Sunday, July 14, 2013

Orange Rhymes With Sporange (and yes, that's a real word)

Did you know that the opossum is ridiculously resistant to rabies? It has something to do with their naturally low heart rate or low blood pressure that enables them to play dead--it's not an environment in which rabies will thrive. I googled that while at the veterinary emergency center with Charlie and my mom (he's OK--it's just an ear infection; they see emergency, surgical, and regular cases on weekends when your regular doc is unavailable) in response to a text from my sister: "On the phone with animal control. Come straight inside--we think the possum in the yard has rabies." So google provided some interesting info that animal control confirmed when they told my sister they weren't coming out and that it's probably just dying. I have no idea what became of it, as I've had a raging headache all day and have only just now remembered it. So that's your unsolicited fun fact for the day.

Anyway, I didn't get a ton done this week. I worked on my sister's birthday present that I wrapped before I remembered to take pictures. And I made a cute little drawstring bag for a wee cousin. After seeing these a few weeks ago, her grandpop told me that she would love one. I tried to find out her favorite Disney character, but she doesn't have one (she's taking her first trip there in August and he thought it would be cute). I was also asked not to put her name on the exterior (child safety from strangers and all that jazz). So what did I have to go on? Her favorite color. She may be the only young girlie-girl I've ever met whose favorite color isn't pink or purple. It's orange. And I love that.

I couldn't find much in orange that I liked--everything just wasn't right, or the orange was a little too obnoxious. At Joann's I found a nice soft orange--kind of reminiscent of a creamsicle, so I went with that.



I was going through some old quilting magazines that I couldn't figure out why I had saved them, when I came across the cute flower shape above. It seemed perfect so I made a few. Do you know how hard it is to randomly place things like that? I figured this was the best way to keep the flowers visible when the bag is cinched. I usually don't interface these bags, but I used a lightweight fusible for this one. You can definitely feel the difference it makes.


 

I made four flowers so I stuck one on the back so it wouldn't be so plain. I had a major dumb moment with this. Usually you fuse your bonding stuff to the fabric, trace the design, fuse it to your base piece (in this case the bag) and then stitch if you wish. I was almost done the first twisty-turny flower when it hit me that something wasn't right. I had forgotten to remove the backing paper and fuse it down. Throw in the triple stitching I was using and it took a nice long while to pick the stitches out and start over.


Using the triple stitch function on my machine really makes it stand out as opposed to a standard stitch. The curves were tricky, but going slooooowwwwwly sure does help.


The lining was a perfect orange match even though it came from a different fabric line. This could have been cute on the outside, too, with orange flowers. I had bought a gazillion yards of white twill tape that I was going to layer up and sew together for sturdiness before feeding it through the channel, but there was a flaw in the worst possible spot that I hadn't noticed. I couldn't use it, even if I cut it, so that will be used for future projects. I tried to find white drawstring, but of course every color was available but that one. I bought a few options, and this sparkly orange is the only one that would work both in color and in fitting through the casing (which, note to self, perhaps I should make larger in the future).


So that's my meager offering for the week. Next on my agenda is a wallet. For a guy. I've never made one before so it will take some tinkering. I said to my dad "I need you to empty your wallet completely so I can borrow it." He simply said "Okay." He's at the point where he doesn't even question odd things anymore.

8 comments:

  1. Love the bag and the colors and especially the lining!! Can't wait to see the men's wallet !! Happy Week!!
    xx
    Neni

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  2. Lovely bag!The flowers are perfect!!Well done!
    Kisses from Greece
    http://freestilcreatingbyvilly.blogspot.gr/

    ReplyDelete
  3. Love the bag!! I make a point of it to never gift something in pink to girls or blue to boys. The whole gendre specific colours give me the heebee jeebees. PS, next time you ask your dad for his wallet, make sure his credit card is still inside. I mean, DUH!!
    ;-)

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  4. A friend has a granddaughter who loves orange. I think, being one of 4 girls, she had to pick a colour that was totally different from her sisters.
    I smiled at your story about the stitching. A number of times, I have been fighting with my machine, wondering why the job I want to do is so hard, when suddenly (half way through) I remember that my machine has an app for that!

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  5. Cuuute! I love that orange fabric, looks like you found the perfect one. =) The flower appliques are a great addition.

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  6. I love the bag! I don't usually like orange but I do this.
    As for the opossum.... they do get rabies. We had one by our house, and we live in town, that was walking in circles in the alley.. in the daytime. And one day it was sitting on the neighbor's fence.. again, in the daytime. We called Animal Control and they came and picked it up.

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  7. I love the bag! I don't usually like orange but I do this.
    As for the opossum.... they do get rabies. We had one by our house, and we live in town, that was walking in circles in the alley.. in the daytime. And one day it was sitting on the neighbor's fence.. again, in the daytime. We called Animal Control and they came and picked it up.

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  8. Well possums aren't native to here, but it's good to know that should I ever trip over one it won't be rabid ;o)

    Love the bag :o)

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