Rummage sale

I got out to the rummage sale, and found some good finds:  a set of books by John Ruskin, a very daintily-worked handkerchief, and a box of canning jars.

The Ruskin books I am excited about, because Ruskin was a friend of George MacDonald, who have I been doing a unit study of my own on.  Ruskin is more often quoted from than read, and apparently that was true even back in the day, because every volume in this 135-year-old set that I have opened so far has uncut pages.

The handkerchief has not only embroidery, but also needle lace openwork where the threads that were worked are too small for me to see clearly without magnification.

Little rainbows

I had a handful of little plastic prisms with holes for stringing them, from someone's unfinished project.  I decided to use a bead crochet technique to create an evenly-spaced hanging of them that I could hang up.

I took a reel of fine brass wire, and strung the prisms on it in order, without cutting the wire.

Then I used a large crochet hook, and started crocheting.  Where I wanted to place a prism, I slid one up the wire, and then did the next stitch, to lock it into place.

The problem with crocheting or knitting with wire is that it twists something terrible.  Luckily, my piece was short enough that I only had to struggle with twisting wire as I was finishing up.

We bought a drill press

It came with a homemade four-drawer cabinet that fits around the base.

For projects, I used our laminator to laminate some patterned fabric to make shelf liners.  They turned out well, and I would like to make a few more for some drawers.

The friend who gave me the sewing machine found the manual and the attachments for it. There was one I hadn't heard of before, a "scissors guide" that fits onto one blade of a pair of scissors, to help in cutting narrow strips of fabric.  

Chair cushions covers, and a closet office

I re-covered the cushions for our glider rocker, which had fallen victim to a potty-training scissors-wielder.  Because of the curved shapes, I assembled the back closures first, and then sewed the rest by hand, in situ over the cushions. 

I also moved my sewing machine cabinet/desk into my closet.  The lower structure of the cabinet is fragile; after years of being stored in a barn (two owners back), the plywood of the pieces that stabilize the legs is delaminating badly. I wrapped wire around the loosened ends as a short-term solution, but I will have to replace them at some point.