Some news and a b(r)ag

First off, in news that makes me about the luckiest nana this side of the Mississippi (that was just to show you that I could spell it), I have a new grandson. Gabriel Edwin, born yesterday to Annie and, you guessed it, Edwin. He's a healthy little chubbo and the birth was relatively smooth. I was very grateful to Annie for not announcing the labour proceedings until they were almost at an end. I have a couple of photos but they're on my phone. Hopefully, one of my savvy children will post a photo on the web soon and I can steal it.

If you haven't been keeping track, that makes two babies in a little over a week.

I know, lucky us!

I expect somewhat of a dearth on the procreation front for at least the next year.

Second big news; I am leaving for Haiti on Friday morning. I feel less prepared this time, but maybe it's because I was going into the unknown last year and was obsessive about packing and getting everything ready early. My friend, Dolly, is going with me and I am so thrilled to spend this time with her. We are packing bags this afternoon and will also take some over for the MBH board, so will be loaded down with luggage again. 

I told Jeff that I wanted a netbook for Christmas so that I could blog on the go and not have to carry so much weight, so I got a sweet little Acer netbook from Costco. The timing was fortuitous, because my laptop has been having some connection issues when we're away from home. After several hours on the phone with HP, I had to do a recovery on it, which is a nasty, inconvenient process. I'm unwilling to restore all my files until I can test it out some more, so the Acer has been my weapon of choice for the last week or so. 

It is a cute, teeny little thing and I couldn't wait to make this adorable pouch for it. 

I made it from two layers of leftover fleece that I had hung on to for such a purpose. 

You can see in this picture that I pieced small remnants of the fabric together. They were left over from some instrument bags that I made. It's very easy to do with a zigzag or other decorative stitch. 

Three old buttons and some bias tape completed the job.

I didn't think ahead one this one very well and had to get creative on the edging. 

On the first envelope I made for my HP laptop, I had a larger piece of fleece and was able to sew it right sides together and turn it inside out, so I only ended up with one edge to finish.

I also sewed velcro onto the fabric before sewing the side seams...

...and a few sunny daisy patches.

I am unreasonably in love with the small one.

I know it's not a tutorial, but tutorials abound on other websites.

Yup. This blog will never be a moneymaker for me. Pure labour of love.

Here, here, and here are some decent tutorials on making your own laptop sleeve, although if you have sewn anything I think it is kind of intuitive. Any of them would be easily adaptable to sewing with fleece, which I like because of its natural padding qualities and lack of fraying edges. It is such a versatile fabric.

In case you haven't seen enough of my handiwork for one day, here are pics of some of the bags I've created by using the natural shape of each instrument as the pattern.

My doumbek has a head cover as well as a bag.

Ukelele bag with a carrying strap and velcro at the wide end.

Bodhran bag with carrying handle.

And that, my lovely readers, is the end.

Thank you for staying with me.

Till next time.