Secret Santa

Happy New Year! I am so excited for 2011. I have a feeling it is going to be a good year for us. I have quite a few goals set for myself this year and hope that I can meet most, if not all, of them. I am in a very positive and optimistic mood today.

We spent New Years Day at my house with my family doing our Secret Santa swap. Since there are just so many of us, we decided this year to do a swap for the adults instead of buying gifts for everyone. It worked out really well I thought, at least for me. Instead of being frazzled over buying gifts for 9 adults in just my family alone, I got to focus on one person. I drew my mom out of the hat when we selected names.

At first I had planned to knit her a scarf/wrap/shall thing, but half way into the project I stopped because I wasn’t happy with how the yarn was feeling. It just wasn’t soft enough. It was a silk/alpaca blend and in the skein it felt so soft, but once it was knit up all those little alpaca fibers started popping up and were itchy. What a bummer.

So, after thinking some more and looking around my sewing room, I found this great plaid fabric tucked away. It was black/white/grey/red in color which fit my mom perfect. And I had plenty of yardage so I could make just about anything. I finally settled on this purse. All women could use another purse right? I thought it was the perfect, medium size bag and had a few compartments in it to help organize the contents.

The project itself, wasn’t all that hard really, it was just very long and involved. Between the interfacing, fabric, lining and stabilizer there were 70 pieces I had to cut out!! That alone took several nights to do.  Slowly but surely it came together and as I neared completion I was so excited….until I came to the point where I had to install the zipper into the pouch. This was only the third zipper I have ever sewn it. The directions were a little lacking in the pattern so I had to guess on a few things. I had to rip out one part several times, but finally got it done right.

My mom loved the purse and she had all her things switched over from her old purse before I could even get photos. I hope she enjoys using it as much as I enjoyed making it for her.

 

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