"Love You Mark"

My dear friend, Mark Lipinksi, has not been feeling well.  I've been thinking a lot about him, and as I have, I've wanted to practice some of the things I've learned from his Slow Stitching Movement:

--Intention--I am focusing my mind and heart while I am stitching...on Mark getting well!
--Awareness--I want the needle to go in the perfect place with each and every stitch I take.  This leads to being careful and producing better work.
--Relaxation--There is no rush.  The process of outlining each letter was a slow unfolding and I really enjoyed it.

The square is 6" X 6".

Love you, Mark!

Vintage Tobacco Silks Photographed for Your Use

My cousin just sent me these six authentic tobacco silks.  As she wrote in her note accompanying them:

The tobacco companies used to issue series of silks and one came in each package--like baseball cards. They were highly collectible and supposed to encourage tobacco users to kill themselves faster, apparently. [She has a dry wit.]

They did a series of miniature Oriental rugs, Native American chiefs, etc. Even back when I bought the butterflies years ago, the aforementioned were out of reach."

In the crazy quilt world, these images are prized as motifs within blocks, but no one uses the "real thing"--scanned images of them are printed up on fabric.
So I thought I would take high resolution photos of my six butterflies and post them here, for you to save, scan, and do with what you will!

If you click on these photos you will see that they are really large.  Hopefully they are good enough quality for you to print and enjoy.