... Blogger is just freaking out.  Every post on my blog says that comments are disabled for that post.  Ugh!  Blogger can be super frustrating.

Here's a terrible phone photo of a cute little chipmunk.  He hangs out on the top of parked cars' wheels in my work parking lot.  How cute is that?! He just sits there, kinda sprawled out on top of the wheel. He doesn't even move until you get really close. And even then, he just hides on the axel behind the wheel until you stop moving.  Then he gets right back on the wheel.

Precious!

Unlike Blogger.

I bought this yarn at Micheal's for $1 a skein, which is crazy because it's $6 a skien at Joann's.  It's so soft and the colors are so vibrant, but I just don't like crocheting with eyelash-y, furry yarn. I only used about 2 feet of one of the Wild! Flame skeins before I got fed up.

It's going to cost about $7 to mail it in a priority mail box, so that's all I'm asking for from you.  If you'd like the lot of it, leave a comment (it'll email me and everyone will know it's taken) and I'll contact you for your address.

Moda Dea Eden, 3 skeins of Flame (NOT BLUE)

Moda Dea Wild! 2 skiens in Funky (color shown)
2 skeins Flames
2 skeins Hot Tamale
1 skein Spring

These two bags were sent to two great women: Korallin and Marietta.  I can't say enough great things about these two.  Korallin left the first comment on my blog and has been a hilarious and steadfast friend ever since.  Marietta and I clicked right away.  She sent me a super-cool stash of felt after exchanging only a couple of emails with me.  They are both exuberant, kick ass women.  And I wanted to send them both a kick ass present.

I've been on a mission to make a totally awesome crochet bag.  The first step was designing a bag with no seams.  This bag is a smooth, solid, strong, single crochet bag - even the handles are integrated.

  The second step was making a great lining. The bottom is squared off and reinforced with thick iron-on interfacing, which helps keep the bottom of the bag flat, even when it's loaded down.

I was worried that the top edge of the bag would buckle around the snap when it was full and you picked it up by the handles.  As reinforcement, I added boning along the top edges.  The boning is light-weight, but still strong enough to keep the crisp line across the top of the bag when it's snapped shut.

The bird embellishments are inspired by the lining fabric and are pretty much embroidered freehand.  The embroidered "handmade by futuregirl" tags are created by printing out the letters on paper using the font from my blog.  Then I trace it onto see-through tear-away stabilizer, embroider over that, and then (kinda) tear it away.  Be warned:  tear-away stabilizer is meant to be on the back of machine embroidery, not the front of hand embroidery.  The labels in these purses were done with one strand of brown floss.  I almost ripped them right out of the fabric when I tried to tear away the stabilizer.  My heart fucking stopped.  Ugh!  Luckily just a couple of the stitches had been pulled funny and that was easily fixed.  Now I carefully use my manicure scissors and tweezers to remove the stabilizer.

One of my favorite parts of the whole process is sewing the lining into the
bag.  First I pin the lining in, then I hand stitch around one single crochet stitch, bring the needle in and out of the top fold of the lining (so the thread is inside the folded top edge of the lining), then around the next stitch, etc.  It comes out looking so nice and smooth - like it was machine sewn.  The stitches don't even pull when you unsnap the purse - they are super sturdy and secure.  And, of course, I have my handy dandy snap tool to do the snaps now.

It's a great feeling to have done all this work and end up with a bag that I'm really proud of.  It's an even better feeling to have people to share them with. :)

I'm so happy and excited!  You'd think I got a pony, or ice cream, or $179 million.  What do I have that is causing such joy?  I got an eyelet and snap tool.

Oh, yes!  Now you understand.  It's like the Bedazzler* I never had.  It came with a handful of eyelets and snaps.  I tested it right away.  It's like heaven.  It totally works!  Amazing, really.  I love it when things work right, since they so rarely do**.

I bought it to put snaps in my purses.  It's a more polished look than the sew-in snaps, although I will still use the sew-ins from time to time. I may need to design something that calls for pearl button snaps, because my super duper tool can install them, too.  Oh!  Too cute!  I didn't think I'd use the eyelets at all, but that first test-eyelet got me hooked!

We went out to dinner right after I bought it and I just kept talking about all the things that have eyelets in them and all the things that might be better served by being eyelet-ed.  Poor Andrew had to endure my eyelet babble all through dinner.  Luckily, I had the good sense to not ask everyone, as I walked down the street, "Can I put an eyelet in that for you?" even though I was thinking it.

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notes

* I clearly remember being 15 and seeing the Bedazzler commercials on TV and wanting one so badly.  Not having a Bedazzler was, at the time, a humiliating reminder of just how uncool I was. I recently saw a commercial for the Bedazzler re-release.  The thing is only $20!  Was it more than that when I was 15?  I could have made twenty dollars mowing a lawn or babysitting a couple times.  Apparently I was too busy feeling sorry for myself to be a can-do girl and secure my very own Bedazzler. Sure, they only send you a handful of studs and 4 or 5 rhinestones, so it would have become money pit once I got my be-dazzle on, but a little hard work never hurt anyone.

** Not only do I never expect anything to work as advertised, but I never believe anything customer service reps tell me, either.  In our family, we have something called two-tard-verification.  No offence to tards, who, on the whole, are much more competent than customer service reps. :) Ideally, I always get stuff in writing, but if I can't, I always call customer service until I get at least two reps who say the same thing.  Sadly, this sometimes takes more than two calls.  For things that involve large sums of money, the rule is three-tard-verification, because sometimes two just isn't enough.
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Isa went on vacation in Spain in August.  It was quite an adventure.  On the second day, someone stole her camera.  Later, a pickpocket lifted her wallet.  Isa noticed right away and, being the bad ass she is, she took it back!

Obviously, Isa does not see the glass as half empty - she's an optimist all the way.  Even after all of this, she still had a great vacation.  The evidence is in these awesome camera phone photos of Wim and his new friend Mallo the amigurumi bunny.  My favorite is number 3, Wim eating an ice cream sundae - too cute! Read all about it in the travelogue, Wim Vacations in Spain.

Thank you so much, Isa, for taking Wim to Spain with you.  You totally rock!

Comments on this post are associated with the travelogue.

Here is a sneak peak at the owl bags I'm hoping to finish up in the next week.  I used the cool owl trim that Marci sent me in our swap.

I'm sewing the "handmade by futuregirl" labels by hand.  It's kinda fun.  Since each one is unique, I can choose colors to match the bags or even change what they say. I've thought about getting labels made, but I don't even know what I'd want.

I love making these bags.  It's so much fun for me.  I've been thinking about whether or not I could actually sell these, and the thought of that starts sucking the fun out of it.

The main issue I have is setting pricing.  How in the world do people set prices for their handmade stuff?  This is driving me nuts.  I've spent days fantasizing about pricing schemes for my bags.  Each scheme makes sense, but they are all different.  Alicia Paulson's Whip up articles on selling are great.

I don't have any dreams of making a living at crafting.  Right now I'm just trying to enjoy myself.

I've been using vinyl-coated paper clips as stitch markers for years.  At first it was out of necessity.  I just grabbed some while I was crocheting. When that project was done, I tucked them in with my hooks, so I kept using them.  I've lost some here and there over the years, so I thought I'd treat myself to some grown-up stitch markers.

I was shocked to find out that stitch markers cost about 12 cents apiece for about .003 cents worth of plastic.  That's ridiculous.  Especially when I can 'find' vinyl-coated paper clips just about anywhere (a.k.a. work) for free.   Even though I'm thrifty, I probably would have just plunked down the $3 for 24 stitch markers, but they had little plastic knobbies on them that would catch on the yarn when you mark a stitch.  Come on!  Couldn't they at least make the edges smooth?

I've decided to embrace my inner cheapskate and add to my paper clip stitch marker stash.  For all you thrifty chicks who want some inexpensive, colorful stitch markers, here's how I make them:

	First, I squish the interior loop so it is tighter.
	Second, I bend the interior loop so it's closed.
	Third, I angle the interior loop so its tip is centered.
	Fourth, I bend the exterior end in so it rests tightly against the interior loop.  This works best when I bend it a little too much inside first, then adjust it so it rests tightly against the interior loop.
	Fifth, At the point where the exterior end touches the interior loop, I bend the interior loop down a little.

After the modifications, I can hold the end with the interior loop facing down and easily thread the interior loop in/under a stitch.  Because I closed the exterior loop, the paper clip won't fall off easily.


You can find vinyl-coated paper clips in a ton of cool colors and sizes for super-cheap.  I even have some funky striped ones. You could use metal ones, but if you are like me and leave projects sitting, sometimes for months, metal ones could rust and mar your yarn.  I've never had a problem with the vinyl-coated ones, and I've been using some of them for over 10 years.

Over the last several months, I've built up a little collection of slim bags.  It's so easy to tuck a small skein of cotton yarn in my purse so I can work on one anywhere I find myself waiting around.

I've been stacking them up on my craft table and I thought I better get some fabric to line them.

Here are some fat quarters I picked up at Joann's.  I'm absolutely in love with the wood grain print.  I have some tree-themed embellishments planned and I think I'll be hilarious to have the interior of the bag be wood-paneled.  They didn't have it on a bolt, or I would have bought more.  I'm also partial to paisley, lately.

The selection at the fabric store isn't lighting me on fire, though.  I don't know if it's bland or if it's just too easy - all that fabric laying there in an orderly fashion.  So I made a trek to my favorite outlet warehouse.

They had expanded their fabric section and moved it upstairs since the last time I was there.  I walked around with my little crochet bags trying to match colors and touching everything.  It's like a treasure hunt.  Most of the fabric is on huge long (5 feet?) round bolts that you have to wrestle out of the shelves.

The best part is the fabric department guy.  He is typical South Philly - think Saturday Night Fever era John Travlota, but with a different accent.  He's totally macho, but still chatty and personable.  We joked about the misprinted sign that said the upholstery fabric was $2.00 to $599.00 a yard.  He told me stories about the most expensive fabric he'd ever seen (in New York, of course), and regaled me with the story of how he moved all the fabric upstairs by himself on a 90 degree day.

As he talks, he measures out a little extra fabric for me from every bolt.  He comes up with reasons that I should get a discount on particular fabrics, "Well, this was on sale last week, so ..."  I leave there smiling every time.  Just as much from my wonderful haul of discount fabrics, as from how nice it is to shop somewhere that they look you in the eyes and talk to you.

The fabrics don't look great as a group in the photo ... but they match their respective yarns very well.  Now I just need to get the bags embellished so I can line them!