Wine bottle tote

Here's the wine caddy I made yesterday, and let me tell you, it was a bugger to make!  I followed the directions as written. I had to pull the entire body of the tote through the narrow handle area (the bottom was unsewn at that point) and it was super hard to get all that fabric--plus batting-- pulled through that narrow opening!  I was using a tool to help push the fabric through and accidentally made a few tears in the fabric, hence the embroidered applique.  Since this was my prototype I didn't mind the error. I'll keep this one for myself and figure out a way to make the others without having to push all that bulk through the handle area.  

Despite the physical exertion required to make this little tote, I like how it turned out. You can just see the top of the wine bottle in there, and there's enough room to put your fingers in the handle to carry it.  

Well, all that pushing and pulling took most of the afternoon, so that's all that got finished in the sewing room. This morning, I'll be at a sewing workday so I kitted up several of the Christmas package blocks to make into either potholders, or by joining 5 of them, a table runner.  

I also traced the 8 embroidered Christmas ornament patterns that I got from Red Brolly.  On this page you can see several of the redwork ornaments and I prowled around the site and found a total of 8. 

 

I really like the ribbon she used for the hangers and I'm going to see if I can find anything like that in my local shops.  These will be put up for sale first in the guild sale and also in the Jolly Ruby shop afterward.  

So, I have plenty to do this morning at the workshop.  It's always more fun to stitch with friends, don't you think?

But before I go, I have to get the homemade bean soup in the crock pot so it'll be ready when we're hungry for dinner.  See you!