking pictures of me taking pictures (Okay, I admit it.  I think that was really cute of him).

Hubby's Picture of Me Taking Pictures

Why yes we do, in fact, have a flamingo on our front lawn.   This is, after all, Florida.   Sometimes I wonder what our neighbors think when I head out front with a seemingly mundane item and proceed to take 50 pictures of it.  

My New Knitting Bag

Wrap a bowl...

Wrap Bowl Before

Last Friday, I took a wrap bowl class a fairly new local quilt shop (Cinnamon's Quilt Shoppe).    The shop itself is lovely, the teaching space is clean and spacious, and the teacher was terrific.   I will definitely be taking more classes here.    The only problem was my sewing machine.   Although is quite old (got it as a gift while preggers with my 14yo), it has only started giving my problems recently.    I had put a new one on my birthday list and was content to wait, until I spent the first hour of this three hour class trying to get it the tensioner to stop eating the thread.   Due to this delay, and the fact that I wanted a bigger bowl then the class was meant for, this is what I  went home with (pretty even in its unfinished state).

Wrap Bowl During

The first thing I did when I got home was to order my new machine from Amazon.   Now I was not looking for something awesome here, just a good, reliable, workhorse that I can take to classes and use at home when I don't have the stamina for my bigger, more complicated machine.   After looking at prices and reviews, I ordered the Brother CS6000i.    It got great reviews and the price was killer on Amazon.

Wrap Bowl After

My new machine arrived on Wednesday but I was not able to take the time to get to know it (and finish my bowl) until today.   So here it is, my first wrap bowl.   This project was fun and easy.   I can't wait to make more.

If you are interested in wrap bowls, It's a Wrap: Sewing Fabric Purses, Baskets, And Bowls and It's a Wrap II: Sewing New Shapes, Exploring New Techniques were recommended by the person who signed me up for the class.    I have them both but did not need them for class and have not made any of the projects in them.   Over time, I probably will, though.    I am really intrigued by the tote bags made using this method.

Oops, we did it again

This past Wednesday, T2 and I decided to blow off our respective schedules and head down to Disney for the day.   Our annual passes were set to expire on Mar17 and we were considering not renewing.   Our plan was to start at Epcot, ride Soarin', buy tea in England, lunch in France, desert in Morocco, and jump over Magic Kingdom for the rides.  Perhaps predictably, our day did not work out as planned.    

Yes, blurry, I know.

Due to traffic and poor planning, it was noon when we walked into Epcot.   By then my sugar was dropping and I was not feeling great.   Instead of working our way around the world showcase, we went straight to Morocco and ate the sit down restaurant.    Although hideously expensive (must plan better in future!), the food was awesome, and the belly dancers were a hoot.

I even got to cast on a new traveling sock while we watched the show.    Unfortunately, I never really recovered from the sugar drop so while we did hit some of the other countries in Epcot, we did not park hop to Magic Kingdom.   I was just too tired and was dreading the two hour drive home.   As it is, we hit traffic going home that doubled the drive time.

In the end we renewed our passes, so the rush to get in as many visits as possible before we lose the opportunity is over for now.   Guess where we are going for spring break?

The World We Live In...

Knitting in St. Augustine....

 Castillo de San Marcos

 
With all that has been going on, I only just today, got to take T2 to St. Augustine for his birthday lunch.  Now, before you start feeling too bad for him, he did get presents, two birthday dinners (complete with cake), and a day at Disney.    The lunch thing is something that is just him and me.

Taken from the Castillo walls

After taking care of a couple of practical matters, we parked downtown, walked to our favorite restaurant, and had a terrific lunch.    Next, we spent several hours walking around the historic section of town (I took tons of pictures).    It seems that no matter how many times we do this, we still love it.  

The Bridge of Lions

From the center of the historic district, we walked to the Northern boarder, across to the Southern edge, and
back to our car.   We walked so much, that I could have had ice cream (which I did not).   The weather was perfectly warm and breezy.

Reunion Cowl

Did you tweet to Lion Brand today?   I did, while working on the Reunion Cowl (easy take along knitting) at lunch.  The idea was to knit in public and tweet about it before noon.   One lucky tweeter was chosen to win a gift certificate to Lion Brand, the amount to be determined by how many total tweets were received.    Here is the really cool kicker, a donation in the same amount as the gift cert, will now be made to St. Jude Children's Hospital by Lion Brand.   Sadly, I did not win.   Happily, I did participate in a fund raiser for a worthy cause.   It made the day, that much sweeter.