Water Bucket Purse for a Rainy Day

I’ve always been smitten with the shape and size of canvas water buckets. I always intended to get one and carry it as a purse.

A few years ago I made one out of striped pillow ticking and really enjoyed the way it turned out. I carried it until it got some kind of indelible stain on it and I’ve always wanted to make another one.

It’s been raining for two days solid and it just seemed like the perfect time to start a purse project.

Mackie obviously thought so, too.

Of course I want pockets and more pockets in anything I sew and intend for practical use. This is a key pocket. Strictly for keys. No digging around in the bottom of the feed bag for my keys!

I used some old floral upholstery fabric and then this found-object tablecloth from the thrift store to give it a little pop!


Here is the finished project right next to the old one. (stain not shown.) Of course like all things imagined, the reality is absolutely NOTHING like the original canvas water bucket! Amazing how that turns out!

Secret Projects

I've been working on a secret project. I've had a lot of help, as usual!

I've never seen a cat as helpful as mine.

Even at the cutting table you can see the telltale sign of his tail...helping.

MOM! I'm HELPING!

The Importance of Lying on Things

I don't know what it is...

It must be important...

It might be in his DNA...

But whatever it is...

Mackie HAS to lie on things.

Men Are Now Officially Obsolete

I'm pretty much dancing a jig over my new 1 GIG!

Having discovered that the only thing I really needed to do to my computer was update the RAM (I only had 512mb which back in the day was SO MUCH MEMORY) and I'd be good to go, I was elated! All this time I've been operating so slowly that it's been a real chore to get anything done.

Having discovered what it would cost me to have a Computer Guy put that RAM in my computer, I decided it would behoove me to do it myself. So I did!

I went and found the book that came with the computer and read the instructions.
I went online and found out the exact type of RAM I needed. (Rimms, Dimms, RD-Dimms, or what?)

I went to the Microsoft website and read up on how to install it.
I went to FRYE's and bought the RAM I needed, along with a $1.99 part called a watch battery that I thought I should probably replace after 9 years of using the original one that came with the computer!)
I installed the new RAM, and the new battery, and VIOLA!!!!

I am now the proud owner of one entire GIG of RAM, and also the proud owner of my own cojones!

Because, believe me, it's pretty scary staring into the dark bowels of my computer innards and trying to figure out which slot I'm supposed to click the new RAM card into! But when it comes right down to it, it's really quite, quite easy!

So, okay, maybe all men are not obsolete, but my need for a computer geek techie guy has expired!

And of course the need for my Main Man Mackie will never become obsolete: Look how cute he looks using the edge of the mirror as a pillow. How does he think these things up?

Mack Bag

Just an average bag on an average bed on an average morning...packing up some things to take to work.

But Wait...

Something moved! Who is that masked marauder?

It's Mackie in a Bag! Designed to go with you, wherever you roam! Near or far, by plane or car, no matter how desperate the times...there will be comfort and laughter with the new, compact, ultra-sleek Cat in a Bag!

*****

I've been given a series of new challenges, lately: namely, I've lost BOTH my main sources of income in the last month. Quite out of the blue. (Although when you do elderly care nothing is ever quite out of the blue.) In one case my daytime Miss E. had to go into convalescent care and now I've learned my evening Miss B. is going to give up her big house and move to an apartment near her daughter.

So I've been scrambling for work ideas and living options to lower my overhead...so that I can manage to KEEP an overhead. Roof, I mean. I'd like to avoid being homeless if possible!

The company I work for is great about placements, but right now? With this economy? People are taking care of their own Moms & Dads, because they can't afford to pay outside care.

Good thing all I really need is a Cat in a Bag and my tea things. I'll be fine. I hope you all are, as well!

Caption Contest Closed!

Although I had over 300,000 entries to my Mackie Caption Contest, I was able to distill them down to just ONE winner! BEYOND PANIC is the winning entry. I laughed out loud and I learned something at the same time! Why have I never noticed before that Mackie's "Got Milk" mustache covers half his face? Delightful!

Things have been slow and dull around here and so has been my brain! I'd like to say that I was off doing the Tour de France or I was the one who got gored by a bull in Pamplona but it would all be lies!

It's just a long hot summer all around, I guess!

Beyond Panic: send me your snail mail information ...misspinkbutleratcomcastdotnet

Caption Contest

For lack of anything to say, and because I have nothing better to do, I'm holding another caption contest. This time, I'm only awarding ONE prize. You don't get a prize just for entering, Aunt Bevo! Just write your entry in the comments section and I'll pick a winner after a day or so.

All prizes are from my clutter around the house! Who knows if it will be a treasure or trash?

Pearl Without Price

It's the cutest quilt. It's butter yellow. And indigo Blue. It's got a funky floral border that adds to both it's size and it's charm. And it's only $60.00. Selling it would clear up space in my little bedroom and add funds to my very dwindled bank account. I love it but I'm ready to sell it. Why not let go of things to make room in life for other possibilities? Out with the old, in with the new... it's for sale and I mean it!

But then again... Maybe Not.

Bye Bye Blender

Ah, the joys of simple summer things. Like drinking fruit smoothies all season long. It's one of my simple pleasures.


Until yesterday when I left a Reed and Barton stainless steel soup spoon in the blender and turned it on, sheering the motor drive in two and ruining the spoon as well.

I don't know if there is a lesson in there or not. There's no money for a new blender so I guess the lesson is to do without. Again.

In the meantime, I am working on the pile of unfinished quilts and have a great time. So is my seamstress assistant Mackie, seen here marking the quilt pattern in pencil:


hmmm, this looks like a good spot.

Just let me get a good grip on this thing...

I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille

While the Cat's Away

I thought I would be able to sandwich up another quilt this afternoon while Mackie was sound asleep in the other room.

Um, I guess not.

So I had to do it on the table instead.

Doing My Part

It's good to know that in these trying times of hamdemics, there are those who are out there fighting the good fight and trying not to spread the dreaded Swine Flu.

I like to think I'm doing my part. Keeping my hands washed. Keeping my finger out of my nose. Spraying anyone in the face with hand sanitizer who dares to sneeze in my direction.

Yesterday, however, I did a bad, bad thing. I may have single-handedly created my own disease vector. Here is what happened:

My co-worker had told me that Sheba Cat Food no longer comes in the little square plastic cans that I found so handy as soap molds. She said they are made of tin, now. I could hardly believe her and since getting a few 'cans' of cat food for Mackie (so I can use them as soap molds later after he rejects the contents because he doesn't like wet food) was on my shopping list, I found myself standing in front of the cat food at Safeway on Alhambra yesterday, pondering the display.

My last batch of soap had to be poured into a big plastic tub. And when it came time to cut it into bars, for some reason my mind switched off the mainline and into a derelict sidetrack, and I ended up cutting the soap into brownie sized into larger soap bars. And thus we have the 40,000 wee snack sized bars of soap in this picture:

Hey, you couldn't possibly be taking a photo without ME, could you?

Back at the Safeway, I could clearly see that Sheba had indeed changed it's cans. Instead of flat and square, they now resembled little round one-serving pudding cups. I could see that they appeared to be made of tin now, too, rather than plastic.

But just to make sure, I picked up a can and tapped it with my fingernail. Maybe it was still plastic that had been painted metallic to make it look more expensive.

But it was hard to tell. I tapped again. I know how these merchandisers like to mess with us consumers. It could still be plastic.

If the tap and scratch method doesn't work, there is always the tooth test. You can always tell what something is made of if you bite it. People have done that with gold coins since time immemorial. And the only sure fire way to tell a pearl from a plastic bead is to run it across your teeth to feel if it's grainy or not. So why not chomp down on a can of cat food standing in the middle of the aisle at Safeway in front of God and everybody?

It was then that I realized I was sucking on a can of cat food that had probably been touched by at least a dozen other people. Dirty, germy, disease bearing people. Including the grubby mitts of the entire third world, depending on where the stuff was made, canned and packaged. It's not like they sterilize them right before they put them on the shelves or anything.

Think about it! Manufactured in vats and poured into the cans in China where they regularly poison products just because it's amusing. Tossed into bins with rats and human body parts for storage. Transported to the coast in the back of filthy trucks that double as chicken carriers and not cleaned EVER. Loaded into the bowels of Merchant Ships where they mingle with the bilge water for months as they navigate past pirates. Sent to distribution warehouses, trucking centers, the back room of the local grocery store, the store shelf and finally coming to rest upon my lips.

I yanked that can out of my mouth and put it back on the shelf, looking surreptitiously around to see if anybody saw that. And then I fled the premises in embarrassment and disgust.

I am so much prettier than those old cards you make, admit it!

Yes, that's correct. I didn't buy the one I tasted. I was too traumatized and besides, it IS made of tin and therefore cannot be used as a soap mold.

It was when I was sitting in my car in the parking lot, after having washed my mouth out with hand sanitizer, scrubbed my hands and the steering wheel, my keys and my purse handles with an antibacterial wet wipe, that I realized I had just done a bad, bad thing.

I had possibly started the spread of an even deadlier virus than the Swine Flu.

I have single-mouthedly spawned the new pandemic that will wipe out the entire human world.

Beware the Idiot Flu!