This is a double post, AKA…..

A TRIP TO BOK TOWER GARDENS!

Terry and I have been trying to squeeze a day trip in now and then. This day trip was a long one. Located in Lake Wales, the drive was 2 hours and 46 minutes! One way. But I love touring gardens, Terry loves driving his convertible, and the weather was amazing. Perfect!

It was totally worth the drive. The grounds are lovely. So beautiful and well kept. Frederick Olmstead, Jr. was the landscape architect for this property who also designed the White House gardens.

It was also an opportunity to get some pics of my latest bag from Noodle-head.com. The is the Firefly tote in the project size.

I made two of the larger size last year. One went into a raffle package at our annual festival and I kept the other.

Here is a snap of both of my Firefly totes.

I really struggled with the fabric choices for this bag. I had already cut out this denim for the body of the tote and thought it would look great with either dark blue cotton prints or red.

And then I found this zipper. And then I was obsessed with using THIS ZIPPER! And it was a perfect match with this fabric from Rifle Paper Company and I had just enough for the pockets.

I interviewed ALL of my fabric for a matching piece and settled on this one, also from Rifle Paper Company.

CH..CH..CHANGES

I followed Noodlehead.com’s instructions very carefully but did make some changes.

I added a swivel hook inside the tote so I could clip my keys on it.

I also divided the interior pocket into a phone size pocket plus two pen size slots.

I do not like the Pellon 809 that is recommended in the instructions. While it works well with denim and canvas, it looks bad on cotton quilting fabric. It kind of wrinkles and they never go away. For my mid to heavyweight fusible, I use Pellon 931 TD. She also recommends SF101 as the woven interfacing. While I really like that product and used it for the other Fireflies that I made, for this tote I decided to use Insulbrite from the Warm Company. It’s a sew-in fleece product that includes insulation. I use it for hotpads. My motive behind this thought was I could use it to keep a lunch cool or even a wine bottle chilled for happy hour at the park! Or game night and I don’t have to use up the host’s refrigerator space.

I have this wine cooler that has ice packets inside. I keep it in the freezer.

Clever, right?

And on a side note, the Insulbright made the tote much sturdier.

This was also the first time I used leather straps on a bag. I cut these off of an old purse I had fallen apart. New leather straps are pricey so I think I’ll be looking for old purses at the thrift stores.

I have to say, I really enjoyed making this tote. And my trip to Bok Gardens. And having a new cool wine carrier!