Some people say I'm easily distracted

My husband tells me I'm easily distracted...a few weeks ago I started this project to make a whole series of "zip purses"...I'd found a lot of tutorials on how to make them and thought it would be fun to try some and that it would be a good way to practice putting in zips...it's knowing what to do with those rascally zipper end-bits that I find difficult...and if I ended up with lots and lots of little purses I knew I'd have no trouble finding some use for them...I love purses...anyway, I need lots...these ones have already been claimed by my daughters and one of my sons...the other son is living in Hong Kong so he hasn't seen them yet.

I didn't get very far with the "whole series" idea...I got side-tracked from the zippers to just having fun with the look of the purses and playing with the appliqued designs... still, it's a start...a work-in-progress...like everything else. This cotton purse below was my first attempt...it now serves as my camera case...which is why it is open:

It didn't take long for me to switch to my much-loved felts...I bought this mossy green wool felt at The Cloth Shop a few years ago when I was lucky enough to travel to London. This first photo shows the back of the purse...you can think of the design as a story about this little flying fellow travelling from flower to flower...sort of "a day in the life of...":

And this is the front:

I dyed this blue felt...you always get these lovely nuances in the color when you dye you own material. These birds are lorikeets...they're native Australians...something like small parrots...I have a group of regulars that come to me for breakfast every morning...and lunch...and dinner...and like all parrots they're real clowns...which is why one of them is hanging upside down:

And this is just a little purse for loose change...you can see that I suddenly noticed that I'd forgotten all about the zips, so here I've used a tutorial that places the zipper at the front of the purse rather than on the top:

And here I got sidetracked again...this time by a book my daughter showed me by Graham Leslie McCallum called "4000 Flower and Plant Motifs"...which made me start thinking how much I like what Paul Klee does with flowers...they're completely child-like and imaginary and look like they have grown in some magical garden:

I guess my husband was right.