Melting

We’re melting, we’re melting!! And it’s a good thing.

A few days of above freezing temps and sunshine and look at the progress. Now you can see how messy my backyard is.
February has been a hard month. It was tempting to say a “long” hard month but given it’s the shortest need to find more descriptors for a month that had no days above freezing.  But instead of dwelling on the horrible cold, it is time to move forward and greet spring sunshine, even if we’re a little short on the flowers yet.
The sun and warmer temps seem to have shaken me out of my doldrums. Plus I actually have stuff I can talk about. We have been planning a fabulous Caribbean sailing trip that I have been reluctant to mention. Mostly because it was on hold for so long as we waited for repairs to be made to our friends boat.
And finally it is ready. DH is there now, flew out yesterday, I will be joining them once the boat is in St Maarten. First they have to sail it from Fort Lauderdale and that will be an open ocean 24/7 cruise that I’m just not qualified for. Everyone aboard that leg has to be able to helm the boat for three hour watches and my experience on our little 17 ft cat boat here in the big lake just isn’t enough to make the cut.
While we have been waiting for this to happen, I’ve been keeping busy sewing. Not all of it quilts. I branched out into bag making to send some gifts to our friends. Taking a tip from Quiltfool, who’s blog has taught me lots, I did some prototypes first. Once I learned the pattern, I could branch out and make modifications.
The original didn’t have the pockets on the outside, which you can sort of see where the fabric changes. I had to go to another bag pattern to learn how to do that. All in all, I made 5 bags to get two to send. But since they called and said how much they love them, it was all worth it.

Found a pic of them in progress showing the pocket. The white at the bottom of the bag, before everyone starts to wonder why I would put white on the bottom where it is going to get so much wear and tear, is sailcloth. Yep, the actual stuff they make sails from. It was a pain in the butt at times to work with but should be pretty durable.
It was a fun project and a good reminder that there are things other than quilts  to be made from fabric.