One Down

 Just before 2 p.m. today I finished the first big project of the summer: repainting the balcony railing.

Here's how it looked last Wednesday morning.  

There were areas on this wooden railing where the paint had worn off and the wood was bare. Our helper S. had scraped the rough places.  I had coated them with primer.

Starting last Thursday I carefully painted all the sections.  About four to six hours a day of that work was plenty, especially because the sun was ferociously hot!  But just keeping at it is the key, and today it is finished.  I'm very pleased with how rejuvenated it is.  I think this is a really good kind of milk chocolate brown.  The paint colour name is "Brown Tar" which is pretty yucky, but the colour is great.




This morning I also got at another project, an indoor one this time.  My friend Susan and her husband have a wholesale fabric business and she asked if I would make some sample bags for them to display.  That sounded like an interesting project, so I agreed.  This morning I made the first bag, called Little Pouch.  It's lined and has a spring closing in the casing at the top.

This didn't take long to make, but I had to rewrite the instructions as I went along.  The pattern comes from Japan, and the instructions are somewhat strange.  I've been sewing for 60 years and had trouble figuring them out.  I finally just decided how I would construct it and followed my own directions.  I'll give Susan and new set of directions that will hopefully be clearer.

There are several other bags to make over the next few weeks, making this a fun, doable project.