From out of the blue came a desire to do some embroidery -- on pre-stamped pillow cases. It's like a coloring book for an embroiderer -- the lines are there and I need to stay with them but -- I get to choose the colors!
I found them on E-bay -- 100% cotton unlike what my local fabric store had to offer. They were probably in some departed granny's sewing stash because they are slightly yellowed. No matter.
Embroidered pillow cases aren't exactly my style -- but it's a matter of nostalgia. My mother -- who was not much of a needlewoman -- worked diligently to embroider a pair for me when I was probably around ten. There was a lady in a hoopskirt, holding a parasol, and lots of flowers -- mostly pinks and greens, as best I can recall. The work was carefully done -- as was my mother's way -- and I marvelled that she had spent so much time to make something so lovely just for me. (She always liked my younger brother best but that's another story.)
The hoopskirt lady pillow cases eventually wore out, but ten years later, as my mother and I were putting together a 'hope chest' for my approaching marriage, I embroidered another set -- blue and yellow flowers this time.
Fast forward through the Marine Corps, teaching and building a house in Florida, children, moving to the mountains --- during this time I embroidered on jeans and on shirts and on quilts but it wasn't till we added on a guestroom and my childhood bed was installed in it that I felt the need for more embroidered pillow cases . . . that was almost twenty years ago. I made a pair and they lasted well. (I noticed that guests often set them aside rather than actually sleep on them.)
But nothing lasts forever and it was time for replacement. Hence my lady-like occupation the past several nights.
We've been re-watching Foyle's War and working at this retro embroidery while I watch is a fine accompaniment to WWII Britain.
One down -- one to go. But lots of Foyle left. Maybe I could take up crocheting doilies.