A Wilderness Housewife #000

As a native Ohioan, and happy to celebrate beautiful Ohio's Bicentennial, Lauren has designed a 'Wilderness Housewife' to mark the occasion.  Inspiration for this traditional 'small', usually tucked away in a pocket, comes from antique quilt blocks, with 'Ohio Star' and Indian Meadow' to name just a few.  The blocks on the outside are boldly colored (to cheer one's precious stitching time in a dimly-lit log house in the big woods) and executed in richly textured stitches.  The four blocks on the inside are embroidered with scarlet thread ('red' was considered a 'lucky' color, and precious as it was costly and not easily obtained in the wilderness) using double-running stitches.  

Traditional 'features' include a tufted pillow for storing precious pins, pages for storing equally precious needles, and two pockets, one of the which keeps a very special scrimshaw thread winder safe and handy.

Hand-dyed, over-dyed threads on 32-count linen.