Cool Beans!: What Time Is It?

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"a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;" (Ecclesiastes 3:7)

This week I have experienced all of those.

A time to speak: I had to talk to my kids about the consequences of procrastination and doing things half-heartedly. That's not the kind of speaking I enjoy but there are definitely times for it. There were also times for praise and encouragment. I went to my daughter's last school pep rally and got to see her play in the band and perform with the show choir. She had a solo and her microphone failed but she kept on going. Youngest has recently exercised a lot of patience and self-control for one his age so I got to praise him for that. Good times.

A time to keep silence. We are in a busy time right now that mostly revolves around our senior's end of year activities and around goodbyes. Last night our church had a party for the seniors in the youth group and each senior in turn had family and friends gather around them to pray for them. I had to let someone else pray for Emily. I couldn't speak my prayer out loud. It was too personal and I knew if I tried I would lose it in front of everybody.

A time to sew. I wrote a couple of posts ago that I was going to clean my sewing machine and pack it away until we come back from furlough. I lied. I saw a pattern on the internet for a toiletry bag and had to try to make one. It was supposed to be a cosmetic bag for Emily but it turned out kind of masculine looking. That's ok. I have boys too.

I started with these tutorials: Plaid Scottie's Box Pouch and Skip To My Lou's Boxy Cosmetic Bag, combining elements I liked from each.

and with this. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? If you want to sew a toiletry bag, you first need a vinyl, asymetrical apron with no strings. Here's the thing. There is no Walmart, Michael's, Hobby Lobby, Hancock, or JoAnn here. No place where I can go to buy things like heavy weight interfacing or fusible vinyl. So I had to improvise in order to come up with a spill proof lining. All I could find that came close to what I needed was this apron.

I did have some medium weight interfacing, which I ironed on to the fabric. It helped but not as much as I had hoped it would.

Like the fabric? I bought it from TASOK a couple years ago when my son was still going there and they had their 50th anniversary. It was designed by the students!

You are not supposed to sew when you are tired. But since that would mean no sewing for the entire 25 or 30 years of child-rearing and I am not a patient person....

See anything wrong here? That's right. The zipper is inside out. I sewed when I was tired. This is what the Bible calls "a time to tear." And that cheapo blue vinyl LOVED my seam ripper. Not. Had to cut some new pieces of vinyl.