Eye candy

I caught a TV rerun of Nanny McPhee the other night and just had to watch it again to see the children’s bedroom or, more specifically, their bedding.


The story is enchanting and the cast and sets inspired, so no chore there. But that bedding makes me want to open an orphanage.

There’s a log cabin quilt, a tumbling blocks quilt, a star quilt of sorts, an afghan square crochet blanket, tartan blankets, lace-edged pillow slips, whitework and cutwork pillow cases… even the curtains are patchwork.





Stitchers inevitably notice quilts, crochet blankets and the like when watching movies. But the measles scene in Nanny McPhee is sensory overload – in the most delightful way.

Green, the new pink

Two-thirds of the way through an embroidery project and suddenly I’ve gone off it – no surprise there, it’s not the first time this has happened to me. And I know from experience that if I switch to another needlecraft for a bit, I’ll soon be hankering after embroidery again.

There’s plenty on the to do list. There always is. But you know when you just don’t feel like doing anything on that list, because it seems too much like work and not enough like play? Exactly.

What I really felt like doing was a bit of quick and easy crochet. Specifically, some of the flowers and leaves out of 100 Flowers to Knit and Crochet, which I got more than two months ago and still hadn’t gotten around to using. But a few stray balls of handknit cotton and 4-ply in greens, cream, white, brown and black didn’t exactly conjure up images of bright summer blooms.

The urge to crochet overrode my colour consternation and, well, seize the day and all that – why should a little thing like a lack of suitable supplies get in the way of crocheting pleasure? And so I give you a chocolate box lazy daisy, anaemic clover, forest green hellebore and a green, black and white old-fashioned pink.

Show and tell

I came across this bag made and embroidered by MTM while going through my photos this past weekend – and I couldn’t resist sharing it.


I love the detail contained in the blocks, and that each one is so different. It makes for rich and heady functional artwork.

Good things come to those who wait

The thing with blogging is that it’s instant. You write, take a photograph, download it from your digital camera, upload it along with your entry, hit post and you’re done. Your thoughts and images of your work are out there in the world almost instantaneously.

But when you’ve made a birthday gift for someone, you have to wait until they’ve received it before posting so that you don’t ruin the surprise. This was the case with my sister’s coasters:


I made them more than two months ago, ready to wing their way to South Africa with my mom-in-law on her return home at the end of June. And I had to wait patiently until my sister’s birthday last Thursday for the beans to be spilled. She loves them, thankfully. Although I kind of knew she would.

My point is that of instant gratification and how ultimately unsatisfying it is. I find that the pleasure I get out of making or doing something is directly proportional to the amount of time taken to make it or waited to do it. Having to wait weeks to see if someone loves your handmade gift as much as you hope they will or taking over a year to finish a hand-embroidered project makes me feel happy and satisfied for days, if not weeks.

I’ve stumbled on a way to apply this to the world of blogging. It wasn’t my intention when I started posting the patterns for my Jacobean Leaves designs, but that’s how it ended up. It took a few months to get the patterns drawn up and posted, but what a nice feeling when the last one was out there and I realised people had been waiting patiently and collecting them. Most satisfying.

Refraining from posting unless you have something worth sharing is another way to do it. There are so many good blogs out there, that I’m sure people would rather read one well thought out, written or relevant post every now and then than be inundated with minutia on a daily basis. The same goes for pictures. I’ve accepted my limitations as far as photography is concerned, but will continue to try and take the best photos I can – bloggers like Jane Brocket have proved that good images work.

My theory works in reverse, too. I’d rather wait a while to read a really good post. Browsing hours are scarce, so this way I don’t miss any either. Works for me.