The Cocktail Kit(ty) Purse

A few weeks ago, I found out by surprise that an article I had submitted to Australian Patchwork and Quilting AGES ago (which I thought had been rejected) had been published. It was surprising that it was a surprise because I'm usually in close contact with Louise at the magazine when there's an article in the offing. I emailed Louise to ask what was going on.  To cut a long story short, Louise's mum (who joked that Louise had her dream job as she was a quilter and Louise isn't) has been in and out of hospital with cancer for a long time, and Louise was in and out of the office accordingly. We had an email catchup, and Louise sent me a photo of her new kitty. Now I'm not a cat lover (I find they are very tough unless you slow-cook them) but even I have to confess that this is a cat who could give bat-dog a run for her money... Batdog and spider cat... Unstoppable.

I was so distracted by the kitty pics that I missed Louise's mention that the doctors had told her family they should go into the hospital that evening to see her mum... Or I missed the significance of that. About a week later, I heard that Louise had lost her mum.

What do you say in those situations? Louise is in Sydney and I am in Perth (which is 2045 miles, or roughly the distance from LA to Wisconsin for my American readers) and although we have never met, we have already said that we would totally go out for drinks if it weren't for the distance. So the best I could manage was "sending you hugs and cocktails." Louise replied, "less hugs, more cocktails".  How do you send a cocktail that distance?

Sadly, I'd already given this block to Janine and had NO MORE cats with cocktails fabric. I put a call on Quilt Club Australia and funnily enough, Cat(herine) (who is in WA and has just started her own long-arm business called Catty Lil Sew-n-sew) had a piece she gave me. So I now had a cat with a cocktail, but what was I going to do with it?

Sara had sent me another pattern - not to test this time, just because she is so sweet. This pattern was for a trio of wallets - a basic, an intermediate, and an advanced. I decided to go with the intermediate one which has a space for a phone to fit on the back. The Ghastlies' cat fit perfectly.

The inside of the wallet features numerous credit card slots. I left some open for notes.

Halfway through, I realised there was no space for coins, so I added a little coin purse to the front of the wallet.  I fussy cut the characters (obviously) but the closures are scraps of Ghastlies fabric. One scrap turned out to be the crotch area of one of the male characters (unintentional) but I'd ironed it on to the interfacing before I noticed. So I decided that would be the back of a closure and no one would ever notice. Then I accidentally sewed it the wrong way on. Oops...

Here's the outside in its full glory below.

My parents informed me that it is unlucky to give a wallet as a gift without money in it, so I'm going to have to send cocktail money over. Which I am going to have to insist Louise spends on a cocktail to cheer herself up, so that makes this Louise's Cocktail Kitty.

 Which kicked my creative brain into action... I have to explain that Louise seems to have a similarly devious sense of humour to me before we go any further.

There's a fine cotton hankerchief from Japan ("In case you are a messy drunk") and a note on the interior cat fabric ("Extra kitties in case you get rat-faced") and I popped a couple of asprin in the front pocket ("for the morning after").

So this will be winging has now winged its way to Sydney. I'll wait till the end of the week to share and hope it's there by then, as Louise occasionally stalks my blog. I have NO idea whether she will like it and I have no idea whether she's 21 or 71 but I hope this at least brings a bit of happiness on a day that it is needed. :)
Louise loved it. She said it made her laugh and cry and the zipper on her old purse broke last week and she had to cut it open and has been carrying it around in a state of disgrace ever since. She says thank you to Cat and Sara for their contribution. And she's 26.... :)
I've missed TGIFF but will save it up and link next Friday...


PS. You can buy Sara's pattern here.