Hello stitching friends,

We have another pattern award this month! Linda from Westland, Michigan suggested Vanitas Still Life - Pieter Claesz (shown below) and we've sent her a copy of the pattern.

Once again there are new pictures in the gallery! If you have photos of a work in progress, or a finished piece, we can use them even if they're not electronic. Just mail your prints to us and we'll scan them and return them to you. Then you can have your 15 minutes of fame!

Acid Alert

One of our readers pointed out a potential problem with cardboard bobbins — they may not be acid-free. DMC says that theirs are acid-free (though this may not be a guarantee for all time), but the cheapo bobbins that come with floss storage boxes may very well contain acid. What does this mean to you? If you leave floss on an acidic bobbin long enough (a few years) the floss touching the bobbin may change color, be weakened, or even break. This actually happened to this reader — when she got down to the last windings of floss on her bobbins, it had broken at the bends.

There are acid-detecting or pH-detecting pens that you can use to test paper and cardboard for acid content. They cost a few dollars and contain a fluid that changes color in the presence of acid, and most produce 3 colors indicating no acid, some acid, or a lot of acid. You would expect them to be available where scrap-booking supplies are sold, but we couldn't find them locally at JoAnn or Michael's. They are available on line, but if you buy one, be sure to test it on paper you know is acidic (such as newspaper or a brown paper bag) to make sure that it is working — apparently they don't have an infinite shelf-life.

The cheapo bobbins should be fine for "blend" bobbins — temporary storage for one length of a blended color. The floss won't be on them long enough to be affected. For solid colors, where you are putting an entire skein on a bobbin, it is probably a good idea to make sure your cardboard bobbins are acid-free or to use plastic bobbins or some other storage system altogether.

New patterns! Clink any picture for a closer look.

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