New Furnace Woes and Slow Stitching Bag Finish

   We were still having issues with our new furnace. Thursday morning I thought they figured out all of the issues, but early evening yesterday it was acting up again. Blowing cold air, fan not turning off. Then when the fan finally stopped the heat came on but was too warm.  So I had called right away and the repair person was to be here around 6:30 pm but came around 7:30 pm.  He checked all the wiring again, decided it must be the thermostat we have was not compatible. He said I really do not know why they didn't send you a new one with the heating unit.  He had one in his truck-that seems to have fixed things-hoping for sure now.  He did get his truck stuck up on top of the hill-right where the hill drops off-very steep there and he would have crashed into the house and more.   So it took him a bit to get himself dug out. This is a rough winter here so far. 

  I did manage to get a couple of the steps cleared of ice yesterday when we warmed up to the low 30's for just a couple of hours. The ice is so thick with the added 4 inches of snow. So I cleared snow and then put salt on the ice and after an hour or so,  was able to clear three steps. This afternoon we are to reach 40's F so I got to get us cleared out today-as the temps are dropping again tomorrow. I want to get my car back on Monday. So far our road still has not been plowed and the rural road to here is not real good either. I know main roads have priority first.

  Soooo I have been pushing to get my first bag to the finish line. I did that last night. The outside of the bag is thicker than the lining with the layers of fabrics and stitches so the edges were not laying flat nice even after the ironing with steam. I decided to stitch a blanket stitch around the outside of the straps and then just a running stitch around the inside edges.  I am pleased with the finish.

  I began laying out the next bag last night and early this morning I finished the layout. It is ready to press and pin.

The next layout. This room is a bit dark so sorry not a great photo  The yellow piece in front with the white is not that bright as it shows up here. The little leaf cut out is one of my eco printed leaves.

   I will share a better photo once it is all pinned and I can take it into a room with more light.

  This is such a good way for me to use up my hand dyed fabrics into something useful to share as gifts. There are only two pieces in this layout that were gifted to me from a friend. That yellow and white piece-which is a light weight denim, and the strap on top of photo to the right-that blue piece was part of my gifted hand dyes.

Have a good weekend and hoping this winter is not too bad for any of you

Update: after looking at the layout photo above I decided I did not like that bright yellow piece. So I swapped it out for a more subtle piece. This one I had dyed with Pebeco sun paints and added allot of salt on top. These lay in the sun til dry to set the dye process-that was fun. I like this piece much better in this.

   When I was doing journal pages I always noticed something I didn't like or needed to be fixed after I took a photo. Same happened here. Wonder why that is?  Thoughts??