OUR WEEK-END, AND MY IPAD COVER

Well here we are Monday morning the 2nd of May and I can hardly believe it.  I know that I am frequently saying how fast time goes....but it's just soo true.  Our week-end was nice but a little different at the same time.  We woke up to rain on Sat. morning which was sooo nice.  The rain didn't really last very long but the coolness of the day did.  We both enjoyed it.  After our usual Sat. morning "chat time" we headed down to Temecula to meet some of my cousins for my uncle's eightieth birthday party celebration.  This was really the ONLY uncle I had growing up who was around much. He was married to one of my mom's sisters, my beloved Aunt Carolyn.  She was a part of almost every one of my extended family memories, and was loved by all that knew her.  She LOVED to sew, crochet, and paint, and her devotion to the Lord was always apparent.  She could cook and bake WONDEROUSLY, and some of her cakes and pies were legendary in our family.  It was this aunt and uncle who gave hubby and I are wedding reception in their back yard.  She and my mom were devoted sisters and best friends pretty much their whole life. She passed away several years ago of lung cancer, and she has been tremendously missed.  I really haven't been very close at all with my cousins  [though I remained VERY close to my aunt and uncle till the day my aunt passed away] pretty much since we all became adults and went our different ways, but of course they are family and we try to get together whenever the situations work out, which honestly aren't very often.  But they were together on Sat. to celebrate their dad's birthday,  so we made the trip down.  It was VERY nice to see everyone and we spent several hours there enjoying them all, catching up and feasting on a delicious dinner of homemade Mexican food.  I intended to take a pic of my cousins  and my uncle, but I forgot all about it, so I don't have anything but the memory in my head to remember this day by.  On Sun after church hubby and I did our grocery shopping which usually involves stopping at least 2 if not 3 different stores and getting everything we needed.  After that we headed home as hubby had some things he needed to work on for work.   And that was pretty much that, lol.

On Friday I did put together my mini Ipad cover.  I really had NO idea how I was going to make this cover since I don't usually do all that well without a pattern, but I couldn't really find one online, with the the exception of one that they wanted ten dollars for and I refused to pay that, lol.  I wanted to have embroidery on mine since it has become my biggest obsession right now, and thought I might be able to find an "in the hoop" design that would work.  Now there were a few of these I really liked, but NONE of which I have a big enough hoop to make.  I was on my own.  So I just sat down with the fabrics I had chosen to work with, and made it up as I went along, lol.  I just laid my idpad down and measured around it allowing for seam allowances of course and made it to fit.  I added a pocket on the back to hold pens and pencils and a little cloth I used to clean it with.  I decided to add a simple embroidery design to the pocket and used a couple of the colors in the fabric I had chosen to do so. I used another one of the fabrics and finished the top of the pocket with that.  Then, since I needed to pad the cover for extra protection of course, I used a warm and natural batting and quilted the fabric to the batting using straight lines in a diamond like pattern.  I used the same fabric that I had topped the pocket off with and made a little tab that I put a buttonhole in to close the cover.  I top stitched it in a decorative stitch.  The cover is completely lined with another coordinating fabric.  It was cute, but I felt like it still needed a little something, so I made some free standing lace flowers in coordinating colors with my embroidery machine, hot glued them together, and then hot glued them to the front of my cover.......  did ya follow all that?  lol  Let me show you....

THE FRONT.....NOTICE THE QUILTING LINES

AND THE BACK WITH A LARGE POCKET WITH AN EMBROIDERY DESIGN

THE TAB CLOSURE WITH A LIGHT PINK BUTTON

THE LACE FLOWERS ARE MADE WITH THREAD AND WATER SOLUBLE STABILIZER  [ same threads were used in the embroidery design]

THE LINING

THE IPAD FITS IN PERFECTLY

And that's all I really have for now.  It is my intention right after lunch to go down to the quilt store and see if I can't find something to get started with on a quilt for Melody.  Hope to work on that then this week.  Hope you all have a good week! Many blessings to you all....Debbie