Brenda Griffith has put together a really lovely and informative book with A Beginner’s Guide to Kiln Forming
from Lark Books. I’m a glass bead maker first but have found such joy in kiln forming, also known as fusing and slumping and casting…Brenda’s book really helps to expand my palette as far as possible projects as well as information on glass. You can’t have too much information about glass in my humble opinion. She shows inspiring examples of a diverse group of other glass artists and really makes you want to get out your glass and cutters and frit and go to town. I highly recommend adding this book to your library of glass reference materials. And if you’re new to glass or already have a background in it, you’ll find something for you…
Have you read?
How to Store Embroidery Needles
I have a complicated relationship with my embroidery needles. Which is a fancy way of saying I don’t really take care of my needles at all. Even though I know I have embroidery needles to use for cross stitch and sewing, needles that are certainly still in their packages, I can rarely find them when I need them.
So when I saw this post from Crewel Ghoul about how to store your embroidery needles, it hit close to home for me.
It doesn’t really say anything I didn’t already know, but it is good advice that might also serve as a reminder for you to take better care of your needles when you cross stitch or do other hand-sewing projects so that you’ll be able to find your needles again when you need them.
It would help me a lot if I had a dedicated place to keep needles I’m not using, including the needles that are still in their packages from when I bought them. You’d think I would keep them with my embroidery floss but apparently you would be mistaken about that.
Another good idea for me is to have a place to put needles I’ve been using when I am done with them. Because goodness knows I’m not going to put them back in the package. (Which may actually be a good thing because then I know which one I’ve been using and which ones are fresh. Not that I replace my needles regularly, but still.) I own pincushions but I don’t really use them for anything, which is silly.
Check out the post at Crewel Ghoul to see all the options available for storing your embroidery needles properly. I’d love to hear what you do, especially if you have a better system than I do (which, honestly, would be any system at all).
[Photo: Crewel Ghoul]