Husker Bag–Displaying My College Pride

John and I have season tickets to the University of Nebraska at Lincoln Women’s Basketball games.  We enjoy going and to show our pride we wear our school colors as much as we can. (I can say our because we both graduated from the University of Nebraska, although it was many years ago.)I decided since we were going to so many games I needed to make a purse/bag to go with my Husker red clothes.  By the way UNL’s mascot is the Cornhuskers…shortened to Huskers. I used the Barbados Bag pattern designed by Nancy Green from Pink Sand Beach Designs for the basic pattern. This is both sides of the outside of the bag.  I used two red/black/white prints plus some of the black leather from one of the thrift store leather coats I took apart for the bottom.   It is hard to tell where the pockets are located so these photos below show a white card placed in the pockets.  I like lots of pockets in my bags so if a pattern doesn’t have what I want I add them.I used a white fabric with small black printed design for the lining of my bag.  I always choose a light colored lining as I made the mistake of making one bag with a black lining and I never can see anything inside!  I always put one zippered pocket and patch pockets on the opposite side of the lining in most bags I make.  There is a bit of a change to one of the patch pockets though.  Scroll down to look at the detail photo. 
I do want to point out the that the bottom is left open on one half of the patch pocket.  My sister showed me this trick a few years ago.  The reason is that you can stand your wallet or checkbook up and it will peek out the top for easy retrieval and the bottom will rest on the bottom of the bag.  Keeps the pocket from tipping forward when something heavier is placed inside. All finished!  I love it and have carried it quite a few times already.  You can see front and back views below.As a final touch I make zipper pulls for ease of opening and closing. For this bag I have one special one I originally purchased as a piece of jewelry but added a lobster clip and Ta-Da a fantastic zipper pull..  In case you can't read it, it says “once a Husker, always a Husker”.Also dressed up the bag with a bit more bling.  This was also part of a necklace but I did find that it was a bit heavy to wear as a necklace but is perfect hanging on to the base of my bag strap.  It could be a great key ring as well.I love the size of the bag, love the fabrics plus the leather on the bottom as it helps to keep it clean at the ball games, and love the subtle tribute (red and white colors) to my beloved Nebraska Cornhuskers.

Lynn

Snow

It snowed and granted the roads and highways were a mess but look how beautiful my back yard looked the next morning.

Lynn

Ready, Set, Go…….

Happy New Year and a belated Merry Christmas!  It is hard to believe it is 2016 already as I finally got used to writing 2015.

Like the title says ready, set go!  This isn’t a news year’s resolution as such but more as the start of a new year and a challenge to myself to hopefully write more posts.  It is all habit and I have just gotten out of the habit of writing for my blog and I intend to do better.  As a start I plan to post as often as I can and to not make myself write long posts but short, hopefully interesting posts to get me started.

We had a lovely Christmas with our family and a fun tradition we have with the grandchildren is to have a scavenger hunt and games or search for items around the house to get their gifts.  Now that they are a bit older we tried a couple new things that they had fun doing.  First one they had to do to get a gift was to make up their mothers as Santa.  They worked on their aunt rather than their own mother and used toilet paper and scotch tape.  Think they did a pretty good job, don’t you think?  It really got silly and they had fun making the two different kinds of beards and topping them off with the two Santa hats. 

   

Another fun activity they did used a paper plate and different colored crayons.  They had to put the paper plate on their head and draw what I told them to, not seeing what they were drawing of course.  I had them use a green crayon to draw a tree, a brown crayon for the trunk, yellow crayon for a star on top and red for ornaments on the branches.  To make it more fun for the kids the adults did it too.  They all had a giggle over their creations and to be honest they were pretty good pieces of art.  Every year I ask them if they are tired of doing all the things we have then do to get their gifts and the unanimous vote is to keep doing it so we do.  It does take a bit of time to come up with all the clues for the scavenger hunt for all four of them but John and I enjoy trying to make the clues more obscure the older the child.  The 15 yr. old had to really do some thinking to figure out some of her clues.  The rule is if you find all your clues you have to help the ones not done.  We send them upstairs, downstairs, and in the garage to find the clues.

The kids and adults played board games the 2 days they were here and everyone had fun from the 10 year old to John and I the oldies in the group.  We all had lots of laughs at John playing Pictionary as he can not draw well at all and our guesses of what he drew were even funnier.  It is nice to spend time together and enjoy each other’s company.

Until Later,
Lynn

Triangle Frenzy Swirl

Here is the second table runner I made using the Triangle Frenzy Swirl pattern by Bunny Cleland.
This one was made from a striped snowman fabric and I will use it on my table at Christmas and the rest of the winter.  As I said before, this is a very simple pattern to make and can be whipped up in just a few hours.
The pieces are cut with a 60 degree triangle and you use striped fabric or could use fabric that is seamed together to make stripes.  I used a Creative Grids ruler I already had but a blunted top tip of a 60 degree ruler is really helpful for making this table runner. 

I have several striped fabrics on hand so may whip more of these up when I have a few extra minutes.

Lynn