"The Better to See You With My Dear"

You might wonder what the title of this post today is referring too!  LOL!  You'll have to read to the end to "see"!! 

 After my last post you must be wondering what kinds of things I keep in my sewing baskets.

Some contain jumbles of this and that and change on a regular basis.

But this one... my most favorite and workhorse of them all, pretty much always has the same contents. Every now and then I straighen and take out balls of thread, bits of fabric, and maybe a pattern or two of the current project I'm working on... but the basics pretty much stay the same.

The basket itself is one I found several years ago for $5 at a thrift store. It's very sturdily made by a craftsman in the USA.  Found in it's natural color ( a light oak) but then I stained it a dark walnut.  That HUGE god's eye where the handle is attached has always intrigued me.  It makes me think God must really have an eye on things around here... I'd like to think so anyway!

The handle on your sewing basket ( yes, in my opinion it MUST have a handle!) should be very sturdy. 

Your basket should be medium sized... not too small or too big. Every stitcher probably has a feel for what size she prefers.  Mine has to be big enough to hold at least 3 or 4 pincushions!

Yep... pincushions are my love and my greatest needful item in my basket!

I love keeping my pins and needles seperated and in different pincushions. I made all of these from wool and stuffed them with the wool lint ( from the dryer after I wash my wool) and walnut shells.

The one with the sewing machine applique'  is a quilted piece with wool applique' done from a kit by Primitive Gatherings.

I try to keep my other sewing supplies to a minimum in this particular basket.  Embroidery scissors, a needle threader, a couple of spools of thread in neutral colors, a couple of hand wipes, a pocket sized package of Kleenex ( for which I made a cute fabric cover from a sparkly acorn fabric), a piece of chalk for marking on wool, a retractable tape measure.....

an air erasable fabric marking pen, some little plastic Clover wonder clips, and my newest found sewing item I can't stitch without a thread conditioner called Thread Heaven!  Waaaaayyyy better than wax!  It's very cool stuff! Their website is www.Threadheaven.com   I carry it here in the studio for you local gals who might like to give it a whirl! 

So there you have it.... a little run down and glimpse of items in my personal sewing basket.  

Now for the title of my post..... if you're still with me... I had to buy some new specs this past week.  My prescription had changed from a couple of years ago....seems my arm wasn't long enough when holding a book or my phone anymore to read...lol!  So I decided to get some new frames.  In the past I've always picked something kind of wild, red ones, vintage frames with rhinestones, etc.  So I picked the wildest ones I could find at my eye Dr.s!  Still getting used to the prescription change however and I take them off when reading... I thought that I wasn't going to have to do that! ?? 

Any how... the better to see you with my dears!!

Cathy G