Keeping Joy Sewing Book

Let a joy keep you . . .

Even the simplest of joys can carry you through the most difficult of times. Sometimes that tiny pleasure is all you have to see you through a hardship, so keep that joy and let it keep you.

That sentiment has helped me through more than few tough times in my own life. There are times things are so dark there seems to be no path to the light. This little sewing book is a reminder to myself to find and keep that joy.

It is a tiny little pattern that on and off took me the better part of a month to stitch; it spent most of that month untouched. For such a short month February has an awful lot packed into it in our house. I finally finished it yesterday morning; I was just waiting for some sunlight to take the pictures. I have to say I think it was worth the wait. I finished it into a little sewing book using some civil war reproduction fabric. I just adore that shade of pink; it has a wonderful age to it. I lightly tea stained it as well. The book when open measures 6 inches by 12 inches and has four pockets inside each of which is 3 inches square.

The pattern itself is stitched over two on 40 ct R & R Reproductions Park City Blend and measures approximately 3 inches square. It was stitched using Weeks Dye Works and Gentle Arts threads. The black thread in the design made me a little nervous so I chose not to tea stain the finished stitching, but of course you could. I chose the pink thread to coordinate with the fabric, but it is a lovely color. The skein I had of it was highly vareigated pink and cream. I wanted only the pink so I had to "fussy cut" the thread to get just the bits I wanted. There are times I've done that and ended up with only a couple of inches to stitch with; that can be quite a hassle. This skein worked much better though since half of every 18 inch length was pink.

The pattern includes finishing instructions to make the sewing book (it's really quite easy). A printed pattern is $7.50 which includes shipping and an e-pattern is $6.00. If you'd like to purchase the pattern simply e-mail me at appleseedprim@yahoo.com or use the link on my sidebar. The pattern will also be available in my Etsy Shoppe.

I do hope you like the pattern. Tomorrow I'll be posting another free pattern for the little butterfly I showed last week so be sure to check back.

xoxo

Jennie Lynn