Fun Times Together

I noticed that the smaller town East of mine has a quilt shop. It's been there for sometime, but I have never stopped and visited. There are several reasons why I have never stopped. One of the main reasons I know for sure is.... the parking lot is very small and its always full when I drive by.  I keep thinking every time I drive by, I should stop and shop. Sister in law and I had just visited JoAnn's in Ta Town. We were driving by the little fabric shop and I told her " I keep driving by and think to myself I should stop... but for some reason I never do". Of course she said we're here we should stop. 

Everyone that follows me on my blog knows about my bad luck.... I pulled in the almost empty lot void of one other car. SIL and I got out and started to go in, only to find the shop was closed. Of course I was disappointed. I didn't realize that the shop was closed on Tuesday.  We were talking about the shop being closed.... When we heard the driver to the other car say.... I'm going in because I am getting a UPS delivery. Your more than welcome to come inside and look around. It was the owner to the shop (She was awesome). We looked around and found some great fabrics. Yes we purchased 6 fat qts to make bags for the SIL's up coming trip to the beach.  I really liked the little shop... The shop was in an older home... Each room was mapped out into sections for her fabrics... There was a room for Christmas and Halloween, Civil War, Modern, batiks, Color matching ... etc..... The owner even told me if I developed my own patterns or sewed items I wanted to sell she would audition them and put them up in her shop for sale. She called this a sewing co-op.  She had a lot of nice handcrafted items for sale. I know I will be visiting this little shop again.. its about 5 miles from my house. (Side note to Nadine C... this little shop is almost as nice as Charlotte's.. Sew Natural)

A few days later SIL and I got together and made 3 of the 5 drawstring bags that we were making for her trip. We had a lot of fun sewing, pinning, and pressing. I really enjoyed the time we spent together making the bags.. but oh my I paid in pain for it later.  SIL was not at her best when we were sewing the bags... I was sewing and she was doing the other stuff like.. pressing and putting in the drawstrings. LOL I handed her the ribbon and got her a safety pin and off she started... LOL she handed me the bag after putting in the ribbons and all the ends were on one side... she could not understand why the bag would not chinch up.... The ribbons were pulled out and reinserted... again the bag would not chinch up...  ) Once I saw the problem.. I told her how to fix it.. she once again put the ribbons in to find that it still would not chinch up. I smiled at her and told her .. oopsie... you did it wrong again... by now she was flabbergasted at her mistake. I showed her how to do it.. her third try she got it right... NOW I should not just point out her mistake.. I should tell you I also made a mistake... it was on the third bag and I was starting to get tired and my neck and back was really starting hurt. I sewed the front section on and was going to put back to front and realized that I put the front section on upside down... so I ripped it out.. sewed it back on. After all the pieces were sewn together .. .. I discover that the front section was sewn on right the first time.. I then ripped out the bag to put the front section on correctly.... I HATE RIPPIN!! 

Here are photos of the three finished bags... Aren't they cute?

I was trying to take photos of the linings... 

Sorry about the bad background on these photos.. my deck needs to be refinished this summer.