I'm beat!

Yeah, I really am. It's been such a busy week. My family is back to their usual spring schedule and this year it is...DD#1 is on Varsity Track and practices tennis every chance she gets, DD#2 is on 3 softball teams including the school team. Actually she's rostered for 4 but probably won't play in the fourth one. DS#1 and DS#2 are both playing LL baseball. I'm still the LL Softball Rep but trying to find someone to replace me. Unfortunately, no takers :( . I don't really need to find someone, but I hate the thought of leaving my softball division because the girls will not have a voice. I will not run again in September, but will fill in from January to March next year to get things organized if the President wants me to do this. She's a gem, and I don't want to leave her with laundry list of things to do in my division. However, what's happening now is I'm spending quite a bit of time with LL and it takes away from time I want to spend with my own family. And the other thing...prepare yourself...IT TAKES AWAY FROM SEWING TIME!!! Isn't that awful!?!? There's only so many minutes in a day and somethings got to give.

I think that's why I'm focusing on purses this month. I can take a lot of work with me, especially embellishing items, and work on them at practices and games. Today I had lots of thoughts going through my head about my red alligator leather purse I'm making for the Patternreview contest. I went to my local ribbon and craft store and bought several rolls of ribbon and thread for embellishing purposes, including the black velvet ribbon on the right for my alligator purse. Check out my purchases today :) :

Also, a few days ago, I promised a pic of the red alligator leather. Here it is! It's really more luscious in person. The color is actually darker red, not the brighter red as it seems in the pic.It FEELS good. It SMELLS good. And I think it will look good, too, as a purse. I finished my two clutches that were laying around (just waiting for my handmade flowers) and now am about a third of the way through my muslin bag for the handbag contest. Here is a pic of the muslin in progress. The flowers and leaves aren't attached yet, and I need to futz with them and make some more small filler flowers, but you get the idea. My extra leaves I made at baseball practices are laying on the bag lining on the left.I've been working hard on the ribbon flowers and leaves--you wouldn't believe how easy they are to make if you've never done them before! I'm hoping next week to review the ribbon work book (it's excellent and was recommended to me by Kenneth King) and do a simple tutorial from it as a plug for it. It is truly a great book that opens a huge window of embellishment opportunities.

Tomorrow I'm planning on being offline. Maybe even a bit into Sunday. DH bought me a new computer! It is a very nice thing to have, although not a Babylock serger/coverstitch machine (sigh...BIG sigh...) Maybe next year ;) . A lot of things need to be transferred over to my new computer and that will take time. Before we do that, though, I need to catch up on blog reading while drinking morning coffee tomorrow.

And a thank you to Jackie for making my day on the Excellent Award. I truly feel that each an every blog on my blog roll, and then some, deserves an Excellent Award! I love 'em, and that's why they're there.