The conference was pleasant, though it made for a long work day, I had pretty good numbers, and  I got about 5″ of the sleeve done, so it was a successful day all around. I have reached the point at which it feels as though I will never get over this cold, but will be permanently sniffling and croaking and flopping down on the couch whenever I can. It may be that the cold has segued into allergies.

Anyway, when I got home last night, I was seized with a mad craft whim, and I went with it.

toile bag My camera is still missing, so I have merely scanned a bit of this bag for you. That may be a good thing, since seeing the entire gloriosity of this bag all at once might be overwhelming.

This was inspired by a project in The Impatient Beader Gets Inspired, though the project in that book was a little more outre than this.

This is a little toile tote bag. I sewed feather trim (various feathers attached to a ribbon — I got this at Hobby Lobby) to the edge. I wanted the peacock feather kind with several inches of peacock feathers dripping down from the ribbon, but oddly enough I couldn’t find any.

Then I made some beads by decoupaging plain wooden tiles with images from old sheet music. I sanded the edges and put a gloss finish on them, and then sewed them on top of the feather trim.

The example in the book had glitter and beads, too. I may still add some. After all, there is already no situation for which this bag could be considered appropriate. What sort of outfit would a person wear with this bag? The combination of the bucolic historical figures with the sheet music images from the 20th century (and don’t miss the enormous difference in scale) and the completely irrelevant feathers makes it almost certain that nothing will ever go with this bag. A black dress, maybe.

I don’t care. I love the craziness of it. If I find that the level of craziness is such that I can never use it for anything at all, I will remove the trims and put them onto a little black velvet evening bag instead. Not that my life calls for much in the way of black velvet evening bags, admittedly.

Still, I can always put my knitting in it. It is just the right size for the baby sweater which I am not making any progress on.

I am also not making any progress on my writing projects, both of which have deadlines approaching, and I am also not making much progress on my goals for the year, which keep getting interrupted by excessive interestingness in my life. The Empress has suggested that I should go see a doctor, just in case my lingering illness could actually be treated in some way. I may do that, and see if I can get back to my regularly-scheduled life.

If not, I do now have a crazy bag to carry.