Sabra's Christmas Present from Plastic Canvas UFO

In moving Grandma Vivian this past fall, numerous of her UFOs saw the light of day for the first time in years.  One of our "finds" was a bag of 7 completed pieces of needlepoint plastic canvas; clearly a tote bag that had never been assembled.  Now wouldn't a group gift from Grandma, Larry & me make a terrific gift for Sabra?  She does so much for Dad, driving him around and looking out for him in general as his fogginess increases.

I explained to Larry that lashing plastic canvas with yarn was exactly the same thing as lashing leather with lacing and put him to work (because I really hate messing with plastic canvas.)  I showed him how to get the handles positioned correctly and explained that, yes, you do have to lash all the edges or it looks icky.

While he got to work on the lashing, I added one set of missing antennas to the blue butterfly.  I also thought that some feet would make it extra special, and help keep the tote clean too.  In the stash of buttons I gleaned from cleaning out Larry's Dad's house, was a perfect match of four shank buttons.  I sewed them to the base piece and wound them tightly with the lashing yarn until they stood up nice and straight.

When Larry was done I added some yellow taffeta from my stash for the lining.  I auditioned several fabrics and almost went with a dark blue that looked very nice, but I decided to go with yellow in the end. The light color will make it much easier for Sabra to find her keys & sunglasses, and I've noticed that she spends an inordinate amount of time fumbling for things at the bottom of her purse.

We had a Christmas party at Dad's house on Sunday before Christmas, and Larry, Grandma and I gave the tote bag to Sabra then.  She was absolutely thrilled with it.  It was great to give her a gift from all three of us and I loved seeing another completed UFO, even if it wasn't one of my own.