Late for school (again)

A few weeks back I asked Heidi at FridayPrize if I could join in her Back to School swap, thinking, oh, yes, I can do this - make a tote bag, find a notebook - easy peasy. Well, it seems I didn't realise just how much of a palaver I can myself get into over the simplest things. After much worrying and fretting and "Oh, this is just NOT the way I intended it all to look!" moments I did get my package made and sent off to my swap partner, Candlestring, who duly received it and proclaimed all to be just fine but I haven't felt as nervous about a present as that for a long time. I think it must be something about not knowing the person you're sending to - for me that upped the worry hugely. But maybe that's just my inner lunacy showing.

But, to make matters worse, I haven't posted pictures of the fab bag and gifts I received from Claire at ReddyMade last week, which is unforgivable. Look at this loveliness (sorry about the washing line):



The bag is marvellous and is my new best friend - this weekend alone it has carried a glass cake stand, a box of pink glittery fairy cakes and some well-wrapped bulbs, and it is so very comfortable to carry. The daft thing is I kept looking at Claire's blog and saying to myself - "Ooh, jumbo cord, that must be a great bag, must make one. Oh, that pink wool is cute. Look at those sparkly knitting needles" - and now they're all mine - how cool is that?! Thank you Claire!!

I only managed a few rubbish pictures of what I sent but I did have lots of fun with the old free motion foot on my machine - even though the sparkly thread kept breaking and the tension was up the creek.