Stitch along with Jane Austen

I received a lovely note from Jennifer Forest, telling me a bit about her book, Jane Austen’s Sewing Box. Jennifer says,

A few years ago I was reading again Jane Austen’s novels when I noticed that her women were often sewing, netting, embroidering or knotting. Intrigued, I started reading earnestly to see what other crafts they were doing and started doing some historical research to uncover the Regency craft skills. Out of that grew Jane Austen’s Sewing Box.
From my research into the craft worked by Jane Austen, her characters and her circle of friends and family, I have then put each of the 18 craft projects in the book in its historical and literary context. With a professional background in history, I used real Regency objects to inspire craft projects for the modern crafty person (for example I use modern materials and tools which are true to the period but can be easily purchased today). My book does include a wide range of projects from sewing, needlework, knitting to netting, knotting and paper flowers. The book is available online from many stores and came out in the UK in July.

I have to get my hands on this book! It’s available from Amazon.com, as well as many other sources, I’m sure. If you have a copy, please post a comment and let us know which projects you tried. And thank you so much for the heads-up, Jennifer!

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One of the best things about the return of warmer weather is getting to plant new flowers and starting the vegetable garden if you have one. Off to the Nursery by Alice Oehr is subtitled “a celebration of gardening, plants and seasons,” and it’s also a celebration of diversity (because gardening is for everyone) and caring for the earth.

The book starts with the work of getting the garden ready for spring, pulling out the old plants and spreading compost made from kitchen scraps. They grab tomatoes and peppers, learn about zucchini and eggplant and explore the tasty world of herbs.

They also look through the seeds, succulents, berries and fruit trees, flowers and aquatic plants, talking about the benefits of different plants and how fun they are to grow. Maybe you can relate to the family buying what seems like way too many plants?

The book was originally published in Australia, so some of the flowers mentioned might not be familiar to your or your kids, but that’s kind of fun, too. You can also use this as an opportunity to talk about which plants in the book can grow where you live and that just like animals, plants have preferred habitats, too.

Illustrations are colorful and the book combines a standard font and a hand written font to make it feel more like a journal about the garden. The illustrations include fun facts and growing tips such as always planting mint in a pot or germinating seeds on a wet paper towel before planting.

If you want to introduce kids to gardening or just talk about what kind of plants can be grown at home where you live (yes to tomatoes, probably no to the kumquat tree), this cute book is a great addition to your spring reading list.

About the book: 30 pages, hardcover. Published 2025 by Scribble US. Suggested retail price $18.95.

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Have you read?