Wrapping Up a Long Holiday Weekend

I had a great day today filled with dogs and friends! It started when I met friends at 10 this morning to do some dog agility training. We did a little training and a lot of talking. A friend who had a knee replacement recently was there and we had a lot of catching up to do. It was great to see everyone.

We met at my friend’s place in Oregon City, southeast of Portland. She has a beautiful piece of property and a really nice horse arena that she uses for dog training. It rained off and on while we were there so it was nice to be able to be under cover.

My boys definitely enjoyed themselves.

After dog training one friend and I went and played some pickleball. The weather had cleared up a little by this time and it was so good to be outside and moving around! Nothing better! We had the pickleball courts all to ourselves! We are having so much fun playing pickleball!

When I got home I hurried and did a little tidying up around the house and had an early dinner to be ready to head off to my dog agility class at 6 pm. Rico was a good boy, but you already knew that!

Here he is, saying “Come on! Let’s play!!!”

There was a gorgeous sunset view from the arena. I had to get outside with my boys and take some photos.

Here’s Mr. Photogenic! Bender never takes a bad photo.

What a good poser!

Rico got in on it too.

The skies were so amazing all day long!

This is such a gorgeous time of year here! Here’s a few more photos.

Bender is so funny. He will leave me to go and get in his crate in the car from quite a distance.

And look… he made it!

I didn’t get home until just before 10 pm. That hour long drive is a trek at the end of the day!

I had thought I might get another hat sewn tonight but I was just too tired when I got home. But I have been thinking the last couple days about a project that I was working on when I bought my Bernina six years ago. It’s been sitting in a drawer ever since.

It’s a shoulder bag made from batiks using the Bonnie pattern from Swoon. If you search for this bag on Pinterest you’ll get a ton of results. There are a lot of them on there with some fun fabric and color combinations.

At the time I was afraid that my old machine wouldn’t be able to sew through all the thickness of the handles. But I also remember that this project stalled because the idea of making a zipper pocket had me totally intimidated.

And look at me today! What was I so afraid of??? It probably wouldn’t take me more than a couple hours to get this all assembled. I’m glad I put all the pieces together with the pattern!

And while I was digging in that drawer I found a table runner I made that I have completely forgotten about.

Thanks to everyone who commented with suggestions and tips for making sewing my hats easier. I’m definitely going to try some of them out.

I have a couple Frankenbags from readers to share tonight. This first two were made by Kate Goodspeed. Two very strong and graphic bags that she made while vacationing in Mexico. She had to use fabric that is less than she wanted, but she’s back in the states now and has access to her stash.

These next bags was made by Sandee Henricks. I love how colorful the first oneis, made from Laurel Burch fabric. The dog panels are really fun! And everything about that bee bag is absolutely fantastic! It’s such a pretty yellow and those panels are wo wonderful. It was perfect for International Bee Day!

Now we have this bag made by Niki Sage from some Australian designs combined with some gorgeous Kaffe fabric… in fact, one of my favorite Kaffe designs!

Thanks to everyone who sent in photos!

And I’m sorry to report that the one thing I had hoped to accomplish this weekend, making the Octopus backing for my Ice Storm quilt didn’t get done. But when I have the chance to be out and about with people, I have to make that a priority.

Here’s to a short work week!