this afternoon.

I met up with my friend, Caitlin, and her son at the park for a little while this afternoon. The sun was full and bright -- it felt amazing to sit out in warm weather for the first time this year! There were lots of moms and kiddos out running around at the park, so while Caitlin's little boy played in the sand, we got to have girl time (and for the record,  it's been a good long while since I've gotten to gab about anything other than literature). We've become good friends since I moved here and I am so grateful -- Caitlin and her family are wonderful. She and her husband have introduced me to some great places to explore (and to eat!) and without them, I would have never discovered half of the things that I love about living here.

Okay, so I cheated: this isn't really a picture from this afternoon, but it was something that I've been getting into lately. I re-discovered my sewing machine (which had taken up residence at my parents house since high school...I thought it had been lost in the void forever) and began perusing sewing blogs for inspiration. And those blogs? Those blogs are like crack. I've already downloaded and printed off enough projects for the entire summer -- quilts! swing-y skirts! baby dresses for my new little cousin! My first project, pictured above, was a shoulder bag -- and in hindsight, I was maybe a tad crazy overzealous in deciding to both alter the pattern and work with seersucker. Why?

SEERSUCKER IS A B TO WORK WITH. SRSLY.

Especially when you mess up.

Which I did.

The bag turned out fine; just a couple of mistakes on the inside straps which only a perfectionist like me would notice, but still. Tearing out stitches in seersucker leaves holes all over the fabric and causes it to pucker more than it normally would. Not to mention, sewing the bag was my reward for studying all those nights for that damn test, so I inevitably went to town on those messed up stitches. But! It ended up looking super, super cute and I can't wait to use it all summer.