Last November I wrote about Dining for Women ("Dining for Change," November 5, 2009), and how much we appreciated being able to help their mission by supplying products for one of their fundraising dinners. We participated again this year, again with excellent results.

One of the items we sent was a bag of cocoon flowers, made from silkworm cocoons after the silk has been removed. Carolyn Mayers, who has been our DFW contact person for the past three years, used the ones we sent to finish her own creative effort, this brightly colored scarf:

Scarves hand-knit by Carolyn Mayers, embellished with silkworm cocoon flowers.

In our own product line, we use undyed flowers to edge our Cocoon Shawl:
Our own hand-spun silk Cocoon Shawl.

~ Amy

It's not as if folding laundry has ever been a favorite hobby of mine; and although I have done enough waitressing to know how satisfying it is to have a couple of boxes of napkins ready to go for the dinner rush, I certainly never took particular pleasure (or care) in folding them at home.

Then I came to work at Creative Women. Every shipment we receive, of course, has to be counted, then shelved in a way that makes each product easy to identify and pull out for filling orders. At first, I thought Ellen's insistence that all the tablecloths should be folded the one way, all the scarves another was just possibly a little compulsive.

Within a month or so, however, I realized she was absolutely right. Give it another six months, and I started experimenting with different folds to use shelf space more efficiently while keeping the fabrics in good shape. I've been here two years now, and I've gotten a little territorial about the folding. Come on—I just want to be sure it's done right. Not that I'm compulsive about it, or anything.

But if you do it carefully, you can smooth out most of the shipping wrinkles as you go, and everything will fit better on the shelves, and those full shelves just look so much better … and, yes, I've become a little compulsive. Sue me.

This is what's making me happy today (excuse the picture quality; it's from my cell phone):
Tablecloths, blankets, and throws, oh my!

Okay, some of the stacks are starting to get wobbly, but still, there's something about shelves full of nicely-folded tablecloths (and blankets, and throws) that makes me smile.

And the scarves that I completely re-vamped when we got the new colors in. Again: full shelves, smiling Amy.

Lots of folded scarves.

~ Amy