Author Archives: Jan

When I found my half-sister, Debbie, back in March of 2016, when she was 80 and I was 65, I was welcomed with open arms by her entire extended family. I flew to northern Arizona six weeks later to meet Debbie face-to-face, and also got to meet both her daughters. Cindy, who is about seven years younger than I, lives with her mom. Cathy, about five years younger than Cindy, who lived in Orange County, CA, at that time, drove to Arizona that Saturday to spend Mother’s Day with her mom and sister. A year later, Cathy’s daughter and her … Continue reading →

The first person Jas introduced me to after we met was one of his closest friends, a woman who shibori-dyed fabrics and made beautiful contemporary art quilts from those fabrics. Her creations are pretty stunning, as you can see if you check out her portfolio. She and her husband invited us to dinner at their beautiful home this past Saturday night. She graciously told us just to bring wine, as she knows that I do not pride myself in my cooking. So I knew I had to make something. A number of years ago, when cleaning out her studio to … Continue reading →

What happens when you want a new bag to take along on your beach vacation and then you run out of time? You get a cute bag to add to the stock in your Etsy shop. Sara Lawson’s Sew Sweetness Paladin Pouch is a brilliant little multi-purpose bag. It comes in three sizes, Small (7” long x 5” tall x 2½” deep), Medium (9” long x 6½” tall x 3” deep), and Large (10½” long x 8” tall x 3½” deep). Sizes Medium and Large have an interior zippered pocket. All of them have a single exterior zipper that encloses … Continue reading →

Baby Boy (okay, so he’s 45!) has been traveling much more in his life lately, including several trips overseas. Years ago I made zippered “Pet Mesh” bags to hold the charging cords for their various electronic devices. A couple of weeks ago, after his Christmas/New Years/Wife’s Birthday trip to Austria and Italy, Dear Son #2 asked for a new bag that had greater depth for holding his international converters. And a new bag was born, at his request. There’s no greater compliment than your own child asking for a new bag!! The pattern I use for such bags is the … Continue reading →

Two weeks after returning from vacation and spending lots of time editing photos and writing my vacation travelogue, I just realized I never wrote a post about the last bag I made before vacation. . . . I actually started the fabric preparation to make another Sew Sweetness Paladin bag (that pattern I love to hate). As I started fusing the first exterior piece to the interfacing, I realized, to my horror, that the fabric was actually directional and I had cut it upside down. (Look at the black eyeglasses frames at the bottom of the first picture. Imagine those … Continue reading →

Some bags take longer to finish than others. This one has been hanging out in my sewing room since … early February, 2019! As I type this, we are 27 hours away from 2020! That’s a long time to be a WIP (Work In Progress). What got in the way of its completion? The problems I was having with my primary bagmaking machine. I was having problems with “birdsnests” (nasty tangles of thread that mass on the underside of a seam) which the machine repair tech called “user error.” My reaction to her statement: “Grumble, grumble.” You might be wondering … Continue reading →