How do they do it?

Poor old Princess C-W didn't go to Brownies last night, at the very last minute we had to cancel and she was not a happy creature. However, once the quiet tears stopped she took it all in good grace; especially as I 'bought' my way out of it by

a) letting her stay up until end of Brownies time (late at our house) &
b) beginning a bag for her friend's birthday.

We had an old pair of CK's jeans (freshly laundered you understand), a not especially sharp pair of scissors, loads of thread, an offcut of red gingham (* sigh* just looking at that stuff is balm to my soul. Balm I tell you. ), my sewing machine and the determination of nine y.o. girl thwarted!

We interfaced, we appliqued, we seamed and then it was time for bed. And I have to say it was looking pretty good at this point, possibly good enough to shift from prototype to present! Of course I have no picture. That would be the work of a well person!

Having burned my brain out I gave up for the night & I took myself off to bed.

Feeling slightly more clever this morning I created handles. Lots of pseudo-overlocking on my machine, some bright red thread and an 'Oh that will do' attitude left me with two nice length, good width handles and a big fat offcut from the leg of a pair of jeans. Guess what I then spent the next fraught minutes of my life attaching to 'the bag'? Yes, it was the offcut and, despite having turned, pinned and stitched it, it was about twice the width of the handles! I threw it down in disgust at my stupidity and went to bed for the afternoon. Tonight the bag lies languishing de-nuded of all handleage but I shall be braver tomorrow.

So here is my reason for the title of this post. How do they do it? All those clever sew-er people out there in the real, imaginary world. How do you get your edges to meet, your seams to sit so or your thread to stay attached to the fabric? Because, despite four years of hard work by Mrs. Highway, Mrs Robinson and Mrs Hurley during my formative years, I am still crubbish at this lark.

Obviously it was a zeitgeist-y thing in the ether b/c my Mother (the woman who supposedly loves me. Huh!) sent me these pictures of her current W.I.P. just this morning.

Obviously I am not grumbling or anything b/c this is my (by that I obviously mean 'ours' and CK will be very welcome to share it!) apple quilt that now has a border and everything. She was even talking about doing the filling bit and possibly backing it in the next lil' bit! (See I know so much about quilting.)

And just a little happy note to finish on - this picture was taken back in November when I was touristing around the countryside with the tropical family. While I do not possess a knitted monkee to entertain and delight you with musical pop combos, tricks and suchlike - I am a good monkee tote owner. We go on regular excursions to both interesting and entertaining places. This was a good place for the tote - look the monkee is smiling, my 13 y.o. niece thought it was 'cold and old' - I don't think this was good!!!!!