another project (go figure!)

after I finished up the red handbag, I decided I wanted to make a second bag to use for "every day"

I got my hands on a remnant of upholstery fabric that is a textured tan/beige color for a great price and I thought I might be able to use my African animal stamps to print on it

uh, not so much

the fabric is too soft and too textured to take a stamping

so, back to drawing board

I went through the bins of fabrics again and pulled out some things I thought I might be able to use

those little animals are pieces that came from my friend in California -- she has some cool hand carved wood stamps and she did several stamps of each one on muslin for me to use

and that purple fabric came from Africa -- by way of my sister -- and I'm thinking about using it as the lining

I cut off a chunk of the upholstery fabric that is big enough to cut the bag pieces out of and played with putting animal stamped pieces on it

I thought about using my Copic markers to add some color to the background, but I've decided to use my sewing machine and some colored thread instead -- an excursion into thread painting

then I'll attach the animal prints and be ready to actually cut out the bag

we'll see how that all goes
and I got these very cool seeds yesterday when I was in my local Ace Hardware

last summer my son-in-law grew some gourds, and after seeing some neat projects made with some of them, I thought it would be fun to grow a few myself

and I had not seen these any place but a catalog before now -- I'm especially fascinated by the swan gourds -- and I think those real small ones will make Christmas ornaments

it should be a fun adventure, and the plants are perfect to be good ground cover in the garden area during the summer

and I'll be sharing the seeds with my son-in-law -- let the growing begin!!