Fixing Up Vera Part One

What led me to bid on a lot of Vera Bradley bags up for auction in August is a sad reality: all of my purses have now worn out and are coming apart. They were handmade by a very talented maker who no longer sells her work, too, so I can't replace them. I got fifteen years use out of all of them, so while I'm sad I think I'm pretty lucky.

The lot was noted to have "some stains and rips" so I was the only bidder, and got all seven bags for $9.99. When I looked at them I found the damage had been exaggerated, with five being undamaged and three of those just a bit soiled from use. Two were in unused condition.

The large tote had some brown stains on the inside. It looked like some kind of coffee or brown beverage had leaked in the tote.

These stains barely showed on the outside, so I treated them with Shout stain remover and put the bag in the wash with the others.

The large duffel bag had a tear in one of the outer pockets that I saw I could patch, and did the repairs in about an hour.

To see the results, stop by the blog tomorrow.

Comments

Fell Off the Wagon

I did cut up that plastic dollar tote to make into something stronger, but got caught up with work and set it aside. Then last night some hand-dyed silk and pretty threads called my name, and, well . . . Felt SO good to do some handwork, except my neck began hurting about an hour into it. I tried changing the way I sit and work, but it's pretty obvious that the doc is right.

Old Loves & Such

My guy kindly bought me my favorite Chinese take out the other night, and my fortune cookie offered up an interesting story starter: This sounds sweet, right? Only the first thing I thought of was an old love coming back from the dead . . . . must be October. In other lovely news, my favorite hand-dyed thread artist, Lorraine from Colour Complements , is moving her business from Etsy to her own web site. Many of my favorite sellers on Etsy are leaving due to the whole "free shipping" coercion debacle, which has also soured me on the site. To show support I did a little shopping at Lorraine's web site and got in these: I love her threads and trims; you simply can't buy anything like them anywhere. Her work makes my specialty thread box look like a treasure chest: At night I'm spending just as hour working on quilting the scrap project runner, and I'm making slow progress: I'll keep quilting the runner while I try to decide on a design for t...

T-minus Day

This was our little Thanksgiving dinner last year, when it was just the three of us. Time keeps whittling down my favorite holiday; this year it will be just me and my guy, and we likely won't even have a turkey.* That will be a first in 35 years. I feel about Thanksgiving the way other people do about Christmas, and while it's a lot of work it's my favorite holiday. Of all the Thanksgivings I've had in the past sixty years, only three were truly terrible: one when I was a kid that I don't talk about (#1 most miserable); the time I roasted two turkeys together and hosted fifteen people whom I cooked for and served with zero help (the largest and #2 most miserable); and the one I spent in basic training (the #3 most miserable.) I have no pictures of any of those, thank heavens. In addition to doing all the cooking I'm the one who takes all the pictures, washes all the dishes and puts away all the leftovers. I suppose no one else cares because to them it...

Valerean

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