All posts by Sherry

Cosmetic Bag

The Guild decided to spend some of our money and our project was to make and fill cosmetic bags for our women’s shelter. I’m not a fan of making bags and I’m certainly not a fan of zippers but it was for a good cause so I decided to participate.

We were working from a very old pattern and at some point it was decided that there needed to be a demo for those people who were having problems. I thought I should get a start on the bag before the demo and I was only at step 2 (the zipper) before I had issues. So off to the demo I went.

I took photos and when I tried again at home everything went reasonably well until it was time for the lining. My bag was about half the size of what it should be. I chatted with a guild member at one of our swims and she suggested I had perhaps sewn the zipper onto the wrong side. Another look at the pattern and my small bag and I realized that was the issue.

So I bought another zipper (two more actually just in case) and started again. Things worked better this time but I had major issues with the lining. It was much too large for the size my bag came to but I wasn’t about to start over so I stuffed it inside and sewed it by hand.

Never again! The pattern wasn’t very clear on directions, both of the ladies handling the demo had different methods and neither of them matched the pattern directions.

Done is done – not pretty and really not very well done but …

Needless to say my idea of making these as Christmas gifts for my granddaughters went out the window!

Noah Barleywater Runs Away

Author: Boyne, John

I downloaded this book for our recent Saskatchewan trip and completely forgot about it until I got a notice that it was due in a couple of days. I was able to renew it for three weeks but it only took a week to finish it.

As I started reading I thought it was more of a children’s story and I could see reading it aloud to someone about the same age as Noah. I had a bit of an insight into what the story was really about very close to the end when the second character in the story wishes he had never become a real boy. Yes, it is the story of Pinnocchio but long after Geppetto has died.

I’m not so sure it is a good kid’s story but I certainly enjoyed it.

Goodreads Rating: * * * *

State of Terror

Author: Clinton, Hillary Rodham & Penny, Louise

Pat picked up this book on our recent Saskatchewan trip. I’d heard of the novel but until we had it in hand I wasn’t terribly interested.

It was slow to get going and there was no escaping the parallels between the fiction and the reality of today’s world. I managed to get over that and into the book but lost it again at the end when Three Pines and Inspector Armand Gamache were added to the plot. I understand why they were added but felt it was unnecessary.

Goodreads Rating: * * *

Happy Birthday Peggy

May 27, 2026

Freebie from Michaela Learner

I’ve had this Tudor Rose bookmark pattern for a couple of years and I’m glad I finally had a reason to make it. I stitched most of it on our recent trip to Saskatchewan.

To finish it I added Steam-a-Seam to the back of the cross stitch and then attached it to an iron-on interfacing. It came out quite sturdy and I would certainly do another one that way.