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In an earlier post I quoted Pasteur incorrectly. It should have read "Chance favors the prepared mind." This means than accidents and serendipitous events are more likely to result in problem solutions if you have the knowledge of the field required to recognize these opportunities. Having written an article many years ago titled "Prepare Your Mind for Creativity" in which I quoted Pasteur correctly, my mind went to substituting creativity for chance. My apologies to Pasteu

Slow Stitching: what it is and isn't I have become rather irritated with the abuse of the term slow stitching in facebook groups on youtube videos. So I'd like to review briefly what slow stitching is and what it is not. Slow stitching would better be called mindful stitching. The concept is that while you are stitching you are totally immersed in and focused upon the task at hand. No multitasking. No worrying about what to make for dinner. No focusing on hurrying to get the

Are you creative? I bet you are even if you are not an artist, not a musician, not a crafter, not a writer, etc. The cornerstones of creativity are that you produce something which is both novel and useful. This can be on a grand scale or simply novel and useful to you. So, I ask again, are you creative? Let's look again at novelty and usefulness. There are 4 possible combinations of yes/no responses to novel and useful. They are, in order of creativity: Both novel and useful

The last day or so hasn't been too creative because I've been involved with my MarketPlace sales. For those who don't know, MarketPlace is a creation of Meta, the owners of FaceBook, Instagram, and other social media. MarketPlace is a place to buy, sell, trade a variety of goods. For me, it is a virtual yard sale and is currently making more money for me than the actual yard sales I held last year with a lot less effort involved. For those interested, my seller profile is at

I've not sewn anything in at least 10 years unless you count some free-form embroidery that I used to make covers for my handmade books. So I planned 2 projects to practice with. First was a bathroom curtain. This was to replace and make use of the two towels I had hanging over a curtain rod in that window. Cutting the towels down went OK. Using my new-to-me second hand serger did not go so well. The machine just couldn't handle the thickness of the terry cloth -- 2 layers.

Just getting started. Check back for updates.