You know you....

....have grown up in a drought when you hear water running, and check every faucet in the house before looking outside to discover that it's raining.

Pics of the Day

Guess What??

I got to weld today!

We were fixing a trailer hitch, and my boss said, "You want to try?"

I said, "Sure"

And he did one while I watched, then I did this one!

I'm pretty stoked, as I've always wanted to weld.

:)

Branding Pics

 Irons in the Fire

(These days, we use propane)

 Calves, all sorted and waiting their big moment

 First, you rope them,

Then they are dragged out to the branding pen,

Where someone sits on their front end while the horse holds the back legs,

And they get branded, vaccinated, and tested for an infectious disease.

 Brandings are all about teamwork!

Finished Purse

I finally finished my purse that I've been thinking about for a couple months.

I had several different things I was wanting that I couldn't find anywhere in a commercially made purse:

1: Made of cloth - I hate the fake leather feel

2: I needed a mid-length strap that was short enough to keep the purse from being down on my legs, yet long enough to fit over the sleeve of my work coat

3: A way to separate all my stuff so it wasn't all at the bottom

4: A 'secret' pocket that wouldn't bulge out into the rest of the purse when full.

So here is the process and final design details!

You can do anything with a square and a ruler - unless of course the ruler isn't straight.....

 The design and measurements for the interior.

For those of you having issues figuring it out from the pic, basically I have 2 rectangles side by side. One side is divided in half horizontally (small pockets on top of secret pocket) and there are pocket dividers in them.....ask me sometime and I'll show it to you in person :)

If you are wondering what is showing through from the next page, here it is:

And yes, I am tone deaf....sorry to whoever is standing nearby when I start at the wrong point on the line.... :P

And the design for the exterior.

And the exterior decoration. It actually ended up being structural, as the part on the flap is holding the interior and exterior layers together.

I kinda forgot to take pics of the first go round...I had tried making it a bit of a crazy hexagon, but it just didn't work out, so I re-drew the whole thing square and cut all new pattern pieces and started over.

These are the small pockets on top of the secret pocket.

I was pretty happy with this mockup, so I started on the real thing.

Here is my fabric for the interior:

I love it, but it was a pain to work with, as it was continually shedding from every cut edge:

The cats helped, of course ;)

 World's worst paperweight....

Here are the three side by side:

L-finished, M-final mock-up, R-1st draft

And photos of the final:

Here are the pockets (front to back)

3 small, shallow pockets

opening to secret pocket under 3 pockets

2 large, deep pockets

Overall, I really like this purse. the biggest thing I would change is making the flaps larger, and not wrapping them around the corners, as they don't want to fold over.