sassy purse

When medical issues, pain, stress, worry, fear and just plain old ickiness (yes, that is a word) get a hold of me, I find that if I take a few hours and set up camp in my sewing room, I can wrap myself in the feeling of calm & safety by sewing.
The rhythmic hum of my sewing machine, the sound of the presser foot going up or being snapped down. The sound of my Gingher Scissors slicing through fabric and then being set down. These days, I can hear different computer beeps coming from my sewing machine. One tells of this stitch or that, one beep reminds me to change the presser foot, one beep even says "ALERT" there "could" be a problem. I feel comfortable there. I am in complete control. It is my own little "secret garden" if you will. There is no stress, no worry, nothing to be nervous about, no pain (okay, maybe once years ago, when I sewed over my pointer finger then had to use the fly wheel to lift up and remove the needle, okay, ouch). When I am sewing and ironing open seams or cutting out a pattern or quilt pieces, no one tells me what to do. Nobody judges me or sternly tells me I should have done this sooner or that needs to be tested or you are just being silly, this is no big deal.

A couple weeks ago, a girlfriend's daughter had "misplaced" her purse. Oh, you know that feeling. How much money did I have in there? Do I have to get a new drivers license? Oh dang, my lucky (now unlucky) $2.00 bill was in there. Oh no, my "You will travel to an exotic place" fortune is now gone! She is not quite of the age to go have a mojito with a girlfriend and put it behind her. Frustration, being mad and upset take hold and just eat away your heart and soul. Us gals have to stick together. A cute purse once chosen and then used daily because a part of us. Most of the time, a cute purse makes us happy!

I spent the afternoon yesterday creating. Yep, I sewed the cutest darn purse and coin purse you ever did see. Smart, sassy, some might even say the purse had an actual saucy attitude about it. I filled it with lip potions and floss and gum and coins and paper money and a good luck charm. I even embroidered her name on it. That was so if someone "borrows" this new purse, they will have to live with the shame and guilt of using a purse with someone else's name sewn on it. This new purse has "purse"anality! It is adorned with polka dot ribbon and glitter buttons and a hidden pocket. This turned out to be a girlie girl purse only to be drooled over by other girls.

The little piece of fashion is flying it's way via UPS as I type. What I wanted to do was exchange a horrid, stupid feeling, ball in your stomach mad about her purse being gone with a surprise moment that she will tell over and over and over again. Hey, one day, out of the blue, I got this really cool, sassy purse in the mail for no reason! It is so great. It makes me happy and feel super special. Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I got a purse in the mail with glitter buttons?

That's what I really was trying to do, however in the middle of making something sweet for a young person to get a kick out of, something else happened. I spent a couple of care free hours snipping and ironing and cutting and sewing and creating and forgetting the outside world of nasty medical stuff.

While trying to shed some Grace on someone else, somehow I got a bit of it on me.
Who knew that would happen? I must say it felt lovely.