Different idea?

Give a gal a little bit of knowledge and we become a "dangerous" force. I was in the fabric store and ran across this "tan - friends are angles" piece and I just fell madly in love with it, probably because all of my friends are angels to me. I went and searched in the quilted fabrics and there was NO piece anything like that. I went and asked the little girl if she thought I could "quilt" a piece to do my purse with and she said yes? So I had the pattern and I had the fabric , but I did not have any quilting knowledge, but I plunged ahead by grabbing the fabric and a piece of batting . I was so careful to iron my fabric and lay the batting in between the pieces and PIN everything a hundred times??? I also drawed lines on the fabric so I would , hopefully, sew straight lines and then I put it all to the machine. I managed to make ONE straight line and when I started on the next line it all started to go wrong? IT seemed to have a mind of its own as it went the opposite direction I wanted it to go in . It got even worse with each swipe I tried to make and it started to look like such a mess, but I was too stubborn to just give up. I ended up with the biggest mess I had ever seen and I just could not figure out what was going on?

I was almost in tears as I sent a note off to Lynne asking for advice and she wrote me back asking if I had ever heard of a "walking foot"????? DAAAAAAAA! NO? So I went searching for a walking foot that would fit my machine and I was on pins and needles until the day it arrived.

Well, I pulled it out of the package and stared in amazement at this new "friend or foe". I sat for an hour trying every way in the world to try to just figure out how to attach it to my machine , until finally in tears I took a break and told my hubby about it. While I was fixing us something to eat - he took it in the sewing room and the next thing I knew he had it on the machine ready to go.

My next dilemma was to rip out all of those stitches I had made and that took me quiet a while. It was with much fear and trepidation that I laid that piece of fabric before the machine once again and VERY carefully started this new foot on its path. WEll, I almost jumped out of my chair as this thing made me think of a grasshopper as it seemed to pull the fabric toward itself as it jumped and planted stitches as it went on it's merry way and the fabric seemed to co-operate with it???

I was torn between laughter and tears. Laughter that it was working and tears that I had worked so hard the first time and been so defeated. I did embroider a rose on the purple one for my daughter-in-law #2 because she is like a rose to me- so beautiful and so sweet. The tan one I kept for myself - to remind me how truly precious all of my friends are to me.

I have carried mine for almost two years now and it is starting to fray all around the edges.I really hate that because it seems that anything that I love wears out much before I want it to.I still despise the handles because they like to smack me in the face when I try to open them to get into the purse and I still have not figured out a solution to that .But that is just life to me .~smile~