I mentioned in my last post that I'd bought some lovely fabric in John Lewis. After a very busy week, with work on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday (an extra shift for some training) and Friday, I decided that Saturday was going to be for me. After walking the dogs, I settled down for a blissful afternoon with the sewing machine. I'd found a lovely set of instructions for making a Fat Quarter handbag on Sew Mama Sew (an excellent website for ideas and inspiration) - you can see the tutorial here.

I recently also made a nice tote bag for my MIL for Mothers' Day - the instructions were on another of my favourite websites, the Moda Bake Shop and you can see the tutorial here.

So I decided to make the handbag and the tote bag, and a little tissue holder to go in the handbag. You can see the two fabrics I used. The lining of the handbag is done in the same fabric as the tissue holder and it looks gorgeous. I made sure the handbag had an internal pocket and a magnetic closure. For the tote bag, the back of the bag is one panel of the peacock fabric and I lined it with a very pretty pink spotty fabric (you can just see a glimpse of it if you peep carefully) - I also added an interior pocket. I was delighted with how they turned out - absolutely thrilled to bits. For the handbag, I added a pretty blue rose corsage that I wear sometimes - just seemed to work. These are great summer colours - so zingy and cheerful. I took them both into work with me on Sunday and felt like a million dollars.

Today has been one of those days for running around doing various errands that individually don't take much time, but cumulatively add up to an afternoon, things like picking up tablets from the vet, getting my ID card photo done for the university, dropping off some paperwork and picking up some dog food. The afternoon weather was glorious - really sunny and with a gorgeous blue sky. After we came back home, I sat out in the garden to soak it up and Booty came and joined me. After some quality tickle time, she decided to sunbathe on the flagstones near the pond and practically cooked herself. When she got up to go back in the house, she was so hot, she was almost too hot to touch. She loves the sun, and will often sunbathe in the garden - I guess that with her arthritis, the heat probably helps her.

This week I am doing fewer shifts in work, and I'm hoping to make a bag for one of my colleagues that I get on very well with. We've done most of our shifts together since January and she's lovely - that makes a huge difference when you are working predominantly with one other person. She loves blues and turquoises so I shall try and make her a tote bag similar to the one above, and I thought I might also make a drawstring bag - she plays softball regularly so might come in handy for sports kit or shoes.