I spent a good portion of yesterday and most of today basting and handstitching the second patchwork silk pillowcase. It is definitely going faster than the previous one, as the basting is all complete, I hand-stitched the parts I know don’t fit well under a presser foot, and I have just one of four buttonholes left. Then I can run this under the machine with various threads and stitches, pull out the basting threads and be done with it.

These golden mica buttons are gorgeous, aren’t they? I am not even that huge of a fan of gold, though I have certainly come to appreciate it more in recent years, at least when it comes to accenting these jewel colors.

I love bold, jewel colors.

Yesterday, I also focused on cleaning the kitchen, with the purpose of rearranging and setting up a bakery station for my daughter. My standing mixer does not fit under a cabinet, but there is a space where I can put it, so that I don’t have to keep lifting and then putting it away. I am also setting out the food processor permanently, since that is another appliance she uses. She doesn’t know that I am doing this yet.

I also plan to declutter the cabinet in the butler pantry and move all the baking stuff in there. This can be her cabinet for baking.

The other thing I did yesterday was spend time outside with her digging in the pit-of-detritus for springtails. The pit used to be the kids’ sandbox, but as they got older, it became a collection point for dead leaves, and in which a number of tiny creatures have moved in to make their homes. There are various isopods, hectopods, millipedes, and the occasional beetle, all which have made this their home. I intend to get rid of this at some point, but for now, it is a great study in biology, and I am sure I can get some excellent potting mix from the combined sand and broken down plant matter.

The springtails are needed for the purpose of building terrariums, something we plan on doing. For now, I need to get them settled and breeding so we have sufficient stock for a bioactive environment.