Still sewing but no longer at sea.

Not that we were really at sea per se but anyway we're back on land for now.

Our girl sprung a rather scary leak in South Carolina which resulted in her being hauled out of the water for some extensive (funny how that rhymes with expensive) repairs.

When people ask us where she is, we reply (with a wink) that she's currently at a spa (code speak for drying out!), and will be back in the water after the holidays. Until then we are now back in the Big City.

All I know is, I was very anxious to pick up my Wilbur from Day Care where he'd been held captive for three weeks. He looked very fit and a bit slimmer (no doubt the result of running around like a maniac with all his friends for five hours a day), and upon arriving home, and except for eating and going potty, slept for three days straight.

Here he is with his hedgehog, the only stuffy he hasn't destroyed. He often falls asleep with Hedgy in his mouth.

I love nautical charts and find them to be strangely fascinating.

I copied some of my favorite places that we visited this summer, Solomons Island, Tangier Island etc... onto fabric.

Here is a wristlet I made out of one of the panels.

The back.

I wish the colors were more intense and wonder if I should try a store like Kinkos instead of my own printer.

A close up of one the the Cays (pronounced Keys) in the Bahamas.

We are desparately hoping our girl quits giving us problems and allows us to get over there in January.

Some panels that will hopefully be made into purses of some kind.

A couple of years ago when we were in Ireland I bought some heavily embroidered fabric.

I finally decided that it'd been sitting around long enough and made a version of Nicole Mallalieu's Beach Bag. The embroidery print is huge and therefor really needed to be displayed on something big.

This is the back.

And the front.

I kept things pretty simple and only added one slip pocket on the inside.

Although I did add a zippered gusset closure.

Not difficult but a bit time consuming.

Since the bag was so simple, and I had some brown webbing, I dressed up the handles a bit.

The webbing is on the underside of the handles and with the addition of D-Rings they actually took longer to make than the entire bag did!

I still have no idea where I misplaced one of the fitted queen sized sheets that we need for our boat's guest berth, so I'm going to have to buy one and add elastic to its corners (so it doesn't 'pull out').

And when we move onto the boat after Christmas, along with tons of provisions, my sewing machine will be coming with me!! Yaaaay! I would love to think that I can continue to make some fun (and most likely small) purses but I've also heard about these nasty mosquito-like pests called no-see-ums, and I plan on sewing some hatch covers out of no-see-um netting.

It might not be couture sewing but if we can sleep without being bitten alive...it'll be well worth it!