How to Sew a Button

I saw How to Sew a Button: And Other Nifty Things Your Grandmother Knew on Amazon and decided to put it on my reserve list at the library. I have become much more frugal about purchasing books. I like to preview if possible prior to purchasing. My younger self donated many impulse book purchases. My new library habit has saved me lots of money.

The range of advice in this book made it difficult to appreciate in one library loan period. However, it did convince me to put it on my buy list. The price is reasonable. It is a book I will go back to for reference purposes.

Specifically I liked the cooking and cleaning tips. The topics do literally range from any topic you could expect to sit down and have a conversation with a grandparent who had lived through the Great Depression. The author references her panel of grandparents who helped her with advice on these topics. In the opening of the book, she discusses her own quest to discover the lost arts after failing to recognize rhubarb and making a horrible tasting pie.

Our library system has the grandfather book that I also want to preview. The book reviews seem to indicate the skills are less specific and more general "life advice." The value in purchasing the Grandma book is that I will return because I will not remember if it was baking soda and vinegar for the dog pee removal or something else. I will want to be able to pull up the information. My own grandparents never had dogs so while they passed on many useful life lessons that is not one I suspect they had much of a need to learn.

This is also going to be part of a few gifts this year. I am not the only one I know who can benefit from some wise advice. This is a great book for young people starting out.

Pattern Pages

Pattern bloggers have different approaches to listing and blogging about patterns. I tend to create categories of pages, expanding them to new pages when they grow too large to search through quickly. On occasion, I will blog about a pattern I have not tried but I stumbled upon in searching for something that just amazed me. For the most part, the individual patterns I blog about are projects I have completed and want to share with others. I add new patterns I discover to existing pages without any announcements.

The reason I share this is there can be confusion when people visit. Some sites do list the new patterns daily, and when visitors come, they assume if they don't see new patterns being discussed, none were added. I often add them quickly between other writing projects and do not have time to discuss what is new. However, I have been fortunate to find people who do add free patterns across pages I blog about on a regular basis and I add those as I find them. So if you are looking for holiday, doll, toy patterns, dishcloths, or other patterns listed and have been here before, do check again. You may be surprised to find some new patterns have been added since your last visit. If you find a set of pattern topics listed on this blog, keep checking in. As I am searching for one set of projects, I always stumble upon projects that fit in other categories and add those as well. Those who visit their topics of choice will find the new additions.

I have also received questions about the photographs. Where possible I do try to use photographs from projects I have completed and am blogging about for my entries. However, on many of the pattern pages, I do use files from Morgue and Flickr and do not have access to the original patterns. When I have the pattern on the site, I will list where you can find it. If I got the pattern from a book, even an out of print one, I will list that always. With an active resale market, it is still possible to find out of print craft books. However, there are times when Morgue or Flickr are just easier to utilize and I have no access to the photographer’s pattern information. The credits are always listed at the bottom of the blog entry, so it should be clear where the picture came from if there is any confusion.

Pictures may not be reused without written permission.