Pictures coming soon!

Okay - so I took a break from making things for others to make something for myself. Before you start the hissing and booing at my apparent selfishness, let me explain. In the past, I have used small tote bags to carry my cross stitch projects with me so that I am able to work on them "on the go". Over time, however, most of my smaller tote bags have gotten threadbare, destroyed, or co-opted by kids who needed a bag for gym clothes or something like that (and those were usually worn out or destroyed before I got them back!). So I was in the market for something that would fit a cross-stitch pattern, the fabric and hoop, as well as the small box that I keep the floss in for my most recent project. I found a fantastic book of plastic canvas projects connected with the pink ribbon (breast cancer awareness) campaign that had a pattern for a fun tote. It's just about perfect for what I need and the handles are two large pink ribbons. The sides, ends, and bottom were easy to complete. Then came the handles. Grrr.

These things were a nightmare to cut out. Thankfully plastic canvas isn't all that expensive because I think I wasted at least a dozen sheets (probably more like 14 or 15 sheets) of the stuff because I kept screwing up the darn handles when I tried cutting them out!! I nearly threw a party last night when I FINALLY got them both cut out!!! I just need to finish stitching them, attach the support pieces to the top portion of each handle, attach the handles to the sides, and assemble the rest of the tote. I will finally be able to carry my projects with me on road trips, etc. and be able to cross-stitch more often. And I have quite a bit of that to do before December with a very busy Spring coming at me quickly!!!

As the first line of the post said, there are pictures coming later. I have been taking pictures of the project all along but wasn't going to post any of them till I got closer to actually completing it! The booklet I bought has another tote pattern, a pattern for coasters and a coaster holder, book mark patterns, a tissue box pattern . . . so many fun new things to try!!!