Back in the good ol' days

Okay, now I KNOW some of these zippers are old. Look at the price tag on this one;

Gemco. Anyone heard of Gemco? I'm going to guess that Des and Corrie have. Gemco was a membership store in southern CA in the 70's. See what a nice discount they gave me? The zipper was .45 to begin with but at GEMCO you only had to pay .36. Plus tax. Of course. THIRTY SIX cents for a zipper! I am pretty sure that you can't buy zippers for .36 now. Well maybe at the second hand store.


Even more unbelievable than a thirty six cent zipper...are you sitting down??


I USED IT!! uh huh, I installed a zipper! This was such a big deal that I had a 'reveal' for my hubby and son. I told my son he might want to sit down ahead of time. I mean to tell you, that boy is almost 6'7" and that is a lot of boy to fall over and I didn't want that on my hands. Let's just say they were impressed. VERY impressed.

Following are many pictures of said zipper, for your viewing pleasure. Please enjoy.


'borrowed' hubby's credit cards for this picture ;)

I can hardly wait to see what college girl has to say about this!

Finally, the outside view. Sadly you can't see the zipper from here. This is to go with my new purse. Verna fabric by Kate Spain for Moda and some Amy Butler Lotus Dots.


KOIN KEEPER pattern by This & That. Instructions were easy to follow. Hardest part of the entire wallet was turning it right side out. Yes, that was harder than installing the zipper. I will be making more of these (have you SEEN the pile of zippers that I have???).

Praise - for the Godly men of our church and their willingness to lead.

Prayers - for those same men, for their faith and commitment to the Lord to stay strong.

Do zippers go bad??

You know, I was going to change my header photo. I was ready to admit that although it is still winter by the calendar we are well on our way into spring (or brown, as I like to call it). I even suggested to hubby that maybe he should take the studded tires off of my vehicle. Then I looked at the forecast for this coming week. SNOW!!! It probably won't amount to much at all down here but up on the ski mountain it will help them last a few more weeks. I may be the only person in the county that is excited about the arrival of snow this late in the season. So be it. The header photo stays for another week at least.

I have been looking at tutorials all over blogland for cute little bags. Pencil bags, make-up bags, what-not bags. I want to make some. I have zipper phobia. Well not so much zipper phobia but 'putting in a zipper' phobia. Most of these tutorials have great pictures and explanations of just how to do the zipper part. I decided I needed to jump in and give it a try. When my fabric obsession was for clothing and not quilting I amassed quite the collection - fabric, buttons, threads, patterns and yes, even zippers. The pieces that would have required zippers would have been taken to my mom. She was my go-to for zipper application. My mother has been gone for nine years now. I haven't bought a zipper in at least nine years. But like a good fabric collector, you KNOW I still have it all. Finding it is another issue. While all of the fabric, packed into boxes, was moved into this house (as opposed to the insulated mega garage at the previous house)some of the boxes remained in the shop. I knew just which box I was looking for and I sent my son out to the shop to find it. I said there is a label on the box and it says among other things, 'silly notions'. He wasn't gone long and this is what he returned with;

He couldn't believe that I remembered what the label on the box said. It had been years ago that I put that label on there. Well I had seen it every time I went to look through the boxes. Looking for a certain piece of fabric. Or a pattern.

I knew there were some zippers in that box. I wouldn't have to go buy a zipper to make a cute little pouch purse. I certainly would not need to buy any fabric for said pouch purse. ;)

Here are the zippers that were in the box.

What size do you want? What color would you like? Yeah. It is sickness I tell ya.
How could someone with zipper phobia have so many zippers??

So my question. Do zippers go bad?? Or is it safe to use one, or maybe even two, to try to get over the zipper phobia and make a pouch purse? I think I'm going to risk it.

Praise - Winter isn't over and there is SNOW on the way!!

Prayers - for the house inspection that will be done later this week, that all will go well for both parties.