Finished a new pincushion yesterday.
Really need it, even if this one has some very wonky stitches closing the seam. My old and very first pincushion (the red tomato that you get with sewing sets) has stuffing bursting out of the holes and is fraying in every possible way. It needs to be retired to a dark, quiet drawer before it bursts like a sliced tennis ball. What else is there to do with old pincushions? Let me know if you have any ideas.
My sweet boy – my honeybee – has finally recovered from his cold. Huzzah! So we have been able to enjoy playing outdoors this week with some unseasonably warm weather. Yesterday he enjoyed trying out his new shoes.
Lots of supported walking, too. Bebe is almost a real biped. Watch out, world: here he comes.
We took our weekly trip to the library and found a new booklove:
shadows,
setting sun
-from All the World, by Liz Garton Scanlon & Marla Frazee
Delightful book, a definite buy for our home library. Bebe and I have read it several times since yesterday and once so far this morning. Mr. Perches also liked it very much – I read it to him last night as he was resting from several hours of an apple pie baking extravaganza (more on that later).
We also brought home, among many joys, The River Cottage Family Cookbook and Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitter’s Almanac. Elizabeth writes:
In some quarters, November is considered rather a dull month, but not at our house. It is a time of snugging down; of finding, and foiling, sources of draughts; of augmenting the woodpile, putting up the birdfeeders, starting in on some serious reading, and knitting – always knitting. One plans and executes the remaining knitted Christmas presents, and considers some ambitious project for that distant snowlocked time After Christmas. (pp125-126)
Agree and agree, except for the woodpile and especially the birdfeeders – which in our area only encourage the squirrels to become tree rats. But drafts, Christmas knitting, and lists for 2010 knitting? Yes, they have been with us this November.
Another thing I’ve found in the Knitter’s Almanac: the I-cord knitting term/technique, (which I just learned) is short for “Idiot-Cord.” Hmm, I can see why they only print the abbreviation and do not generally explain what it stands for. But it is a wonderfully easy and useful technique – you can see more information here and here.
What have you learned today?

























































