Skip to main content

Calendar Tote #1

For the first month in my 2026 calendar tote project I drew inspiration from an adorable sterling silver garnet and marcasite brooch I thrifted. My grandmother's birthday was in January, and she left me a garnet ring I cherish very much. She was also a very tall, elegant woman with a lot of style.

I went rummaging through my bags bin and decided to use a black canvas tote for this one. It will serve as the base for my quilting and beading.

I then started collecting fabric and beads that I want to use for the crazy quilting. Since I don't often use dark colors I tried to go with what I thought my grandmother would like, and of course the colors from the brooch.

I also raided my scraps bin for some red, gray and black fabrics to use. I'll revisit the bin each month this year for the project, too.

I don't really have a plan for how I'm going to put the tote together. I think being spontaneous and allowing the materials I choose to guide me is best. Stay tuned to see what I make of it.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.
Post a Comment
Read more

Love Means This

Invested in a couple of hand-dyed bundles from one of my favorite fabric artists. This one said "Make me into something for Valentine's Day." So I went for a quilted and embellished tote. I kept thinking about what love means to me as I worked on it. Here's the finished tote. Although I was tempted to embellish with beads and pins, I got sick and only felt well enough to do a little stitching every night. As I worked I thought about how often love seems disappointing to us, especially when it fails to live up to our expectations. But now that I've experienced love in many forms, I can say that it's made me a better person than I might have been without it. Love is a precious thing, and should be appreciated in all its forms. I am very grateful for the love of my guy, my child and my friends who have stuck with me all these years. That's you two, in case you're wondering. :) Also finally found something to do with a ve...
1 comment
Read more

Store Closing Haul

The mega Books-A-Million store over in Sanford is closing, and offered an extra 20% off on their current stock -- all sales final -- so I went over to do some shopping. Safely but sadly there was no one in the store but me the entire time I was there. The Holly Jackson novel is for Katherine, the Halloween board book is for Oliver, and the copy of Garden Spells is to keep on hand because I give that book to everyone. The rest of the books are for me. I love Anne Cleeves, and the Galbraith novel sounded interesting (the first couple weren't, but I'm willing to take another chance.) The Escape Room is by a new-to-me author, plus it was cheap. The GreenCraft mag is just a guilty pleasure. Hopefully the smaller BAM nearer to me won't close. I don't buy many books from brick-and-mortar stores these days, but that's really the last one within reasonable driving distance.
2 comments
Read more