speaking of gas prices

I've been seeing this graphic a lot lately on some of the political blogs I read. Funny but also not if you know what I mean.

I know that historically we pay much less for gas than people in other countries do (Europe, for example) so they're sort of right when they don't have much sympathy for our situation. But it really is a whole different thing here in the US if you live out in the country like I do. I grew up in NYC and lived in Chicago for a while and took public transportation everywhere (and happily) but it's non-existent here. And the only store within walking distance sells ice cream and a steady diet of that is probably less appealing than it sounds :)

I've always bought cars with high gas mileage - no SUVs for me - and that helps. And I've started to limit my trips to town, combining grocery shopping, banking, and post office runs into single trips.

Most of you probably don't remember that gas was rationed back in the 70s during the oil crisis. I was pretty young and can't remember all the details but I do know that you could only buy gas on certain days of the week and the lines were really long (I used to take a book to read). I'm thankful we don't have to do that yet.

From Wikipedia—
In the U.S., drivers of vehicles with license plates having an odd number as the last digit (or a vanity license plate) were allowed to purchase gasoline for their cars only on odd-numbered days of the month, while drivers of vehicles with even-numbered license plates were allowed to purchase fuel only on even-numbered days. The rule did not apply on the 31st day of those months containing 31 days, or on February 29 in leap years — the latter never came into play, since the restrictions had been abolished by 1976.

So how are gas prices impacting your life? Are you driving less or making changes to your routine?

feels like summer

This holiday weekend was a flurry of activity—most of it taking place outside. I'll tell you about Saturday in a minute but Sunday and Monday were all about the garden. We planted fruit trees (another peach, a new pear), vegetable seeds (corn, beets, carrots, cucumbers, and green beans), vegetable plants (the baby cantaloupes and Greek tomatoes I started in February and some heirloom tomatoes, poblano peppers, and bell peppers from the garden center), and annual flowers in pots for the porch off the kitchen. We put netting over the strawberry plants, which are loaded with blossoms and teeny tiny future strawberries. I planted hostas in the shade garden and weeded flower beds. I even mowed the lawn. And yes, I collapsed into bed each night. But it felt good to get so much of the heavy work out of the way.

Saturday was equally exhausting but for different reasons. I got up early and drove to Stormville, NY for the Stormville Airport Antique Show & Flea Market. This was my first time attending the show and you'll find a full review (the good and the bad) over at Vintage Indie. I'll use this space to show some more of my purchases.

I thought most of the vintage linen/textile dealer's wares were very overpriced but I always manage to find a few bargains wherever I go. I got this embroidered pillowcase for $3 because of the weird stain running above the embroidery. An oxyclean soak got rid of 90% of it and I'll try a few tricks to get rid of the rest. The bluebird is super cute and I love the flowers (rhododendrons, I think).



I passed up the $4 hankies at one dealer's booth only to find a basket full of $1 ones at another's. This one with embroidered roses and daisies is very sweet.



I found some cool vintage 1920s needlework catalogs for $5 each. Catalogs are great for dating linens—they show what styles were in fashion during certain time periods. I think I'll show some of them in a blog post of their very own.

I talked the seller of this rose-print apron into a lower price ($3) because it was really dirty. It cleaned up just fine! I love the fabric this is made from and it has a stiff red netting (also used for the triangle pocket) underneath to give it shape.



This is the white beaded purse for $5 that I mention in the VI review. As it turns out it's not just a clutch—it has a chain handle that tucks inside, too.



I wish I could have gotten more than scraps of this fabric. It's a vintage DuBarry screen printed cotton with roses and bows and the colors are amazing.



I have a few more trips planned for later in the summer - shows that I go to every year. Other than that I'm not sure. With gas so expensive ($48 last time I filled the tank of my VW bug!) I think I may be sticking closer to home this year.

Happy Mother's Day

A photo from a long time ago. This is my grandma Elizabeth in one of her perfect sweater sets, my mom with her ponytail and bobby-pinned curl and me looking a bit overwhelmed with the attention. Somebody let me out of here :)

And I couldn't resist including another picture, of my mom and me on my second birthday. I can't figure out why I'm focused so intently on that birthday gift. Just look at that gorgeous barkcloth pillow above my head and I'm sure it was the genuine article, too! The curtains aren't bad either. Silly me :)



Happy Mother's Day!

feedsacks

A couple of years ago I started a group (Feedsacks) on Flickr to catalog some of the 15,000 existing patterns of feedsacks. This was a project I started on my website (you can see it here) beginning with swatches from my growing collection of feedsack cottons. Then I got busy with other things and the whole thing got set aside. There's really no way I could ever get all of them anyway.



Lately, a few people have discovered the group and asked to join. And I've decided to try to inject a little life into the project again. I invited a few people who already had pictures of feedsacks in their own pools (Flickr-speak for a group of photos). And thanks to those new members who accepted, joined, and shared their photos this week! Stop over and check out the photos and feel free to join us if you're so inclined.



Some of you are probably asking "What the heck is a feedsack?" I'm not going to attempt to explain in detail because several others have done so already, and much better than I could have done. You can read all about them here:
Feedbags: From Rags to Riches by Joan Kiplinger
Feedsacks: A Tradition of Recycling and Repurposing by Kayte Terry
Feedsacks! by Kris Driessen
Feedsacks, Frugal and Fun by Judy Anne Johnson Breneman
Collectible Feedsack Cloth and Quilts: the Past Revisited by Patricia Cummings



The feedsack examples shown here are some of my personal favorites. I love the large scale florals in bright colors, but there are plenty of patterns for everyone whether you like small-scale florals, stripes, polkadots, geometrics, or novelties. And about that 15,000 number—according to one member of the group it's actually grown to 20,000! Oh well, what's another 5,000?

violets are blue

The modest, lowly violet
In leaves of tender green is set;
So rich she cannot hide from view,
But covers all the bank with blue.
—Dora Read Goodale

I've been thinking of violets lately because we have thousands of wild ones in our lawn and they really are a sea of blue this time of year. We also have some of the cultivated variety (the one shown above has white edges and a purple center) in the flower beds. They spread like crazy so they'll soon take over there, too. Not complaining because I love them.

I didn't realize quite how much until a few days ago when I was going through my box of vintage hankies. I need to make some new sachets so I was trying to work up some combinations—hankies with fabric and buttons that all work together visually (not always as easy as it sounds). I have a lot of hankies with violets and I thought I'd share some pictures. The embroidered ones are especially pretty!













Did you know that violets have more than 200 common names, many of them relating to love and sex. Names like Hearts Ease, Bird's Eye, Bullweed, Pink-eyed John, Pink-of-my-Joan, Godfathers, Godmothers, Wild Pansy, Love-lies-bleeding, Love-in idleness, Love Idol, Cuddle Me, Call-me-to-you, Meet-me-in-the-entry, Kit-run-in-the-fields, Three-faces-under-a-hood, Jack-jump-up-and-kiss-me, Kiss-me-at-the-garden-gate, and Kiss-her-in-the-buttery. Too funny!

And speaking of those sachets, I wasn't able to cut up these hankies up after all! Sometimes I just can't bring myself to do it so back in the box they went.

Stitch School: Beads.3

Stitch School has moved to it's very own space on the web! You'll now find the Beads post here. Comments are now closed on this post; if you'd like to leave a comment please do so on the new one.

Mother's Day

Buy something for Mom; buy something for yourself! Free shipping* on all orders placed between now and May 11. Enter coupon code "MOM" when you check out.



*U.S. and Canadian orders only.

socially-responsible

It's primary voting day today in Pennsylvania and I'm heading out in a few minutes to cast my ballot. I'm really happy that my county changed their minds and went with paper ballots that are optically-scanned rather than the all-computer method they had originally decided on. The lack of a paper trail didn't sit well with the people who live here and the reversal is a direct result of the power of citizen activism. Yes we can (and that's a hint if you're wondering who I'm voting for).

It's also Earth Day today and I thought I'd share something I read yesterday. On Saturday I went to our local library's annual book sale—and what better way to recycle and to save money at the same time than to buy used books. I actually didn't buy any books but I did get a stack of twenty House & Garden and Martha Stewart Living magazines from last year—for 10 cents apiece! I don't usually buy either of these magazines but I figured I'd find 10 cents of information or photos to clip.

House & Garden is a little too upscale for my tastes but I love their monthly column called Domestic Bliss: At Home With ___ that features a famous person in the design world talking about their personal style. With cool photos, of course. The one featuring Paulette Cole, who has reinvented ABC Home (part of her family's ABC Carpet & Home store in NYC) as a socially-responsible business but who also lives "green" at home fits perfectly into today's "green" theme. The article mentioned her organic food and cleaning products buying habits, but what stood out to me were her comments about collecting antiques—"Antiques are the greenest choice you can make." How true. When we're hauling home our finds from the flea market we're probably thinking about how cool they are and how little we paid for them, not that we're recycling. But that's exactly what we're doing. Not that we really need another reason to buy antiques—but that's certainly a good one.

She admitted that many people are daunted by the idea of committing to living green but sees it as a journey—"My mantra is 'continual improvement'. Our goal should be getting a little better every year."

With that in mind, I'm going to be conscious of my carbon footprint today. I plan to hang my laundry outside on the clothesline (and sleep on wonderful-smelling sheets tonight) and plant some of the early cold-hardy things (lettuces, radishes, spinach) in the vegetable garden. Hmmm, the polling place is right down the road—maybe I'll dust off my bicycle, too!

How are you living "green" today?

Stitch School: Beads.2

Stitch School has moved to it's very own space on the web! You'll now find the Beads post here. Comments are now closed on this post; if you'd like to leave a comment please do so on the new one.

Stitch School: Beads.1

Stitch School has moved to it's very own space on the web! You'll now find the Beads post here. Comments are now closed on this post; if you'd like to leave a comment please do so on the new one.

signs of life

It's warm here today and I took a short walk around the property. The daffodils are just about ready to pop open, but not pretty enough yet for a picture. But I found this hellebore (also called Lenten rose) half-buried in leaves.



I forgot that we planted these last year so it was a nice surprise. I hope to get out later (if it doesn't rain) to do some raking and weeding - there's so much to be done out there!

a cottage of your very own

A couple of weeks ago, Susan showed some very cool embroidered pictures of cottages on her T-Cozy blog. Knowing that I sell copies of vintage patterns on my website, she emailed to ask if I knew anyone who could take her original picture and make a pattern from it. It was a challenging picture to trace (lots of tiny leaves and flowers) but I told her I'd do it. Yes, it's possible to digitally trace original embroidery but it's not magic—you still have to do all the tracing. It's just done with a mouse instead of a writing instrument and a steady hand and graphic design background doesn't hurt either.

The pattern is now for sale and you can head over to her latest blog post for ordering information. It's a really a cool pattern, and not just because I had a hand in it's creation. Everyone loves a sweet little cottage surrounded by flowers, even if they don't really live in one themselves.

A beginning embroiderer may want to practice up on their stitches—about half of the design is cross stitch (that's easy) but the rest uses a variety of other stitches—like chain, outline, French knot, and lazy daisy. If you need help with those, check out my Stitch School posts listed to the right in the sidebar. And, like my patterns, you'll need to transfer the design to your own fabric.

Someone emailed me recently asking if I'd do a tutorial on transfering patterns. I didn't think it was that complicated as I just lay the pattern on a lightbox with the fabric on top and trace over the lines with an air-soluable marker. But, that only works if your fabric can be seen through. I recently bought some flannel-backed baby burp cloths that I thought would be cute with a bit of embroidery in the corners. I set up the lightbox and (oh, no!), you can't see through the layers of fabric. There is another way to do it involving a transfer pencil, so maybe a tutorial would be a good idea after all.

I'll add it to the list. Next up for Stitch School is a post about attaching beads and sequins (or other small objects) because sometimes you just need a little extra bling! I'll try to get that posted next week if the weather cooperates for picture-taking. They weren't kidding about those April showers—it's rained every day since the beginning of the month!

thinking about spring

Unfortunately, thinking is all I can do at this point. Yes, the robins are back and some of my perennials are starting to send up little hints of green but it's still pretty chilly and much too early to start planting. I do have my seeds though so I'm ready when the weather begins to cooperate.

Aren't these seeds packets pretty?



My local garden center carries this brand of seed (among others), and the packages are so beautiful that I'm tempted to buy all of them. Surely my garden will look as fantastic as these illustrations! Perhaps not but a girl can dream can't she?

I have three large planters with trellises in front of the garage and I'm going to try these nasturtiums instead of my usual morning glories. Peach Melba and Cherry Rose Jewel - sounds yummy enough to eat! Of course, I'm going to have to wait to plant these until after we get the garage siding done. When we bought our place, the house had already been done but not the garage and it just looks weird. Not that I like siding (I actually hate it on old houses) but it seems easier to add it to the garage than remove it from the house. Hopefully this will be happening in April or May. Waiting now for my accountant to finish the taxes to see whether I can afford it or not :)

So, here I am with my seed packets, still waiting for spring.

P.S. Yes, that's a real banner at the top of my blog. After many false starts I finally figured out how to add it to the template without screwing everything else up. It only took three years - LOL!

Updated to add a link to Botanical Interests. I bought my seeds at a smallish local garden center. Tammy spotted some in California, so they're out there but probably not at larger chain stores like Walmart. But, thanks to online ordering, you can get them wherever you live. And it's nice to see the entire line—I know my local store didn't have all of them.

a quiet Easter

I'm not doing anything special today to celebrate Easter. We ate dinner out with friends last night and it's kind of chilly so not a good day for working outside (although I'm just dying to get out to the garden—I know it's too early but there's so much to be done). So I've been spending a quiet day at home photographing products and updating my website. I've added a bunch of new pillows, including two made from linens I found on my New England trip last September.

This one uses the embroidered pillowcase I found at the Elephant's Trunk Flea Market in Connecticut. I'm looking forward to returning there this summer, too.



And this one uses an embroidered towel found at The Buggy Whip Factory in Southfield, Massachusetts. I didn't find a lot of linens there but I did find other cool things so I'd probably return there, too, if I was in the area.



Speaking of vacations I'm not sure where we're headed this year—maybe Maryland. I haven't been to Baltimore in forever and Havre de Grace is supposed to be good for antiques. Flying is so expensive and too much hassle these days so I'm happy to do a driving trip, especially if it's relatively close. Gas isn't cheap either!

Hope you're all having a nice holiday!

new embroidery patterns

I've listed some new patterns on my website—


For you cat lovers there's Kitten Capers based on a vintage nursery quilt. This pattern comes with a copy of the original directions for making the quilt although you certainly don't have to—the blocks would make really cute pillows, too!

And a fun pattern of animals in hats that I'm calling Party Animals, also based on a set of vintage quilt blocks—


Can you tell I like quilt blocks? A lot of my patterns are based on them, and I think I like them so much because they are the perfect size for pillows. That's certainly the reason I started buying them. And I always scanned and digitally-traced (my computer background helps with this part) each one to keep for my records anyway. Then I got the idea to share them.

I have lots more tracings in various stages of completion so look for more patterns soon. And I may at some point, start selling off some of the originals. It's getting so that, even if I embroider every day for the rest of my life, I'll never get to them all. Yes, it's an addiction :)

Special offer for blog readers during the month of March—Buy 1 embroidery pattern, get 1 embroidery pattern free! I don't think there's a way to set up a code for this in my shopping cart so, when you check out, write the word BOGO in the comments section and tell me which pattern (equal or lesser value) you want for your free one.

so fierce

Congratulations to Christian Siriano for his PR Season 4 win! I can't say that I loved his collection or thought his creations were very wearable (and even he admitted that they weren't), but it was creative in ways that the other designers collections were not. And he lives and works in a closet! I loved Rami's woven bodices but his color choices ...meh. Jillian's designs were nice and wearable but not so high-fashion.

But, I'm certainly no fashionista (I live in jeans) so what do I know? I actually spent yesterday at King of Prussia mall near Philadelphia and didn't buy a single article of clothing. Not that I didn't look but nothing spoke to me loud enough that I had to buy it. I had a nice lunch and bought some pretty poppy print stationery at Papyrus and a wren house at Smith & Hawken. How pathetic is that?

calling all southpaws

Someone left a comment today on my French Knot tutorial asking whether a left-handed embroiderer (like herself) can just flop my directions. Of course, I'm right-handed so have done the instructions and photos from that perspective. I don't know the answer to her question. I did find in a quick Google search that there are lots of books that have left-hand instructions, which leaves me with the suspicion that it's not quite as simple as flipping my pictures.

I'm sure this problem applies to knitting and crocheting, too. So, can anyone help me out? Wikipedia says that 7-10% of the population are southpaws so surely a few of my readers are too!

Updated to add the names of a few books I found: A Primer of Left-Handed Embroidery by Carole R. Myers and Left-Handed Stitchery by Sally Cowan. Sounds like people are managing just fine by flopping my pics and instructions, but a book might be helpful as a reference.

get your Indie Fixx

One of my embroidery tutorials is featured today on Indie Fixx! Jewelry designer Jenn Wallace of Tilting Swiftly fame runs this blog that features the best in indie style and design. And every Tuesday there's a tutorial from one of those designers. Worth checking out for that alone. But there's also a shop and special holiday and seasonal-themed gift guides, too!

you can never have too many strawberries

Seeing all those pillows again in my last post got me reminiscing about some of the linens I used to make them. The two pillows on the top shelf at the far right were made from a set of embroidered tea towels that I bought on Ebay. And they had some of the prettiest examples of cross stitch embroidery I've seen. The colors were bright and the stitching was perfectly done—and tiny, too. The finished pillows were only 14 inches square so that gives you an idea of the size. The towels had some stains that I couldn't get out so I didn't feel too bad about cutting them up.



I love anything with fruit—fabric, embroidery, buttons (and to eat, of course!) and anything I make with them (especially cherries and strawberries) seems to fly off my website. So, I guess I'm not the only one feels the way I do about them.



I wish I'd kept a closeup picture of the raspberries so you could see the stitch that was used. It's sort of an interlocked chain stitch that makes little round loops—the perfect thing for a berry. I'll see if I can find it somewhere in my embroidery books.

I did make a pattern of the strawberry design right before I sold the pillows. And you can download your very own copy here. (You'll need Acrobat Reader to open the file and be patient—it may take a while to open.) The pattern sheet also includes the border design of strawberries and leaves that ran along the bottom of the towel. I used that section across the back of the pillow. For some reason I didn't make a pattern from the raspberries (maybe because of that weird stitch that was used). I'll see what I can do using my photo as reference.

Have fun with this pattern, which is perfect for tea towels but makes a pretty cool pillow, too!

in good company

In a very roundabout way I found out that a picture of my pillows appeared in the December issue of Romantic Homes magazine. I only occasionally buy this magazine and, with the holiday bustle, I guess I never picked up an issue that month. But I did buy the March issue and the picture appeared on the Letters to the Editor page. I did a double take when I saw it because it seemed to go with a letter from someone who makes pillows and I couldn't figure out why hers looked exactly like mine.

So I called the magazine and had a nice chat with one of their editors and found out that they had done a feature on the shop that I had sold the pillows to. The photo first appeared with that feature and was reproduced at a smaller size to fill space at the end of the letters column. None of which makes me famous or anything since my company wasn't mentioned. But hey, I'll take what I can get.



Romantic Homes has been evolving over the past few years and has a younger, fresher vibe—something that the older, long-time readers don't always like but that's a good strategy for attracting new readers and future subscribers. And they've featured several of my fellow bloggers in the past year—Susan (The T-Cozy) in January 2007 and Alicia (Posie Gets Cozy) in both the February 2007 and March 2007 issues.

Maybe someday I'll get the chance to join them. With a credit, of course :)