Manly prints, two Lauras and a question

Mr Teacakes recently became the proud new owner of an ipod Touch...with a wonderfully glossy touch screen and a shiny chrome back...all gorgeous, but easily scratched. He asked me to make a cover for him and now it can sit safely nestled in its pod holder even when he's listening to it.

I find it so hard to find manly fabric, but in the absence of anything that overtly says 'I am MAN' (what would that fabric be like, I wonder...I'm thinking of a print that encompasses Ferraris, tiny Speedos, pumped muscles, with a few dead puppies thrown in for good measure...thank goodness I haven't found it!) I chose some natural linen and a black woven material that I had in my stash, along with some black silk for the lining. I embroidered his initials on the top of the case, which goes some way to making up for him not having the actual ipod engraved.

Each evening Ian puts it on the bedside table on top of one of the books that I bought him for Christmas. I chose Musicophilia ~ Tales of Music and the Brain for him as we'd both so enjoyed reading Oliver Sacks' The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat many years ago as part of our degree courses...but I'm wondering if this book is a little less riveting, as despite its presence on the bedside for the last six months he seems no wiser as to its content, but deceptively, it looks very well-read for the front cover is now even complete with coffee stain....perhaps he's The Man Who Mistook His Book for a Coaster?

A small item equates to only a few hours work always seems to be the thought that I often start out with, but actually I find tiny things are often the most fiddlingly difficult to work with on a machine...this was no exception and the children now have the multiple prototypes in their toy boxes to prove it - I so dislike it when they rescue these botched creations from the bin...it means evidence of projects-gone-wrong unexpectedly leap out at me from in amongst the dinosaurs and Lego bricks.

For the last three years Zebra-girl and I have always spent this particular weekend just gone in London, at my sister Laura's - after a countdown starting many weeks before that normally culminates in such anticipatory excitement in the hours before meeting, that at least one of us exclaims that it feels as though our head might fall off. The focal point of the weekend is always going to the Royal Ballet School's annual matinee performance at Covent Garden's Royal Opera House on Sunday afternoon, but this year we squeezed in so many other treats too: The National Gallery (to see their Picasso, as Zebra-girl has been copying his 'strange faces' paintings recently...unfortunately the example currently on display has a disappointingly normal face with all features in their correct places), a visit to Princess Diana's Playground, late-night dining out, early-morning Strawberry eating (drizzled with the juice of limes for extra yummyness), controlled explosions at the Science Museum and a wonderful treasure hunt around my sister's flat that led to new nightwear for both of us (this too is an annual treat and Zebra-girl now has the most exquisite collection of nightdresses from these weekends - amazingly all of them are still wearable due to the fact that we tend to buy nightdresses so that they are a lovely ankle length for the first year of wearing them). So much fun...and as my sister said, all the nicer for knowing that we have it all to do again next year. Above are the pastels that Zebra girl used for 'pastelling' with (her words) while Laura and I dressed in the morning.

Other lovely treats this week were these goodies that arrived from Laura Baillie (there's a theme developing for good things being given by those named Laura in this post) after I won a giveaway on her blog - such beautiful packaging. Laura's giveaway was a pair of the most beautiful handmade earrings, which I had told her I would love for my grandmother (being without earlobe holes myself)...they are absolutely beautiful and I believe similar can be purchased here in Laura's etsy shop. She very kindly included a little piece of loveliness for me too - thank you, Laura.

Thank you so much for all your sewing machine advice...I have one more thing that I am curious about though (would it be permissible for each blog post to end with a research question this week?)...I would love it if anyone has an opinion on the capability for a machine to do a stitch that resembles a hand-stitched quilting stitch...not having done any quilting (but knowing that it is something that I might like to do in the future), is that actually an advantage in a machine, does anyone quilt this way or is it a feature that will most likely go unused?