New Bag with Vintage Embroidery

I've made a new purse to add to my collection, maybe I should start calling this blog the Bag Blog!  But I love having lots of purses and bags to use.  The pattern for this pot of flowers design is from a new book I got recently and I love, love, love this book!

It's by Nori Koenig and you can find it at Amazon.  It's full of beautiful old floral designs with a pattern for each one of them.  The book shows a photograph of each original antique piece so you can see the colors that were used to embroider them.  Then in the back of the book there are black line patterns for you to trace and transfer to your fabric.  I counted 53 of them!  If you have any interest in doing vintage embroidery I believe you would love this book, too.  I'm sorry if I sound like a commercial, but when I find something that I really love, I just have to tell you about it!  Here's a closer picture of the one I chose for my bag.

I used all DMC floss, plain black and DMC variegated colors for the rest of it.  I wanted to use thread colors that would have been available at the time these were first embroidered.  It was such fun to stitch!  Here's the back of the bag:

This is a double pocket panel with patches of rose fabric for decoration.  There are also small side panel pockets of the same rose fabric for cell phone, etc.  I got this fabric and the wooden rose buttons on the front from Anita.  I've got another order coming from her soon with new stuff from Nashville and I can hardly wait!  I've also been working on some cross stitch, a Shakespeare's Peddler design called Jenny Bean's Creation Sampler.

It's charted for Gentle Art threads but I was in the mood for silk so I changed it over to Belle Soie and Gloriana silk floss.   It's only about halfway done, I'm anxious to get down towards the bottom where there is a nice Adam and Eve scene.  I just love Theresa's designs, don't you?  And now I have a question for all of you nice blogging people;  have you been having any difficulty with leaving comments on other people's blogs lately?  On just a few blogs, when I try to leave a comment, the comment box will come up, but for just a second and then it disappears.  No matter how many times I click on it to bring it back, it just goes away again before I have time to add a comment.  Sometimes the blog itself will only show up briefly and then it goes blank and stays that way.  It's very frustrating, and I've been wondering if it's happening to anyone else?  So, if I had been in the habit of commenting on your blog, but haven't recently, please know that this is why and not that I don't find your posts just as lovely and interesting as always!  Thanks so much for visiting my blog again and thank you for each wonderful and thoughtful comment that you left for my last post!  I'm going to leave you with a picture of my latest tattoo, just a small one this time.

 This bee represents my husband, Tom.  I wanted to get it because we have always been in the habit of calling each other "Bee", you know, like in "honeybee."  So now I think of him whenever I see the bee on my arm. 
Thanks again for visiting!