Napa Show -

Last weekend, I had a booth at the Napa Art & Wine Faire. It was a VERY successful show for me. My wonderfully kind husband helped me the whole day--it's so nice to have his support! He's the best!

The Cork Collection was the talk of the show. Being that it was in Napa, with the wine tie-in, it certainly makes sense. People were extremely complimentary, and I got some follow-ups from retailers who are interested in carrying Sheekoo items in their stores. So exciting!

The number one question about the cork is, "how well does it hold up?" I explain that it is very durable, maybe just a notch under leather. Next time, I'm going to bring some cork fabric scraps so people can touch it, crumple it, maybe even pour some water or wine onto it.

My new cork fabric arrives later this week. I can't wait to make something out of it--it's going to be gorgeous!

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New Home Page Pic - Cork Bags

Finally, I am updating my website! I try to add new items at the beginning of every month. Although I enjoy making the bags, it's more of an effort for me to photograph and list them.

It also doesn't help when I take a ton of photos, only to find out that the memory card in my camera is NOT remembering any of them. Which is what happened today. I thought my memory card had gone senile, so I ran out to Radio Shack to get a new one. Come to find out, the memory card wasn't the problem after all. However, after a modicum of frustration, I got everything up and running again.

So...(drum roll) here's The Cork Collection.


I have sold these at my last couple of events, and they were quite the attraction. Cork fabric is still a pretty new concept, so everyone likes to come and see, touch, and even smell them. I would say that men are even more interested than the women, so I will definitely be adding some men's items to the line. In fact, my husband has been using his cork wallet for the past few weeks.

I ordered two gorgeous and super high quality cork fabrics last week, and they should arrive in mid-September--so watch for those new items! I am expecting them to fly off my shelves, and I don't say that flippantly! It's just that the cork is THAT beautiful!

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WHO does Sarah Palin remind me of???

That was the question running through my mind all day today. Finally, this evening, I came up with the answer! Anybody agree with me??

It's the fairy godmother from Shrek (maybe Shrek II?)!!

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I Hate Naked Ladies

Around my neck of the woods at this time of year, a profusion of pale pink flowers start to bloom. They come up along roadsides, around trees, near fences, as well as in peoples' yards. These flowers grow on brown stalks and have no leaves to adorn them. I suppose that the astonishing lack of leaves or any hint of green on them is what gave them the name, Naked Ladies, although they are also called belladonna lilies.

For some reason, I HATE this flower. I really don't hate that many things--but these flowers, flourishing and reproducing themselves every year in larger quantities, just give me such an annoyed reaction. Now, if they were on green stalks and had some sort of leaf, I think I would like them very much. But those brown spindly stems make them seem like an abomination. Or if they grew in a green field where their stems were hidden, even that would be acceptable. But I live in a region where the summers are extremely dry (no rain has fallen here for months). These naked ladies seem to flourish in dry plots where not much else is growing--so they stand out, showing their nakedness all alone.

I wonder if part of my distaste for this flower is because of the time of year when it blooms. They signal the approaching end of summer and the time when we rev up to back-to-school mode. No more lollygagging in the heat of long summer days, no more illusions of whiling away on a lawn chair, slightly bored, but in a way that is relaxing and renewing.

Okay, so I never really lollygag or while away any day or take much time to sit in lawn chairs--and I'm pretty much never bored. But the POSSIBILITY of those things seems to end when those infernal naked ladies start popping up everywhere.

I may never understand my hatred for these flowers, but at the same time, they don't stay in bloom for very long. They'll be shriveled up and lose their petals before I know it. And even though I hate them, that thought makes me a little melancholy.

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While These Moments Are Still Called "Today"

Wow! Where does the time go? I can't believe it's already August. I've already taken my girls shopping for back-to-school clothes. The countdown has begun.

I am usually an ultra-productive person. I like to fill every minute of my day with tasks--work, sewing, housework, cooking, shopping, gardening, exercise....I never have enough minutes in the day to do all the things I'd like to do. Even when I watch TV, I have to multi-task. I save some of my handsewing to do while watching, or I have a knitting project at the ready.

Today, I spent the morning taking photos of my bags so I could post them on my website--something that I haven't done for MONTHS! It's not one of my favorite things to do. Here's one of my new bags:


Then, because I had asked the girls to clean out their bookshelves, they brought me STACKS of books that they had outgrown. We took photos of those and listed them on eBay. So, I ended up spending the better part of the day at the computer.

After that, I just wanted to VEG and do nothing. So I did! I watched some mindless TV withOUT working on ANY projects! My husband and I went for a walk after dinner (it was a gorgeous day), and we talked about what we want to do when we retire someday (we're only in our 40s, so we still have, like, 30 years to go--we like to plan ahead).

Ahhhh, it really felt so good to NOT accomplish much this afternoon and evening. I got some necessary things done this morning, so I didn't have to feel like a total slug. But I realize that I need to allow myself downtime more often. Life is too precious, and time passes WAY too quickly.

Here's a recent photo of my daughters. They are both taller than me now, although since I'm only 5' tall, it wasn't that difficult for them to bypass me. Still, my babies are almost all grown up--BUT there's still time to be savored and relished with them. They still like being read to at night, hanging out at home during the day, eating dinner all together, making popcorn and watching our favorite shows on TV. Life is good, and it was nice to stop and smell the roses, "while these moments are still called today" (Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls, "History of Us").

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Back Up Your Hard Drive!!!

I own a Dell laptop, a hand-me-down from my very generous sister, who gave it to me about 4-5 years ago. Though it was in great condition when she gave it to me, other than being a couple years old, it now has a lot of little quirks to it. For one, the Ctrl button doesn't work, which means all the nifty shortcuts, like Ctrl-C to paste or Ctrl-alt-delete to get to the task manager, all don't work.

Also, no accessories can be plugged into it when it's turning on--or it doesn't ever make it to the Windows screen. So I have to pull out the printer cable and the mouse cord, and any other USB cables. After it's turned all the way on, then I can plug everything back in. Yes, it's a pain in the butt.

But I have loved this computer and hope to be able to squeeze a few more years out of it. HOWEVER, a couple weeks ago, it started to act a bit funnier than usual. It gave me a dreaded blue screen, saying bladdadee blah blah. I didn't really pay very much attention to it.

Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. A few days later, I found it in a horrible state. It was making a LOUD buzzing noise, and the screen had an ugly message, saying that my hard drive had failed. My hard drive, and all the information I had stored on it, was gone.


Because I am a super cheapomatic person, I wasn't about to take my computer to a fix-it shop and pay hundreds of dollars to fix it. I got on eBay, found this replacement hard drive, with 2x the memory of my old one, and with Windows pre-installed on it--for $40. Plus $10 shipping and handling (the S&H people charge on eBay is highway robbery).

It came from across the US in just 2 days (I guess USPS isn't always slow), and I popped my old hard drive out, and installed the new one in under 3 minutes. I did have to reload all my drivers and software--but now my computer works 10x better than before. It is so quiet and fast, and I love having Windows XP (I only had Windows 2000 before).

For any of you reading this, though, I hope you will learn from my mistakes--and back up your files!!! Thankfully, I didn't lose too much information (I store most of my files on an external hard drive)--but I did lose all my emails and email contacts, and all my bookmarks, which had tons of research for shows and events. An easy way to back up your files is through a service called Mozy.com. You sign up with them, and for different fees (they also offer a free service, I think), it will automatically back up your computer every night, or however often you decide.

A few days before my computer died, I had met a wonderful woman in Florida who sent me all kinds of information on sewing machines. But I lost all the information she sent me with my hard drive failure. She was telling me about Bernina and Pfaff sewing machines on CraigsList and had found my blog by accident. If you are reading this post, please email me because I don't remember your email address, and it was one of the things I was saddest to lose!

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One of My Favorite Sewing Tools

Certain members of my immediate family (actually, all members of my immediate family) scoffed at me when I recently purchased this wear-on-top-of-your-head flashlight. Sure, it makes me look rather goofy when I wear it, but it is one of the best pieces of equipment I have bought for my purse making business. At the bargain basement price of 99 cents on eBay (plus $10 shipping), it was well worth every cent.

I don't wear this contraption ALL the time, but it's great for when I'm hand sewing at night or working on black fabric. Even with good overhead lighting, sometimes it's still hard to see what I'm doing. This tool came in super handy while I sewed in the lining of the Amy Butler bag with cranes from my previous post. That bag is DEEP, and it's hard to direct light in there. (The lining needs to be handsewn around the zipper.)

Plus, my husband and daughters will all be jealous when we go camping this summer. They will have to lug their flashlights around in hand, while my arms can swing freely and unencumbered. Who will have the last laugh then?

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