Gesika's Wallet

I have a college student working with me in my sewing activities for credit towards her degree. She needs to spend 20 hours with me and so far we have spent about 7. It is refreshing to have someone who is young and brave and without preconceived ideas of how something "should" look. She has a leather sleek looking credit card holder with a strap that buttons to hold the cards in place. In the middle there is a slip in space for bills. Hers has credit cards on both sides. It is really small but compapct. I went straight up over it and she decided to make me one. We decided upon the fabric and I sewed up a rectangle shaped piece for the outside and we decided to fold it, and after we did, it was slightly different than hers. Since she was making it for me, I decided I wanted a coin section and a loop strap for mine.

She obliged and used velcro to make sure the coins wouldn't fall out and the bill part just stayed the same slip in. On the bottom was another slip in compartment and we left it that way for hankies or pad and pen.

Quilts

I finished my table top quilt for Fall yesterday and love it. I love pumpkins and Jack-o-lanterns and leaves, etc. You get the picture?

For one thing, I taught kindergarten for 33 years and really enjoyed the seasons and holidays etc with the kids.

Last year, I made a smaller quilt that is considered a wall hanging but I keep it on my marble t op chest of drawers in my kitchen. Anyway, my son loved it so much, this year I gave it to him and made myself another one.

Tote Bag Purse Tutorial

I got started making purses and tote bags last year and let up on the quilts.Seems like my real passion so far is in making purses, bags and totes. I love to make pouches, wallets and make up bags too.I have sold quite a few on ebay and through people who saw others with my bags.
It seems that I spend the biggest part of my time reading on the internet, sewing books, magazines about sewing and experimenting. When I started on the bags I had no one to help me and everything was trial and error- lots of errors. LOL
I bought a lot of patterns and read them over and over and tried several and finally ended up making one tote bag ( my own pattern) most of the time. I do vary some and enjoy making different ones.
I joined 1 purses Yahoo group and started another one myself and find it wonderful to talk with others who are doing the same things I am.
In my ebay business, I sell mainly fabric and purses notions and needs. I have had sesveral customers ask me how to do different things in sewing and how to use some of the itemsI sell. So lately I have had several people ask me how I make the bags.
I decided to make a tutorial from start to finish. Since I am a teacher and used to going into a lot of detail, it turned out quite long and I had about 30 pictures.
If you want to see it here is the link
http://users.zoominternet.net/~bbcarter/totebag.doc