the beading is finished!!

and now that it is, I really like this blue field as background for those slices of shell

last night I painted the back of it with fray check to seal all the threads so I can move on with cutting away the background and putting a backing on it

after considering all the materials I had available on hand, I ended up stacking two 8 1/2 by 11 inch laminating sleeves and running them through the laminating machine to seal them together which created a piece of plastic big enough to use to back this with -- and I'll have some pieces left over that I will save to use on another piece later


 got some sewing machine time in yesterday afternoon and now all of the machine work on this bag is complete

still need to do all of the hand work of sewing on buttons, adding zipper pulls, etc., but it is nearly finished

I want to make some smaller zipper bags for inside it, and I hope to get to that in the next couple of days

cool

hope she likes it!


 and since the Warning Sky piece is all finished, I'm now spending more time working on this piece 

the swirls are slowly spreading across and down the surface

and each one is easier as I refine my technique in dealing with this narrow bias fabric

last night I spent almost two hours working on the quilting of the Alaska quilt --- I have only two and a half blocks left to quilt, so I should have the quilting done on it in the next couple of days

this afternoon I need to do some kitchen projects -- Thanksgiving is coming after all!