to Dublin and back

And regretfully, I am not speaking of Ireland but of rather one of the small cities south of Oakland. Realistically, I would say it is more of a suburb with a local government than a real city.

(brief detour to Wiki here. )  The town post office  tipped its hat to the significant numbers of Irish immigrants and changed the name in the 1890s. And I stand corrected, the city and its 75k inhabitants are located east of Oakland, not south. Go figure. Just following the freeway signs – Officer…

Anyway, Dublin is the location of the Dublin Sewing Center, one of the last real sewing machine stores in the region. They carry just about everything, their service department is excellent, plus they are really nice people. 

Why am I telling you all of this? I know how to do a fair amount of sewing. I have learned a few tailoring techniques over the years. But I know little to nothing about purse and bag construction. Their class schedule is starting up again after an almost two year hiatus. Good size room, four separate tables, everyone immunized and masked. And, believe it or not, everyone was actually capable of keeping their mask on their face. 

Amazing.

Anyway – This was a bag with an external flap pocket, a divided inner pocket with lining, a zipper and some fancy hardware with straps. The instructor was the kind I like best. She came around and individually helped and everyone moved at their own speed. I learned a number of things – both about bag construction and myself. 

  1. I am not ever again going to “make my own zipper off a roll.” Sorry, I understand how to add the pull and block the far end. Just – no. If I want a zipper, I will buy one
  2. I don’t want chains on a bag – jingle? Not me
  3. Ironing is important, figure pressing just doesn’t cut it. 
  4. Next time, I will bring an additional light. It will be interesting to see how much further my cataracts have developed at my next Optometrist visit. 
  5. Heavy fabric doesn’t need that much interacting or padding
  6. I needed more coffee.

 

So tomorrow I am probably going to add sturdy side straps at home and call it a day…

And I would show you a picture, but I left all the supplies in the car in favor of Noah hauling the machine upstairs where we safely stowed it in the cabinet. 

 

 

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

About Holly

fiber person - knitter, spinner, weaver who spent 33 years being a military officer to fund the above. And home. And family. Sewing and quilting projects are also in the stash. After living again in Heidelberg after retiring (finally) from the U.S. Army May 2011, we moved to the US ~ Dec 2015. Something about being over 65 and access to health care. It also might have had to do with finding a buyer for our house. Allegedly this will provide me a home base in the same country as our four adult children, all of whom I adore, so that I can drive them totally insane. Considerations of time to knit down the stash…(right, and if you believe that…) and spin and .... There is now actually enough time to do a bit of consulting, editing. Even more amazing - we have only one household again. As long as everyone understands that I still, 40 years into our marriage, don't do kitchens or bathrooms. For that matter, not being a golden retriever, I don't do slippers or newspapers either. I don’t miss either the military or full-time clinical practice. Limiting my public health/travel med/consulting and lecturing to “when I feel like it” has let me happily spend my pension cruising, stash enhancing (oops), arguing with the DH about where we are going to travel next and book buying. Life is good!
This entry was posted in Sewing. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.