Today, is Mother’s Day here in Germany as well as in Canada, Australia and the United States. We always tend to get it wrong as my husband is from England and there, Mothering Day is on another date.  Anyway, sorry, I’m waffling on.

I just wanted to wish Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers!

And to remind all daughters that if they forgot to get their beloved mother’s something speical, I do have gift certificates on my website

I must admit that I am rather proud of myself, yesterday was my 100th entry!  I’ve managed to find so many thing to tell you all about handbags, who would have thought! I hope you are enjoying my work and my pictures.  Hope you’ll continue to read my Blog and appreciate my bags.

100: is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. (No really!!!! ;-))
Description and facts below taken from Wikipedia.

One hundred is also:

• The number of years in a century
• A 100 year old person is known as a centenarian.
• The number of pounds in an American short hundredweight
• The United States Senate has 100 Senators
• The number of subunits into which many of the world’s currencies are divided; for example, one euro is one hundred cents and one Pound Sterling is one hundred pence
• The number of tiles in a standard Scrabble set
• The denomination of the U.S. hundred-dollar bill with Benjamin Franklin’s portrait; the “Benjamin” is the largest U.S. bill in print
• The denomination of American savings bonds with Thomas Jefferson’s portrait
• The denomination of American treasury bonds with Andrew Jackson’s portrait
• In Greece, India and Israel, 100 is the police telephone number.
• In Belgium, 100 is the ambulance and firefighter telephone number.
• In United Kingdom, 100 is the operator telephone number
• Hundred Days, aka the Waterloo Campaign
• “The First Hundred Days” is an arbitrary benchmark of a President of the United States’ performance at the beginning of his term
• 100 is the HTTP status code indicating that the client should continue with its request
• STS-100 Space Shuttle Endeavour launched April 19, 2001
• The 100-Series Highways are a series of arterial highways in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia
• SEPTA Route 100, also known as the Norristown High-Speed Line, is an interurban line system operating between Upper Darby and Norristown, Pennsylvania
• NASDAQ-100 is a stock market index of 100 of the largest domestic and international non-financial companies listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange
• The American Film Institute series
• In English slang, adding the number 100 to a particular skill or subject denotes introductory knowledge (”Physics 100″, “Soccer 100″), akin to the name of a first year university subject.
• Games 100 is an annual listing of the year’s top games
• The Time 100 is a list of the 100 most influential people in the world, as assembled by Time. The list has developed into an annual event.
• The One Hundred Years War
• One Hundred Men and a Girl is a 1937 musical comedy film starring Deanna Durbin
• 100 Grand Bar (formerly known as $100,000 Bar) is a candy bar produced by Nestlé
• Monterrey, Mexico is located at 25 degrees 40′ N latitude and 100 degrees 18′ W longitude
• Pope Valentine succeeded Pope Eugene II to become the 100th Pope in August 827

Well I didn’t know there were so many interesting facts about the numer 100! Did you?

I wont have any new creations to show you for a little while as my sewing machine has decided to take a holiday. The lever to make it go backwards is now hanging limply and the thread tension is all over the place.  Luckily it is still under its warranty, so it will be picked up and fixed by the company I bought it from.  I think that’s really good service, the only problem is that Monday is a bank holiday so it will only be picked up on Tuesday, so I can imagine that all of next week can be written off.  So I’ll have to find other interesting things to talk to you all about. Plus when it does finally come back all fixed and happy again, I’m going to have a mad rush to make everything I was hoping to have done for ‘Stilblüten’ the next fashion fair I will be participating in at the end of the month.

What annoys me a little about the whole thing is this lever already broke once, last year when I had only been using the machine a little while.  The service woman I talked to said that you had to stop sewing before you sewed backwards, stop again to go forward.  So basically at the end of each seam, instead of one flowing movement of sewing, backwards, forwards again to lock the thread into place, you have to stop and start twice.  I thought this was a silly excuse/comment.  I’ve never heard of such a thing.  But for the machine’ sake I had gotten in the habit of doing it.  But still it’s broken. So in a way, yes I like the service, I just wish I didn’t need it.  I just wish it would work without all the hassle. Ok, sorry I guess I’m complaining. 

I’m really proud of this bag. I think it’s really pretty!  Very subtle for me really, but still very original!  It’s even already been picked up as it was ordered even before it was made. It was ordered when it was only a thought and loose pieces of material in a pile on my desk.  Like it? I really like the tone on tone stitching on the back as well as the stitching on the front that follows the pattern in the material.  It really makes it special.

Man Bags have been requested often before, so I thought I would give it a go. Now I need a few men’s opinions…  I thought that a man would like a bag large enough for a magazine or A4 block, with a couple of pockets for mobile, keys, etc. But at the same time not too large a bag that would look a little too much like a handbag.  I also thought that the colours needed to be more subtle, although saying that my first test bag is quite bright.  The bags also needed less details but still a little something to make them special.  So I’ve made and pictured my first attempt and I would love a few men’s thoughts. 

• Is it large enough? It is presently 32cm wide x 25 cm high x 7 cm deep
• Is the strap long enough? It is presently 137 cm at it’s absolute maximum but can obviously be shortened
• Does it need more pockets? It presently has two, one inside and one outside (under the flap)
• Are the colours still too ‘girly’? The other planned ones are black, green, blue denim and chocolate brown
• any other thoughts and / or comments…  

If you live in or near Frankfurt you are always welcome to contact me for an appointment.  This evening I had two lovely women here trying to pick a present for a friend.  It’s a relaxed and easy going atmosphere, you have the chance to see the bags that are on the Internet, as well as the ones I have for the different fairs and the ones I’m currently working on.  The colours and details can also be better appreciated and felt, for example the velvet or ribbons are much more noticeable in real life.  I think they enjoyed themselves.  They both ended up buying more that they had planed, which is always a good sign

I asked them if I could take a couple of ‘action shots’ as they were trying them on to add to the blog and I think they thought it was a fun idea!  Those were the bags they picked in the end!  They both looked great, but then I’m hardly going to say the opposite!

Just opened a Flickr account and started uploading pictures in order to add one of those cool ‘Flash badges’ on the right hand side of my blog.  Sadly it turns out that you can’t add them to WordPress for security reasons :-(  I have added a widget with RSS feed to my Flickr account but it’s so boring.  It only uses the pictures that were uploaded last. The proper Flicker badges picks pictures at random and moves around, which is so much better as it draws your attention.  They are so easy to create as well.  

All you need to do is go to the ‘Make a Badge’ link on the tools page, I mean it doesn’t get any easier.   Well for those of you who aren’t on WordPress, have fun adding your ‘Flash badge’ as it is super flash!

Not “M’aider! M’aider!” as if my ship was sinking, but May Day, Labour Day, Ascension…  Here it’s holiday!  So you get a day off bags too!  Here are simply some “Ahhh…”  pictures that are sure to put a smile on your face.

I’ve spent the last few days uploading loads of new bags in my Webshop all are waiting for new owners!

More Day bags, Triangular bags and Make up bags still to come.  As well as my first attempt at man bags!

After seeing the Minty Green Bags a customer asked me to make a messenger bag using the same material.  When I explained that I didn’t have any of the green left but that I could try and get more of it, or if she liked I could also make it in black with the same decorative material and green stitching she jumped at the idea!  So here are some pictures, I really like the stitching! I think it’s even better than the one on the Tote. I am really proud of the result. 

I just hope she will like it too!