Even though I just mentioned I'm not totally convinced emery does much to sharpen my needles, here I am showing off an emery pincushion.
It isn't the emery that attracted me, so much as it just being beautiful and thoughtfully made. If you read the description, you can see that LoveLaurie is serious about figuring out what people need and want in sewing room accessories.
You can find this pretty pincushion at LoveLaurie on etsy. For those of you who love emery, this pincushion is completely stuffed with it! Most of the emery cushions are very small.
I'm retaking some photos today and I have far too much stuff in my bins of samples! I open them up and it is always a surprise to see all of the things I've sewn and then stuffed away.
Here is a business card wallet made from a wonderful Japanese cotton fabric called Olympus Kofu. Kofu means "traditional fabric", and Olympus is the manufacturer.
It would be fun to have a quilt made from this type of fabric. It is very soft and has a lovely drape (prior to interfacing). A quilt will have to wait until I'm rich though, because this fabric was $25 per yard (eeeck!). It was a splurge to buy just one yard.
This needle sharpening pad looks interesting. You sew through it and it sharpens your machine needles.
It reminds me of my emery pincushion, which I'm not convinced does much to sharpen my pins. So I guess I'm a bit skeptical. It would be great if it worked even moderately well. The needles add up and sometimes I forget to add them to my supply shopping list and run completely out. It would be nice to be able to at least sharpen a dull needle and keep it going for a few extra days, rather than having to run out to get more ASAP.
This graph paper fabric makes me laugh. When I was growing up we ALWAYS had tablets of graph paper around. My dad loves to draw diagrams, so it was a necessary staple. Anything Dad needed to show you often ended up drawn on a sheet of graph paper.
Nowadays, the occasional graph paper diagram shows up in my mailbox. He'll send me a letter that says something like: "Dear Michelle, Would you please make me a cover for my drill press?" Then there will be an accompanying dimensional diagram with measurements on graph paper.
I would love to have some of this fabric in my stash, but I'm not really sure what I would make with it. Maybe I should get some and the next time Dad needs a cover for his saw or some other tool, I can make it from the graph paper fabric? He would think that was very funny.
As you know, I try to keep this blog about sewing. It is my main interest, and probably one of your favorite hobbies, so it is a great blog theme. Having a theme is also helpful in figuring out what to blog about and keeping it on track. There is also a lot of other stuff I'd like to share, but it might not be sewing related.
I'm also coming the the conclusion that I'm not great with sharing the personal stuff about my life. Of course, a lot of it is irrelevant and boring to others, but I would like people to get to know me better. So today's post is just a bunch of random stuff that is going on in my life, or going through my head.
Last Night
Yesterday afternoon my friend called with a last minute invite to go to the "alternative opera" Hercules vs. Vampires performed by Oregon Opera Theater. The description pretty much sums it up:
Nine mighty operatic wailers and a 14-piece orchestra rattle Hollywood Theater, giving voice to a big, gaudy 1961 screen classic that pits mythology's greatest hero against legions of Hell fiends!
I don't go out a lot and sort of have to make myself go sometimes. There are plenty of projects at home to occupy my time and it is easy to stay home and work on them.
So even though my first inclination was to decline and work on this pattern, I said yes. And I had a good time. The combination of opera and crazy, campy old movie was very fun.
Sea otters rescued from the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
When I came home, I was looking at the news online and felt very sad about the oil spill in the gulf. It is really frightening that oil is still pouring into the open ocean.
It also made me remember the picture above that a friend gave me. These are otters that were rescued and cleaned after the Exxon Valdez ran into a reef in 1989, spilling more than 10 million gallons of crude oil into an remote Alaskan bay.
My friend grew up in Alaska and many of the people that lived there at the time helped during the clean-up of the massive oil spill. I don't remember why she gave me this picture, other than she thought I would like it, but I'm happy to have it in my photo album. It is the only picture I have that has any relation to a historical event. The otters are really adorable and it makes me glad to know they were able to clean them up and save them.
Thanks Mom!
This morning my mom came up for a quick trip to the fabric store and lunch. She brought me a big white board. Yay! My scrappy to-do lists end up lost in the shuffle on my desk, so hopefully this will help me keep better track of some projects.
My mom is very generous and always ends up with these odd bits of second hand stuff. I also have an overhead projector she gave me, and I used to have a nice drafting table, but it got lost a few moves back. Someday I'm going to use the overhead projector to blow up an image to make a really big painting.
The white board even has an easel, which is great because I can put the whole thing away in my sewing room if necessary. Even though I have a sewing room/office I still end up working on the computer in the living room and like being able to see my to-do list.
Blog Comments
If you tried to leave a comment this week, you may have noticed my comments were turned off. As time goes by spammers have found me and now leave their lovely little comments, and they've even started leaving trackbacks to their terrible sites. So I just needed a break from moderation.
I also want everyone to know that while I can't always respond to every comment, I do read them all. I wish I could find the time to reply to every comment, but for now I just can't. My biggest dream is to be able to hire a "creative assistant" someday and then it will be easier for me to get to everything and still find the time and creative energy to make patterns.
Have a great weekend!
Like Erin says, "don't forget to enjoy the weekend!"
Then I was looking at fabric on etsy and right away here was the same print:
It is cute and very summery. I like that it has several different colors in a few shades. That always makes it easier to find a matching fabric for the lining.
