My granddaughter Kate celebrated her 18th birthday today. It made me think back to my own 18th birthday--which was, after all, only yesterday. Our world is so different now that sometimes I feel as if I'm living on a different planet. Some things are better, many things are not. However, I do think that an eighteenth birthday is still special. It is the official beginning of young adulthood. College is close and the nest begins to feel a little tight. My granddaughter is so busy that her family birthday party had to be fitted in at 10:30 this morning. She had to start early to make the most of her once-in-a-lifetime day!
Anyway, we knew that she really just wanted money (wouldn't we all like a little more?) But I couldn't stand to just hand her over an envelope. So I made her a little cosmetic bag.
I saw the project in the latest issue of
Stitch magazine. It appealed to me because every young woman needs something to put her cosmetics in and it so happened that I already had on hand the fusible vinyl that the pattern called for. I am a pretty experienced stitcher so I really didn't have any problems with the construction; however, I did feel that it could pose a problem for people who depend on graphics to help them to understand the written word. There was only one illustration for the entire pattern and I thought that there needed to be at least two more.
The other problem was one of my own making. The iron-on vinyl didn't add as much heft to the bag as I thought it would and I used a batik as the main fabric. As a result, I ended up with a somewhat flimsy bag. The pattern called for a paper zipper (whatever that is) but I used a regular non-metal one and it worked fine. I downloaded an embroidery design from Embroidery Library (Paisley Dragonfly Circle) and was very pleased with the way it sewed out.
But I was most pleased with the fact that Kate loved it and immediately used it to stuff all of the money she got for her birthday in it.
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