Whiteley Creek Homestead

I’m kinda getting into the grove of this system of assigning household tasks to a designated day of the week. With yesterday (Monday) being wash day, this is only the second day of testing the system , but today I tackled my mending pile with a fervor I haven’t mustered in a long time. Yesterday, after ripping open a seam on one side so that I could remove the foam inside, I washed the yellow chenille chair cushion with the cherry fabric ruffle. Likewise, I prepared the flour sack pillow covers for washing in the same manner. Today, I slipped the foam cushion and the pillows’ cotton batting back in and hand-stitched the opening closed. The hand-woven rug used to be a very long rug that lay on the floor between the row of tables on each side of the RR car "Queen of the Meadow Blooms Tearoom". My procrastination had caused a hole in the middle of the rug to grow larger and larger over time until there was no alternative other than cutting it and making two rugs out of it. If this old-fashioned days-of-the-week system hadn’t motivated me to salvage what I could of the rug, it would have deteriorated to the point of uselessness. The washcloth had a small hole in the middle, so I chose my "chicken scratch" stitch on my sewing machine to prevent further unraveling. I love that stitch. I don’t think chicken scratch is the proper name for the stitch, but it looks like the foot imprint that chickens leave in the dirt. The border with the quilted diamond shapes is one of a pair of pillowcases that I made. I had finished the other one, but I just needed to hand-stitch the hem on the one pictured in the photo. Now what would cause me to set it aside when I was so close to finishing it? Maybe because I didn’t have a designated day for mending. Lastly, I mended the vintage floral apron pictured in the photo’s bottom left-hand corner. The seam on the band that slips over my neck had torn loose from age and overuse. It is one of my favorite’s to wear when I serve breakfast to my guests. My mending pile has now dwindled in size and I am able to use these items once again. Tuesday-Ironing and Mending Day will come around again in a few days and I will rediscover and put back into circulation some more items that have taken up space in a corner for far too long waiting for a stitch or two.