Tornados, Floods and A New Purse.

It has been quite the week for weather here in Virginia!! During the past two weeks there have been serious tornados down near Norfolk Va, and some near Richmond. Then last Thursday we had a twister come thru our county, about 8 miles to the South and we spent about an hour and a half in the basement. By the time the system was over us the twister had dissipated. We had really thought that we had left this sort of weather behind us, in Oklahoma!!! We really did miss the weather reporting that we became so dependant on when we lived there. We did get 4 inches of rain that night. Then on Mother's Day we got about 5 more inches of rain and schools were closed because the county roads were flooded!! But all in all we have fared quite well, considering what the poor people in Burma and China are suffering with.!!!!!!That kind of suffering is unimaginable!

I did loose quite a few of my Iris but I do have a wonderful picture of the profuse pink blooms that opend before the storms hit.

The fragrence of these iris was truely amazing! I have never had so many blossoms at once and the perfume was lovely.

The rain really kept us inside over the weekend and I finished up a project that I had started a while back. At a class at Artistic Artifacts in Alexandria VA, I learned to create fabric collage using Steam-A-Seam 2. This fusible has two tacky sides which allow the creator to lay down pieces of fabric and then move the entire work to the sewing machine without having to worry about bits falling off or shifting. Once we had the fabric pieced we practices Free Motion Stitching on our own sewing machines. I also added beads and sequins and couched some yarns down in various places. Once that was finished, I had no idea what I was going to do with the piece. I ended up making a purse, adding more beads, yarns fibers and beads for a strap and a vintage Austrian Glass button and tassel for a closure.

I used a wonerful Lonni Rossi fabric for the lining and allowed the lining to show at the top edge. The large beads at the bottom are some that I made myself.

Here is a closer look at the closure.

A detail shot of the strap, made from various yarns and cords beaded together.

This is a closeup shot of the back where you can see some of the tiny purple flower sequins that I beaded onto the surface.

I had great fun with all aspects of this project and I am planning on making several more to have on hand for my Etsy shop and for upcoming art shows.