dont ever change.

So Laurel had a birthday and neglected to tell me this. I am the world's worst birthday rememberer...I even have a birthday calender and THAT doesn't keep me from remembering important days...but in my defense, Laurel hadn't ever told me when her birthday was. Well, being that she's the best pal ever, she needed a handmade gift and I needed to make it fast. Now that she's received it, I can tell the story of making it, because it was one of those wonderful crafting moments when time stopped, all of the pieces fell into place, and I was in the zone.

It started with the desire to make a pouch. I had lots of thrifted linen and I've been digging linen lately (must be the 40,000 Japanese craft books I have lying around at home). I don't know why, but red needed to be involved. And so I began digging through my notions stash with the serious thought: I really hope I have a shortish red zipper. Now, I don't really have THAT many zippers. And most of them are in some neutral or dark tone. I can't remember picking up a shortish red zipper, but there is was...a 5 and a half inch red zipper. This was a sign.
Once I knew the zipper was fairly small, I knew this was to be a change purse. I thought about how Laurel is such a perfect friend and "don't ever change" popped into my head. YEEESSSS...a don't ever change purse! It was all coming together. But how to get the words onto the linen? Embroidery would take too long...I started this after work and I wanted it in the mail the next day. I didn't have any fabric paint or pens. Stamps? I thought. But what were the chances that I'd have a stamp pad that worked on fabric? I don't remember ever having stamped on fabric before. Alas, all of my stamp pads were for paper except for the LAST one I came across: meant for fabric. Cue the Twilight Zone theme song.

So I've got stamps (no apostrophe, but for some reason, that seemed appropriate to me...which also shows what a zone I was in, usually I freak out about stuff like that), great fabric, a faboo zipper. Except for the slight delay due to the fact that I had a total brain freeze and forgot how to make a pouch for a little while, the pouch just cranked right out. It's a little wonky in some places, and I closed up the seam at the bottom with some fancy machine stitch rather than hand sewing it because by the time I got to that part, it just had to be DONE:)
Andrew knew something important was happening up in the craft room because he didn't even bug me about crafting right through dinner, and my belly didn't complain either. Three cheers for being in the Crafting Flow!