Flower Friday: July 8, 2025

 

Happy Flower Friday!

Today we have some wonderful selections from Sue:

False Sunflower:

Phlox:

Morning Glory:

Hummingbird Moth on Butterfly Bush:

Sue does note that the Hummingbird Moth is from the Tomato Horn Worm but as she wrote, they are fascinating to watch!

Thank you so much Sue!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Milkweed

 

Are any of your neighbors growing Milkweed?  I'm not but am considering planting some on the side of the house.  A lot of my neighbors have a few plants in their garden.  

We know a couple who planted a whole butterfly garden while they were trying to get pregnant.  I think it was really healing for them and the amount of butterflies they saw was really remarkable.  

Tomorrow is Flower Friday and if you have anything to share, please email me at allentownquilter@gmail.com.

Thanks and have a great day!

Wayback Machine: Spool Pets

 

Like most kids of my generation, my brother and I were adept and using discarded things to create all kinds of things for our playtime.  I'll bet you were too!  

So anytime I see things that are upcycled for another purpose, it gives me a thrill.  Recently, I've been keeping thread spools for when my great niece visits again.  I'm hoping to make some spool pets with her.  There are a lot of vintage patterns for these that kids would have likely because it was (of course) a promotion to sell threads.  

This is the kind of thing that my brother and I would have loved and would have used alongside our animal cracker box wagon.

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So what's a spool pet?

  

There's a variety of spool pet patterns on pinterest.

These were popular in the first half of the 1930s.  Many articles cite that children made spool pets in school and even used the spool pets as party favors.  There were a variety of ads also published promoting the spool pets and thread:

1931

 

1930

1932

Beth told me that the one designer brought this idea back years ago.  Oliver + S had a postcard with a spool dog that they included in sales.  You can read their blog post about this (and the history) here.  The Singer Featherweight Shop offers 5 bunny postcards to make a spool pet.  The cards cost $9.95 for the bundle of five.  You can look at it here.

Have you seen these before?

I wonder if you would have loved making and playing with these as a child?

Have a safe and happy day!

Tuesday's This and That: July 5, 2025

 

If you want some inspiration, I know of a few videos that may help.  Over at the "From Small Things" channel on youtube, Sue gives a tour of the "Oceans" exhibit that I discussed a few weeks ago.  You can watch it here.  

The biggest quilt festival in Europe is "The Festival Of Quilts" in Birmingham, England.  Here are some videos that you might appreciate:  

Emma of Vintage Sewing Box here.

Rachel of Stitch with Rachel here.

I like watching these things when it is too hot to be doing much.  Hope you get a chance to seem some of these outstanding quilts!

Have a great day!

Christmas in July Follow-Up

 

I didn't get as much done in July as I had hoped.  Still, I did get some projects done.  I made more of these table rounds.  Some of them are Christmas presents, some are for my guild's craft show.

These have been so fun to make.  I hand sew them while we have the Phillies on. 

It's a great project for leftover fabrics and scraps.

I'm not a big fan of Halloween so I'm happy to use up this fabric:

I sure have seen a lot of blog posts about people who got done a lot of work for Christmas in July.  Di at "Quilting Is Blissful" completed a number of quilts.  Check out her work here.

This is going to be a great week to work in the garden so I'm not sure how much I will post this week.  Definately doing Flower Friday though!

Have a safe and happy day!

Flower Friday: August 1, 2025

 

Hello and welcome to Flower Friday!

We had another heatwave this week so I didn't get any more done in the garden.  The weekend is predicted as being cooler and I'm hoping to get a lot of weeding done.

This week the pink salvia bloomed.  It reseeds each year and then blooms in late summer.

Another volunteer was this impatien:

The Swan Hydrangea is also blooming and big favorite here:

Wishing you a safe and happy weekend!

Happy World Embroidery Day!

 

Happy World Embroidery Day!

How about doing some embroidery today?

Above:  Close up of part of a South American arpillera.

Below:  Vintage embroidered textiles

I haven't embroiddered in a long while but I do have a pattern I've been wanting to prepare for embroidery.  Maybe I'll work on that today!  Hope you get a chance to slow stitch and embroider!  Stay cool!

Have a safe and happy day!