Not every needlework accessory or needlework tool needs to come from the craft industry.

Take, for example, the magnet wand (like this one I wrote about here). Buy the unadorned, simple magnet wand at a needlework shop, and it could cost you upwards to $14. Step over to a hardware store and you can purchase essentially the same thing for about $4.

Today’s case in point (hardy-har-har) is the pencil case / make up bag / pouch-made-for-just-about-any-other-industry.

This conversation came up thanks to a post over in my Needle ‘n Thread Facebook Community, where Sara Rossi shared a photo of her travel embroidery supplies nicely tucked into a pencil case.

Design ideas and embroidery ideas don’t always work.

It’s true! They don’t! Sometimes, in fact, they’re utter failures.

It takes testing, time, and sometimes a good dose of frustration to arrive at a design, a technique, a thread, a stitch, or an embellishment that leads to a resounding, “Oh yes! That will work! Yay!”

Some people might think it takes a lot of waste, too.

It’s true that there are pieces of embroidery that I entirely scrap, because they won’t work out. It’s true that I might go through a spool or a skein of thread before I admit that, as much as I like the thread, it won’t work for this. It’s true that I might spend a whole afternoon – maybe even a whole day – maybe even three days! – on a particular design or working with a particular thread, before I say, “No. This Just Won’t Work.”

None of that is waste. It’s called process – more specifically, it’s called the learning process. And all of us go through it to some degree or another every time we sit down to stitch. Embroidery designers go through it pretty often – mostly so that you don’t have to!

I’ve been working through a collection of snowflakes, and some have worked out fine. Others have been a wash. Here’s a bit of process for you, in case you ever wonder what goes on when I’m exploring and testing embroidery designs and ideas.

Here’s a subject that should be dear the heart of any embroiderer: eyesight.

We often talk about all the tools and accessories and favorite little things that make needlework enjoyable for us. But, hands down, the Most Important tools we have are built right in and we take them with us everywhere. We could not do the needlework we do without our very precious eyes.

I have lousy eyesight, and it’s been that way ever since I can remember seeing things (or rather, not seeing them). My first glasses came about when I first went to school and the teacher realized I couldn’t see the board.

I remember as a kid going to church and staring at a huge stain glass window and being mesmerized by the colors that all swirled together. I could move my eyes and my head around, squinting, and make the colors blend and move. It was all just color to me. There were no pictures. It wasn’t until I had my first pair of glasses that I realized there was actually a story to see in that window.

The drive home from the optometrist when we picked up my first pair of glasses was an eye-opener, too. It was the first time I actually saw, from a distance, leaves on trees – and it just happened to be fall in New England. That drive home is seared in my brain. I can close my eyes and see it as clearly now as I saw it then.

The upshot is this: glasses – or the equivalent – have been a necessary part of my life since then.

In fact, I’m going I’m going to the optometrist today.

Happy Saturday!

Today, just some quick Leafy Tree News – some good, some bad.

Read on, if you’re involved with The Leafy Tree in any way. Have you purchased a kit? Do you plan to purchase one? Are you already stitching it? Then this news is for you!