You are the first to see my bag! You really are! It has been so tough not sharing this with anybody for ever so long, but I promised Ruth that I would not let anybody see any of it until…until she blogged about it. I know you are saying well that was ages ago, what took you so long? Well the holidays sort of got in the way I would say.

I am really challenged of where in my house can I shoot great pictures of a bag? On the floor so that the rug shows behind it? I even bought a piece of mat board and I don’t like that either. Plus that is an invitation to the cats to come and join the party from all corners of the house. Hanging from the door? One of these years I will figure it out!

I am thinking that this is Kathy’s combination of colors. I love, love, love…did I say love? the colors that were selected for me. The acid green and the Aqua or is it Teal? I was told that one color name was hipper than the other.

You know what fascinates me most about this project? That so many talented women stepped up to the plate and knocked it out of the park. Sorry I needed that baseball reference as Kathy & I are both die hard baseball fanatics. I won’t mention the fact that her team The San Francisco Giants have won The World Series not once, but twice in the last 3 years. Okay I digress…

It was a brilliant idea! Once she came up with this marvelous surprise for us, Kathy contacted Ruth of Bedecked and Beadazzled fame to create the canvas. After the design was approved, well snaptrays and frameweights just had to follow! the embroidery machines with the nimble fingers of Carol Eix programming the design just so were created. Colors were selected and everything was moving along. I never did ask exactly how long this was a work in progress?

The prototype canvas must have been sent to Kathy for stitching as she even had a stitch guide for us! Several floss colors, a Kreinik and some black beads along with hot fix crystals were used to create this piece. I bought everything as suggested as stitched it just as it was written. I questioned a few of the colors and thought well I could better than this from my stash…but then I thought these colors were selected for a reason, so I went with it.

Kathy paid a visit to Marlene, well she does work close by to her shop with a bag in hand that she wanted to use. Marlene said “no! no! no! that will never work! not strong enough, not right! Let me design something for you and the bag was born.”

so the enabling continues…

Okay note to Brenda Hart…yes she is one of the Enablers Anonymous, ya think? I have offered now 2x to stitch your canvas for you. Remember the saying “you snooze, you looze?” so please send it to me and I will happily stitch it for you. I don’t remember where the floss is that I bought, but I will be thrilled to buy it again…only for you. Trust me I have plenty of black beads!

This enabling thing really is something wonderful you know…where would you find such dear friends otherwise? Kathy thank you for your generousity, you humble me. I hope that I can continue live up to my reputation and everytime I use my “stuff” I will think fondly of you. Maybe not of your baseball team, but of you!

if she was only this sweet and innocent all the time. and until next time…keep on stitching

p.s. so sorry Dale