Progress report on WIP

Hello, everyone. It's been busy lately, with the run-up to Easter and training. 

This is a progress photo of the new purse/tote bag.

All it needs now is for the zipper to be sewn in and the top panel to be sewn down. It's a little tricky to access the key parts, as y'all can see from the line of pins. I  am leaning towards removing the pins, stitching the top panel down, and then stitching the zipper panel in place on top of the other stitching. Then the bag will be done.

Re:training, I am doing a little mild weight work with my arms and exercising my ankles and feet and legs, even on days I don't do a formal walk. As the first part of our resumed Camino is expected to be fairly flat, things should be okay. 

Government Canyon State Natural Area walk

 Hello, everyone.

We took a little "training road trip" this weekend, to San Antonio. (A drive of a couple of hundred miles for a weekend visit is completely normal in Texas. We're all so spread out across our large state.) "What is there in San Antonio" I hear some of my readers wondering. Well, besides the famous Alamo historical memorial, and the usual shopping, restaurants, etc. to be found in a large city, there are Government Canyon and REI. Well, one of the REI coop retail locations, anyway. They sell various hiking supplies and equipment. Sometime mail order over the internet just won't do and we need to see the things up close and personal, to assess size and so on.

Government Canyon is a state park, conveniently located at the edge of the city in Helotes, a town which is being enveloped by the San Antonio metro area. It has two parts, a dog friendly area called the Front Range and a no pets allowed area called the Back Country which is most of the park.

A map of the park. This is much more complete than the paper maps at the headquarters, those really only covered the Front Range area.

This is a tree alongside the trail we walked. I have no idea what kind of tree it is. Those brown things are seed pods (empty now) from last year.

I was not expecting to see Spanish Moss in San Antonio. Yet there are some trees covered in it here!

View from the Overlook, which looks down onto the site of the dinosaur footprints, and also onto a really pretty view.

We walked 7 miles (11 km), per our Strava, in almost 3 hours. It was a wonderful walk in great weather, and we also met very nice people there. (Out of respect for their privacy, I won't say anything more about them on the public internet.) 

If you are in San Antonio over a weekend, you really should visit this park. 

Another fidget finished

Hello,  everyone. Today another fidget is completed. 

The project began in a stitch-out of a design that was used on the Clam Up bag that was recently completed.  

The roses called out for some butterflies,  and there was a piece of ribbon left over from the busy cubes a while back. Other beads found places, and thus lessened the extensive stash a little bit. 

The four-patch squares were also made from stash. The strips just went with the greens and yellows of the flowers.

The dotted material is a brushed knit and the outside borders (inside the binding) are microfleece. 

Sewing Club project: March (edited for link)

Hello, everyone. I'm still on a tear, as they say, to finish things. Today's finish is the project from this month's Sewing Club meeting. 

First, the front:

And then the back:

This was a fun little bag to make. We did the XL size of the Clam Up bag from ByAnnie.com. The pattern came with several sizes and it has good directions...though I personally recommend that the person making one accept that some parts will need to be read more than once. I didn't use my coupon for the video yet, because our meeting was led by a member who has made some of them. (The coupon comes if you order the pattern through your local sewing or quilt shop.) 

I used my embroidery machine to make the roses design on the front before putting the layers together. Then I added some quilting to accent the design and improve stability. The foam interfacing (I was out of Soft n Stable, so used some Flex foam that happened to have iron-on adhesive on both sides) was going to be connected to the back of the cut away stabilizer, so I also used the iron as well as the quilting design. If not for that, there might have been a more-densely quilted design.

The foam was really thick where it is doubled next to the zipper. Absent the glue, I might have trimmed the edge a bit. But it did go together, even at the bottom seams, and I like the finished bag.

The newest finishes

Hello, everyone.  These are the two thing I have finished recently. One, the fidget, had been sewn for a little while, but it's getting ready to go to a new home and I wanted to "shuzh" up a little. 

She's wearing an earring and necklace now, and there are colorful crosses around the margins. Besides making the whole presentation a little fancier, the beads also put another little note of texture for the lady to enjoy.

The other is last month's sewing club project.

As y'all can see, the table runner is a bit oversized for my breakfast table. The hearts are 9 inches tall. I think it finished out at 22 inches or so on the narrow dimension. Probably about 40 inches the long way. And I didn't put border strips on as called for in the pattern! It's big enough as is.

This was mostly done with the squares in a party-themed layer cake: 42 squares 10x10 inches. There are a few extra pieces left, and a few strips and bonus triangles. The bonus triangles are turning into half-square triangle blocks in various sizes. The binding was also made from the layer cake; I cut lavender squares into 2.5 inch strips and pieced them together.

Progress report: new purse/tote

Hello, everyone. Today I have a W.I.P. progress report.

This is another of the Sew4Home.com  embroidered purses. The first had the lion head they show on their site. The second had a Cardinal on a branch. (Gift recipient loves cardinals.) Now a new one for me, because the Lion Purse is getting worn out. (The faux linen white fabric I used is not really durable to being dragged all over God's creation in airplanes and cars and just everywhere. ) This one has cotton duck, prewashed, for the outside. 

There will be a zipper on top as well as the top bands in the original pattern.

The lining is going to be lime green nylon ripstop, which I passed through a candle flame to prevent raveling edges.

Some completions to post but not today, I haven't taken photos of them yet. :-)

Another low carb breakfast (edited for spelling)

Hello, everyone. Today's post is of the completely yummy dish Nopales con Huevo.

The nopal pads--prickly pear cactus leaves--are in season right now. My local HEB grocery store has little bags of cleaned, diced nopal. The spines are gone. I boiled them in a pan of water and then rinsed them thoroughly to remove the gelatinous sap. Then they went into the skillet where they were joined by a couple of lightly beaten eggs. A few minutes later, a great scramble. I did drizzle a bit of Cholula sauce on top for seasoning.