Updates and Random thoughts

Ok ladies...I know I've been slacking a little (ok a lot) the last couple weeks.  I appreciate all of your feed back on my bags.  I sent one off as a gift and another got put to good use yesterday and received all sorts of compliments.
          This weeks plans include a size large bag with long handles made out of vinyl sheeting, a birthday dress for a lovely young lady (one of my adopted nieces, gotta love extended family) and possibly some work on a motorcycle seat I am recovering for James uncle.

While this weekend was very crazy and because of spending more time at my real job I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to on Friday to get lost in my creative pursuits although that didn't stop me from finding creativity in other ways.  My greatest creative accomplishment for the week was helping my closet creative husband re-do all of the straps on our riding saddles.  My saddle is synthetic materials and has always had nylon girth straps etc, but some were warn and one was missing (don't ask I dunno either) so we decided to visit one of our favorite places, TEMPE SALES the store where you can buy anything from spray adhesive to marble blocks with detours in between to cowhide, foam in all matter of thicknesses and shapes and all sorts of nylon straps in about 10 different widths in 5 different colors,and get the nylon strapping we needed to replace the worn ones on my saddle.  James saddle is mostly leather and even though the straps on his had been cared for the were a little on the worn side as well, so we figured while we're at it we'll replace them all.  I know you're all asking how does this lead to something creative. I'm getting to that part...it's creative because we turned 10 yards of bulk nylon strapping (think dog leash but about 13/4" wide) into 2 6ft long cinch straps, 4 22" rear girth straps and 2 20" front cinch strap (this is the one that the cinch is always attached to...the long one is the one you tighten so the saddle doesn't flip over).  Sounds simple right? Except that all of these straps have no less than 8 holes in them.  This is where the creative part comes in....James punched the holes using a leather punch (they work on nylon too) and the old straps as a template and then I used our  wood burning tool to seal the ends of each strap so they wouldn't fray and to seal the inside of each  hole (melting the nylon makes the holes stronger and less likely to tear out).  We were pretty pleased with our work, the real test will be on Saturday when we saddle up with my saddle for the first time to see if everything holds the way it should (if not I'll let you know how bad the bruises are in my next post).

At the beginning of this post I mentioned making a birthday dress for my niece (adopted but mine just the same).  Her dress like several others I have in the works are going to be the start of  my spring/summer collection.  I actually already have my first spring/summer order although I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm a total loser because I've been promising her pictures for 2 weeks and they haven't happened yet.  I'm a slacker what can I say.  I also have had a couple other requests but no solid orders yet so we'll have to see what actually materializes!

As always I appreciate your feedback and your support.  Thanks for reading!