No! they are not my knitting/sewing/reading glasses!

There was a time when we used to tease my Mother-in-law about her spectacle collection.  She would be cooking and searching for her glasses. Because there were pairs everywhere around the house, one of the grandchildren would quickly rush up with a pair 

'no no they are my television glasses'

'these grandma?'

'no they are for knitting'

And so it went on till about the fifth pair was produced.  This pair was usually pretty ropey, often had an arm missing and certainly scratched lenses.  She had a system you see. Once a year she would visit the optician for new glasses for embroidery, strong magnifiers that enabled her to make the finest cross stitch for wall hangings, Christmas and Birthday cards.

This is some of her work

part of a sampler made for my second daughters birth day

Then the older glasses would be passed down the supply chain, knitting, reading, television and lastly cooking.  Now I'm older and need my own battery of spectacles, it's not quite so funny.  I may buy them off the peg these days but I still need one pair for screen, one for reading, one for knitting etc and now I understand. And now I am for ever searching for the right ones.

So, when I saw these from Which Glasses Are Which in the National Maritime museum shop

musicians

I sent out a cheeky tweet "Great idea but where are the knitting glasses?" and guess what?  They were in production.  It is so lovely when you make friends with someone on twitter, progress to e mail and when you meet for coffee you really like them and a proper friendship begins.  Hilly is the graphic designer behind these fab glasses and the reason she began with musicians glasses is she plays the viola and noticed she was not the only musician who had more than one pair of glasses with taped labels on them (in her case four!)

So here is the big TaDa!! moment, the sewing and knitting glasses case is here!

sewing and knitting

Hilly has sent me two, so I can show you the lovely velvety black lining (there is a high quality polishing cloth in there too).

mine, all mine

You can also see them in the wild with my own knitting and glasses

In the wild

If I did not already have a case I would be hoping for one in my Christmas stocking.  There are now six designs (reading, driving, cinema and gardening as well as music and sewing/knitting).  We always found it so hard to think of what to give, not just mother-in-law but all the grandparents, for presents.  We wanted something that was pretty, useful and not just a gesture, something like these would have been brilliant, although no cooks glasses case yet MIL was also a crossword fiend so the readers case would have been good as well as the sewing & knitting and TV & cinema ones.

You can buy them from the Royal Maritime Museum shop of course but much more conveniently (unless you live in Greenwich) from Not On The High Street or (if you live in Australia) from hardtofind [edit] they are on Etsy tooThey have all the different designs there and I have also put photographs of them here, below. You can have them personalised too

xx

c

gardeners

drivers

reading

distance

PS This is not a paid for post.  While I may in the future carry advertisements in the right hand column for which I will charge if I write about a product in the blog itself it will always be because I personally like it and wish to chat about it