Beating the Winter Blahs

I finally admitted to myself that I have the winter blahs. The last few days I've been out of sorts and it occurred to me that it was because of the constant snow and cold. I'm tired of shovelling and scraping and everything taking twice as long to accomplish.

Here in NW PA, much like everywhere else, we've been slammed time and time again with icy blasts of winter weather and lots of snow. I mean FEET of snow. We had a little thaw back in January, but basically it's been nonstop winter since December 1st. Where I live, we get a strange thing called "lake effect snow." Lake effect snow is a product of winter and Lake Erie and sometimes we really get hammered. I'm very thankful for my four wheel drive SUV.

Anyway, I discovered that I had the winter blahs and it dawned on me that what I needed to do was make myself a new purse. I had received a couple 1/2 yards of awesome spring-like fabrics and decided that it would make a great purse. I checked out my books and patterns until I found a new design that I hadn't used before, called the Bird Watcher bag. I found this design in the book, The New Handmade by Cassie Barden. I've had this book for a few years now and totally enjoy leafing through it so I thought it was time to actually use it.



Anyway, here are a few pics of my new bag. I made it this morning in about three hours, which included the cutting time as well as assembly. It has five exterior pockets, and four inside pockets. But what I love the most, I think, is the plastic snap clasp that cleverly hides UNDER the flap. It's a great medium-sized messenger-type bag, isn't it?





So, check out the book. It has many wonderful and quite simple designs for bags, totes, and accessories. If you make yourself a new bag, you'll beat the winter blahs too!