A better heating pad cover

Ever since I got that great book of embroidery templates I've been dying to try something more demanding than blanket or chain stitches. So when I was asked to make a proper cover for a sick friend's heating pad I raced to the store for a fabric transfer pencil and raced home again to trace these:


Wouldn't any one of them be absolutely adorable along the top of a mini pillowcase-shaped sack for a heating pad?

I think so too, but I may never know for sure. First, I couldn't get any of them to transfer properly. Then, after tracing directly onto the fabric, I couldn't figure out how to stitch them without making a right royal mess. Nor could I figure out how to get the tracing marks off again.

After about three hours of trying to erase the problem, I came up with another brilliant solution to make a cheerful cover for the heating pad:


When in doubt, cover it up. Why didn't I think of that in the first place?

Brown paper packages

A month or two ago I heard about a book that has been mostly in print for more than a hundred years. Which is to say it went out for a while, recently, but has been brought back and can now be bought new.

Since it's about needlework (current obsession), and clearly would be talking about the art as practised a hundred years ago (longtime obsession) I decided I needed a copy for my library.

However, reviews of the book at Amazon clearly indicated that earlier editions are to be preferred, because the quality of illustration is just so much better.

So I got onto an online bookseller of used books and tracked down a 1920s copy for really quite a bearable amount of money and ordered it, and after some time - it was living in England when I got my impulse - it arrived.

There were several layers to unwrap before I got here:


and then there was a cardboard case, still intact:


Don't you love how the letter on the spine of the case would tell you what book is inside, while keeping said book dust-free? The title, of course, shows on the opposite side:


And the cover itself is still clear and beautiful.


But none of that prepared me for the illustrations:


As promised. And this may be all I need when it comes time for me to darn my first pair of handknit socks:


It's a lovely, lovely book and now that I have it, I can't stop thinking about the person who had it first and took such care of it, and wondering how long it was had before being passed on, and how many hands it passed through before it came to mine. I hope I will do all of them proud.

Flowers for a Friday

Aren't these beautiful?


I love watching white tint itself into green. And I love to look at green and pink in close proximity to each other. I hope these flowers last all weekend!

Good times

Time has been forcing itself on me lately with reflections on how brief 'the old ol' days' really are.

Like, the grocery store that some friends used to drive out of the neighbourhood to get to because it just stocked better stuff? I remember that as a whole period in my life - the days before they moved away, when we met up every weekend and ate really delicious takes-time-to-prepare foodie things. We saw the Blue Jays win the World Series together.

I passed that grocery store the other day without thinking much about it. It lost its cachet years ago, which means that happy time was years before that, and now that I think of it - it lasted about two years, tops.

This is true for a lot of my past, and it's suddenly struck me that pattern will continue with the happy times I enjoy now, and the ones I'll enjoy in the future. Life comes in stages, like it or not, and good times are often cut off by bad ones, as when friends move away.

But the other thing I noticed is that other good times replaced those ones. Kind of like water that finds its way around obstacles to reach the next lowest point, we seem to be able to find other ways to enjoy life, don't we. And I for one am going to start being more mindful about doing that, because who knows how long this particular patch of good will last?

Rainbow reading

I've been staying up way too late until yesterday, when I got a new book in the mail:


No time to look at it until the day was over, so I ended it early, and boy oh boy, the ideas I got. Wouldn't it be cool to have embroidered birds or trees on your canvas summer sneakers? Or Art Deco lettering on your tea towels?

This book so does not bode well for my writing career.

Or, if I look at the upside - maybe it bodes well for a plethora of made Christmas gifts in 2010?

A new use for old shoulder pads

When I was buying up all those wool sweaters for felting I came across a massive double-breasted charcoal grey waffle-stitch 1980s cardigan/coat thing that... well, really. Hideous. Must have made whoever wore it look like a battleship sailing proudly out of the harbour, which is not an effect the average girl is looking to achieve.

I finally got around to taking it apart a couple of weeks ago and as I snipped out the shoulder pads (of course, you couldn't manufacture a sweater like that and leave out the giant shoulder pads) I had an Aha! moment.

Which - with the aid of a small rectangle from another sweater - came out looking like this in back,


and this in front.


I gave it to my goddaughter for her birthday with a present tucked inside. I was thinking it could do for jewelry or stamps or folding money or a mobile phone, but she tells me it is the perfect size for CDs, so I expect it will be seeing some action on that front as well.

The Singer sings

Sewing machines that do automatic embroidery are old news to me, but I didn't know you can buy machines that let you you work freehand. Seriously, you just push the fabric around the way you want, taking all sort of tight turns without the least resistance.

This is a lot more attractive to me than programming something in and then effectively sitting back to watch a lot of perfect embroidery stitch itself into your fabric - for me, the fun is in trying and messing up and ripping out and starting all over again after another cookie break. But you pay an awful lot for the privilege, so I'm staying with my 1940s Singer a while yet.

Consolation prize: said Singer can do some embroidery too.


Cute? And also:


Yes, well, you see what I mean about the messing up part. Still - embroidery! and don't I have a great eye for exactly the right shade of thread, even without the memory required for bringing the fabric along with me to to the store?