A Couple Other Things to Think About

Have you been following the Fall-oween Blog Hop? Sometimes I wonder how I miss these big Blogland events. Why don't you all TELL me about them? Sheesh! Anyway, sometime this past weekend, I stumbled upon the hop--I think I was over visiting Carrie Nelson. If there was a Miss Congeniality award for quilt designers, she'd win hands down! Heck, if there was a Nobel Peace Prize for kindness in quilting, she'd get that too. (AND she's not just another pretty face--she's even TALENTED! Just check out the two pillows she designed for the hop!) Anyway, I finally figured out there was a blog hop going on, so I hopped around and checked it out.

And there went my diet. Sandy Gervais posted an apple dumpling recipe of her sister's in THIS post. Yes, I made it Sunday night. Here's what it looked like when it came out of the oven.

You don't want to see what it looked like ten minutes later. If there is such a thing as apple dumpling-eating locusts, then I'm pretty sure a swarm of them flew through my kitchen.

I also made Gudrun's Creamy Harvest Soup. Quite excellent too, although I decided to add about a cup of shredded cheese--because EVERYTHING tastes better with cheese. (Or chocolate. Fact.)

Now, about the Halloween bag tutorial. I wanted to show you a couple other options, but the tutorial was so long, I thought I'd wait and show you today. Here are the bags I made last year for my students in one of my classes:

As you can see it's much the same, but I added a simple embroidered front panel. The difference with this bag is that it doesn't have the corner things at the bottom, so it's not flat on the bottom and doesn't stand up very well.

And here's one I made for a few friends for Christmas. I added a couple wool embellishments to the front of these. These DO have the wider base at the bottom, but I didn't use batting inside, so they don't stand up very well either.

Of course, when they're filled with goodies, they're less "floppy." With these, I also ran the ribbon through both channels and tied it on just one side.

So, if you're inclined to make Halloween or Christmas bags, have fun playing around and adapting the pattern to your own needs. It's pretty versatile. Thanks for stopping by to visit!