A French Connection...

Brynwood Needleworks - French Connection Clutch

Last Friday, my girlfriend, Stacey and I went out for lunch to Pop's in Nokomis. We have  regular lunch dates to catch up and just have a nice meal together.

On our way over, we passed an antique/resale shop called Valentina's on Laurel Road. Stacey suggested that we stop in on our way back home. (She's our next door neighbor.) I love exploring shops like this, so I jumped at the suggestion.

Brynwood Needleworks - French Connection Clutch

We both took our time, as this shop is filled to the gills with jewelry, garments, handbags and all sorts of great small items. There were furniture pieces there, too, but that's not what caught my attention.

Brynwood Needleworks - French Connection Clutch

I saw many older beaded and needlepointed handbags, but tucked in a corner, this one caught my eye.

You know I make wallets, and I'm always looking to "up my game", so seeing new (to me) techniques or ideas is a good thing.

Brynwood Needleworks - French Connection Clutch

I tried to walk away (multiple times) from this bag, (made by "French Connection") but it kept calling out to me. It had never been used, evidenced by the tags that were still attached to it.

It has a zippered pocket inside, and is large enough to hold my iPhone 6 and then some. You can see that it also has a chain strap as an option to using it as a clutch. Did you notice the rows of shiny embellishments on the outside? HA! Of course, you did! How could you miss them? Believe me, they sparkle in the sun like you can't even imagine.

I did a little haggling and got the price down quite a bit (I was quite proud of myself!), so I brought it home with me. It's already inspired some new ideas for upcoming projects. I'll look at embellishments a lot differently from now on.

Brynwood Needleworks - Birds In The Pineapples

I want to tell you another happy story today. I'm going to list up the Birds In The Pineapples quilt in my Etsy shop, but I needed to launder it first to be sure that the dyes in the batiks wouldn't run and ruin the quilt. I've been a little nervous about that ever since the steam iron made one of them bleed, causing me to replace two pieces of the quilt.

Following the instructions on my bottle of Retayne, I put the quilt into the washer, added the Retayne and a little laundry soap to the dispenser, and then set the washer to the "hot" setting. For good measure, I added two Tide Color Catchers ™, too. To say I was a little nervous about the introduction of hot water would be a true understatement.

When the timer sounded, I opened the lid and took the quilt out of the washer. It was beautiful! Perfect! Thoroughly clean with no bleeding! Now that I know the dye colors are set,  I'll get it listed this afternoon.

Today, I'll be in training. I'm now a Clerk for a local precinct election board. I've already done much of the tasks I'll need to do, but every member of the election board is required to take ongoing training prior to every election. I'm in for about five hours today to prepare for the first phase of this year's Presidential election on March 15th. Doing my civic duty again. (wink)

Tag will be here tomorrow, so I'll be back on Wednesday to show you what I'm working on now. Enjoy your last day of February.

Art by Mark Johnson