Sewing By Mail?

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This isn't sewing by mail, it's real sewing, but it's been all I could do lately to get this little bow made. I think it's quite darling, and it's the finishing detail on my 2-piece floral dress, so now if I can get it attached and finish up a little hand stitching, I will finally be done with the whole thing. I'm still unable to spend any appreciable time in my sewing room, so this is quite the achievement.

Now, on to Sewing by Mail. As many people have noticed, when we are prevented from pursuing the creative process itself, we have to do something, and many of us seem to get a little satisfaction from planning future projects. Of course, that planning seems to move right into gathering items to complete those projects. The computer and the credit card are handy tools for this process, and of course, things show up in the mail, or at least are delivered similarly to the mail soon thereafter. That's been my recent modus operandi. Today was a banner day for the mailman.


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I finally broke down and ordered the Iris Apfel book, and am I glad I did! I've only dipped into it for a short time this morning, and I can't wait to get back to it. What a great story besides the great photos. Very inspiring.

And, my KnitPicks order came. I got the nickel-plated modular needles for Christmas and thought I needed a few more cable sizes as well as needle markers, a few circulars in sizes smaller than the set has, and a set of their colorful laminated double-points that are in the foreground above. So, no excuse for not knitting now.

I've been knitting away, but not very quickly on the cropped cardigan with the textured stitch pattern, and it's very slow going. I decided to add darts in the front, so that's another element. I'm on the left front and am making careful notes so I can duplicate the shaping on the right.

It's raining here now, but when I took these photos on Wednesday, it was sunny. These are the first tulips of the year for me. They're species tulips.


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The grape hyacinth below are so darling, and so easy to grow. They multiply extravagantly over the years, and I have them naturalized into the grass under trees where it's thin anyway, and it's such fun to see them popping up in the spring. This works if you mow the lawn yourself, or have a cooperative mower, since you need to let the leaves (grasslike) grow for a while before you cut them off. So there are a few taller spots in the grass for a while. It doesn't bother me, but if you need seriously perfect grass, maybe it's not for you.


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Apologies to those who've tried to read this and found that the photos weren't showing up. There's definitely a problem with Blogger photos. I finally uploaded the photos to my Pbase photo site and linked from there. Even now it seems like Blogger is having a hard time with the second photo. It comes, it goes. So, if you want to see it, just hit the Photo Link link under the photo (or under where it's supposed to be) and it will take you to the photo on Pbase where it really will show up. I've been using Picasa albums and Blogger to post some photos lately, and it hasn't really been a problem until now, although I hate the fact that you can't make it so you can click on the photos and a new page will open. With these photos, I can do that, at least with the link. I used to be able to make the whole photo a clickable link, but Blogger has "improved" that out of existence.

Thanks for the heads-up on the photo problem, Rhonda!