Tessie Made Me Do It!

I had good intentions yesterday.  I was working on Christmas Presents...I can't tell you what.

I noticed that my fancy glue bottle didn't look fancy anymore.  It just looked grubby.

Tessie nudged me and said, "It would only take a few minutes to rip the fabric off of the bottle and replace it with new.  You should do it now."

With that, she disappeared with a zap.  When she returned, she had a piece of fabric that my friend Debi sent me from Canada, some red leather and some gold braid...

She bounced into the room and shouted, "Come on!  You know you want to!"

I did, but that's beside the point.  I grabbed the big bottle of glue, some scissors and she handed me the supply stash.

I was almost done with the glue bottle and she plopped down my favorite hammer.

"You know....This hammer is starting to show a lot of wear.  The grip is cracking and about to fall off.....How about if we fix it too, while we are at it?".

I took that as the "royal" we....In other words, she would sit there and watch whilst I did the work.

OK.  I had a lot of fabric, leather and glue.  How hard could it be?

I cut a piece of fabric on the bias and starting at the inner neck, I glued it, about a quarter at a time, around the neck.  I let it overlap about 1/8".  And glued it down firmly. 

With the bias, I could stretch the fabric to fit. 

I moved down to the grip and cut a piece of leather to fit that.  I had to cut Vs in places to contour it to fit, but it went on quite smoothly. I clipped the bottom end in Vs and fitted it to the handle.

I used a wrapping knot that I knew from when I was doing a lot of macrame for the gold cord.  That way, there were no loose ends on any of the wraps.

Tessie disappeared again....I knew I was in trouble.

First it was the two screwdrivers.  She convinced me to do those because their handles were exactly the same and I was always having to pick them both up to find the right one. 

She explained, "If you do each one different, you will never have that problem again.  One glance will tell you which of them you need.".

As I finished those, she came at me with my favorite razor saw...OK.  That one was easy. Pretty much straight up and down.

I quickly cut the pieces for that one and then sat on the rest of the material.  Yes.  I lied through my teeth.  "No, Tessie.  WE can't do any more.  I just ran out of fabric and leather and there is only a short piece of gold cord left...".

I knew I was fibbing.  She knew I was fibbing.  But by that time, she was tired of the game and wanted to play something else...

They may not last forever, but the old glue bottle lasted for a number of years...And besides, now nobody can pilfer my tools and they are easy to see.

Why do I do this kind of thing?  Because I can. Because Tessie said I could.  And because it is FUN.

See you tomorrow.