Pillow

Lauren Tauzio embroiders a pillow under a tree at near Front and South streets on a near-perfect summer day yesterday.

If you've never made a pillow before, The Pillow Book (Chronicle Books, $24.95), by Shannon Okey with photos by Gemma Comas, is a good place to start. For one thing, it contains basic advice about fabrics and pillow accents: nothing too precious if you have kids; nothing dry-clean-only if you anticipate stains; nothing too tempting to cats (tassels, fringe and the like); no mixing materials with different washing requirements. Plus, the book offers a solid foundation in those core steps of sewing prep: pre-wash, pre-shrink and pre-press.

After her kidney transplant almost four year ago, Sue Lackovic, a learning support teacher at Downingtown Junior High School, said one thing that eased the pain after the surgery was a pillow. "They are called lap pillows, and by pressing one across my stomach, it really helped to reduce the pain," Lackovic said. The experience gave Lackovic an idea that caught the attention of the National Kidney Foundation of the Delaware Valley in Philadelphia. "Three years ago, I started asking ninth-grade students in our school's Family and Consumer Science class to help make lap pillows for transplant patients in Philadelphia hospitals," she said.

Mary Jane McCarty has seen her designs in print, but never on the big screen. So, when she was tipped off that they might be glimpsed in the recent documentary The September Issue, she had to see for herself. In a scene in Anna Wintour's Long Island home, an array of her vintage-fabric pillows are on the Vogue editor's sofa getting their close-up. Wintour buys McCarty's wares at New York's Treillage for her home and for friends. She refers to McCarty, whom she has never met, as "the pillow lady.

Shopping for pillows is not as simple as it used to be. Time was, there were flat pillows and fat pillows. Feather-filled or foam. You'd pay $10 to $20 and go home. Today you're dreaming if you want to get out of the store that fast (or that cheaply). You can get a headache just weighing the options. "Healthier sleep" is the buzz phrase. Do you want a pillow that "responds to body pressure"? That "relates to your temperature"? That offers "continuous air circulation"? (Can you even figure out what that means?

SUMMER IS on the way and that's a reason to celebrate. Here are some "Good Things" to help you do it. Custom cushions Summertime calls for a playful approach to decorating. So mix - don't match - fabrics to create reversible pillows that you won't find on anyone else's sofa. A quick flip is all it takes to change your look, and you can do it as often as you change your mind. Just a yard each of three fabrics can make three 16-inch and three 18-inch pillows. Use fabrics in similar weights; pair them in different combinations.

"Do you have to lug that thing along?" my husband will ask in tones-not-dulcet. He already knows the answer, of course, but I still provide it as we begin the argument that precedes every trip we take. Yes, I do have to lug along "that thing" - the 20-inch box fan that goes whither I go. It even has its own "suitcase," a weathered carton that fits its contours to perfection . . . but still provokes dismay and dire warnings about breakage and nonliability from every airline clerk we encounter.

BERKS COUNTY porn starlet and Penthouse pet Gina Lynn slept with Flyers winger Scottie Upshall while married, her ex-husband Travis Knight has revealed on the radio show of former 94WYSP host Kidd Chris now heard on Atlanta's Project 96.1. Lynn and Knight, who still work together, were interviewed yesterday to promote her photo spread in the current issue of Penthouse , and the radio hosts asked Knight what famous guys Gina had slept with. As Gina pleaded with Knight not to reveal her personal business, Knight said she had slept with a member of the Flyers.

AT ARDMORE-Haverford College Appreciation Day, Jennifer Lindsey gets her face painted by Heather Paxson, a junior at the college. The April 30 event included pie throwing, pillow fighting and bursting water balloons.

"I loved that woman," John Rice, 62, said of his girlfriend, Bertha West, 49. "Everyone in town knows I loved that woman. " But the proseuction says Rice put a pillow over West's head early on July 19 and shot her behind the right ear, killing her. Gunpowder burns on the pillow gave mute testimony to the violence in Rice's home on Stenton Avenue near Sedgwick Street, Germantown, that morning, said Assistant District Attorney Ann Pontario....

Too soon? When it comes to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, even after nearly 150 years, the answer to that crucial comedic question still appears to be "Yes. " Bobblehead dolls in the likeness of Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth, were recently removed from the shelves of the gift shop at Gettysburg National Military Park. The dolls were being sold for about a week before a reporter from the Evening Sun of Hanover asked about them, whereupon they were gone faster than Booth himself could be smoked out of a Virginia tobacco barn.

BERKS COUNTY porn starlet and Penthouse pet Gina Lynn slept with Flyers winger Scottie Upshall while married, her ex-husband Travis Knight has revealed on the radio show of former 94WYSP host Kidd Chris now heard on Atlanta's Project 96.1. Lynn and Knight, who still work together, were interviewed yesterday to promote her photo spread in the current issue of Penthouse , and the radio hosts asked Knight what famous guys Gina had slept with. As Gina pleaded with Knight not to reveal her personal business, Knight said she had slept with a member of the Flyers.

A Burlington City man was sentenced Friday to 12 years in prison for smothering his 4-week-old son when the infant would not stop crying. Eric D. Griffin, 26, pleaded guilty in January to aggravated manslaughter. Griffin put a pillow over his son's face in November 2010, according to Burlington County Prosecutor Robert Bernardi. Griffin removed the pillow when the infant stopped making noise but soon realized that he was no longer breathing and left the home. The unresponsive boy, Nyir, was discovered by his maternal grandmother, who attempted to revive him. He was pronounced dead at Lourdes Medical Center in Willingboro.

'Body Awareness Week," as Professor Phyllis explains at the start of the Wilma Theater's production of Body Awareness , offers "a chance for everyone at Shirley State to just check in. " But in Annie Baker's compassionate comic drama about a lesbian couple, their son Jared, who may or may not have Asperger's syndrome, and a photographer who brings his "male gaze" to the festivities, the shallow political correctness of "checking in" leads to a...

SUSAN GRAESER is a chronic insomniac. She wanders aimlessly around her two-bedroom apartment in Northern Liberties until the wee hours, and no matter when the 27-year-old finally dozes off, her eyes always pop open by 7 a.m. It has been this way since she was a kid growing up in Kensington. A doctor she saw when she was in her teens wasn't able to help. Nor have the therapists she talked with or the sleep study she tried. The dark circles under her eyes and irritable moods testify to her chronic insomnia.

SUMMER IS on the way and that's a reason to celebrate. Here are some "Good Things" to help you do it. Custom cushions Summertime calls for a playful approach to decorating. So mix - don't match - fabrics to create reversible pillows that you won't find on anyone else's sofa. A quick flip is all it takes to change your look, and you can do it as often as you change your mind. Just a yard each of three fabrics can make three 16-inch and three 18-inch pillows. Use fabrics in similar weights; pair them in different combinations.

The Vacationer , from Cinda B, is like a big, soft quilt that's been turned into a big, soft duffel - with a lot of fancy stitchwork and lovely detailing. The roomy 24-by-14-by- 14-inch-deep zippered bag has two outside pockets and three roomy inside pock- ets. The light- weight duffel has built-in 16-inch carrying straps, and it stashes flattened. It comes in a slew of luscious patterns and color combinations, from bold raspberry to muted, so it's not only for women.

CHICAGO - In downtown Chicago, not far from the Billy Goat Tavern of Saturday Night Live fame, you'll find Mother Hubbard's. It's technically a sports bar, but it doubles as an unofficial arm of the city's visitors bureau. The beer there is served cold and quick, but that's just a pretense for delivering the establishment's best off-menu item: information. While enjoying a Goose Island Honker's Ale, I asked the bartender which deep dish pizza joint I ought to try. That seemingly simple question resulted in her calling over several waitresses, at which point they debated the finer points of Chicago-style pie for my benefit.

So what if Zoobies' traveling stuffed-animal pillows are marketed for kids? Some grown-ups would be delighted to rest their weary heads on the big, soft micro-bead- stuffed head of Hada the Hippo or Bing the Bumblebee, or one of 11 other colorful plush beasts and bugs. And who wouldn't like to cuddle up in the 53-inch-by-34-inch zip-off fleece blanket stuffed into each creature's squishy body? I figure the airlines won't count my stuffed animal in my carry-on allowance - just try taking away my security blanket.

The Rock can't handle the tooth. The former wrestler also known as Dwayne Johnson has a high-beam smile and a self-mocking style. These traits should serve him well in Tooth Fairy . Sadly, in this forced fantasy about Derek, a cynical pro hockey bullyboy who tells his girlfriend's young daughter not to believe in the sprite who puts a buck under your pillow when you lose an incisor, The Rock is less tooth fairy than toothache. On the ice, Derek is a spoiler who prides himself on knocking out the teeth of his opponents.