Sinister Craftiness

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Thing Two really likes the Button-up Birdies series by Victoria Sampler.  To date I’ve stitched some of the birds, but was waiting until I had a few more done, then planned on finishing several all together.  Thing Two is mostly agreeable to this plan.  The other day he presented me with these:

In case it’s not readily apparent, these are two of his own bird buttoned ornament designs:  a puffin and a dark-eyed junco.  As with the other charts, the finished design decorates the cover …

… followed by the actual chart, complete with symbols for the different colors …

… and a key on the back.

Translation:  the puffin is stitched with Onyx, Burnt Orange, and Yellow Jacket, with a bead for the eye, and the junco is stitched with Pelican Gray and Sweet Petunia.  Thing Two is partial to Gentle Art Sampler Threads, Weeks Dye Works, and Crescent Colours because of their interesting color names, but he also likes DMC because we wind those on bobbins, which he thinks is fun to do.  He consulted my GAST stash to determine the best color for the junco’s beak.

Thing Two is almost as much of a projectaholic as his mother, so after finishing up these bird charts, he moved on to draw a picture of the solar system.

The Japanese Festival of Broken Needles, or Hari-kuyo, occurs today, February 8.  People pay tribute to the old and broken needles which have served them so well and pray for better sewing skills for the new year.  Needles are laid to rest in soft tofu where the needles can be soothed and do no harm.

After spending a few hours last summer as a soft resting place for a needle, Nanaimo is happy to see those sharp points put safely away.  I like the idea of showing respect for the tools we use that give us so much enjoyment.

Learn more about this lovely tradition:

• A beautiful pamphlet explaining the festival
• Hari-kuyo on Plays With Needles blog
• Reuters article

(Cross-posted on our family blog, GimletBlog.)

As you know, my Ragdoll cat Nanaimo loves to spend time with me in the craft room.  He can be a rascal, but most of the time he is happy to take a nap or have his fluffy tummy rubbed.  Monday morning I was getting ready to do some stitching, but left the room “just for a moment” (okay, maybe for more than a moment).   I heard a crash, ran back to the room and found Nanaimo had knocked my scissors and other things off the table … and the needle and thread I had set down were missing.

Nanaimo’s fondness for thread has been previously documented on the blog, but I spent over an hour crawling through all the downstairs rooms on hands and knees, hoping the needle would turn up, before admitting my suspicion and calling the veterinarian.  The X-rays confirmed what I feared:

Click to enlarge. That's his microchip on his shoulder.

A variety of options for removing the needle were presented but none seemed to be as effective as surgery.  With a heavy heart and light wallet we left Nanaimo at the veterinarian’s office to be operated on later that afternoon.

The veterinarian called us after the surgery to let us know that it went very well.  The silk thread which had tempted Nanaimo in the first place  (Caron Waterlilies; he couldn’t eat the cheap stuff, of course) had wrapped itself around the needle like a cocoon, preventing the needle from doing any damage to his insides, but also causing it to lodge tightly in his stomach, so surgery really was the only option after all.  The next day, Kitty Grandma (my mom) and I visited the patient and collected the souvenir needle.

The needle’s eye snapped when I was trying to clean the “mass” (medical term for gross clump of goo and thread) off of it.  It was a petite tapestry needle, size 28.  I can also report that the “Pine Forest” shade of Waterlilies stays colorfast in liquid, at least in bodily fluids, but I don’t think you want to see the proof.

Nanaimo came home this morning with a row of stitches on his shaved tummy (which should help him stay cool this summer) and wearing a “cone of shame” to protect his stitches.

I’m so thankful that my dear kitty is going to be okay.  It was a very fortunate chance that I immediately realized what had happened and acted on my instincts to take him to the vet, just in case. (Instead of wondering what was wrong several days later, when Nanaimo would have been in agony.)  It’s also very fortunate that the thread wrapped so tightly around the needle, protecting him until the needle could be removed.  But it was a stupid, and expensive, lesson to leave the craft room open and unsupervised when I should have known that Nanaimo might be tempted by the thread.

December, the final wallpaper in the series, is now available for download from Solitary Elegance. We conclude our tour through 1809 with the Tyrolese walking dress (on the right). Her companion, an evening dress from 1812, is seated on the left. The background is designed from pieces of an elaborate 1811 set of pearl jewelry for full dress. An 1816 embroidery pattern decorates the holiday message from Pride and Prejudice.

The wallpapers aren’t specifically dated to 2009, so I hope you will continue to use and enjoy them. Many thanks for all the kind comments and support throughout the year!

The November wallpaper is available for download from Solitary Elegance. This month our ladies are taking advantage of a little sunshine to take a walk (albeit very bundled up) before the stormy late autumn weather really sets in.

The two walking dresses (1814 on the left, 1809 on the right) are set against a scenic background from an 1816 issue of Ackermann’s Repository. Enjoy!

The October wallpaper is available for download from Solitary Elegance. This month it’s all about Jane Austen’s Emma: for those of you in the UK lucky enough to watch the new BBC miniseries beginning this weekend and for the rest of us who have to wait for Masterpiece and other networks to pick it up (much) later, here’s a little something to get you in the mood.

Miss Woodhouse stands on the left in an 1809 ball dress while Miss Fairfax, elegant as always in an 1813 evening dress, is seated on the right. This month’s background is a piece of sheet music from one of Ackermann’s sister fashion journals, La Belle Assemblée. While Miss Woodhouse is sure to appreciate the title and tune, Miss Fairfax is probably looking over the music for “Robin Adair”, a favorite for reasons best known to herself. Enjoy!

Web server problems can’t keep us completely down: the September wallpaper is ready for download from Solitary Elegance. This month we’re examining fashions for special occasions: a mourning dress from September 1809 on the left, and the stunning Glengarry riding habit from September 1817 on the right. The background is derived from an Ackermann’s Repository embroidery pattern from 1816, and the quotation from Persuasion sets the autumn mood. Enjoy!

The August wallpaper is available for download from Solitary Elegance. We continue to stroll through summer with two walking dresses from 1809 (on the right) and 1811 (on the left). This month we’ve brought the children out of the nursery for a look at the fashions well-to-do boys and girls may have worn in Jane Austen’s day. The little rascal from 1811 has made off with mamma’s parasol. As this month’s tableau is rather crowded, one hopes he doesn’t wave that parasol around too much, or he’s likely to poke one of the other models with it.

The July wallpaper is available for download from Solitary Elegance. This month shows off two promenade dresses from 1809 (on the right) and 1811 (on the left).  Both ladies are employing parasols and veils to protect themselves from the summer sunshine.

Does the background look familiar?  It’s one of my favorite embroidery patterns, found in an 1813 edition of Ackermann’s Repository.

There is an unexpected benefit to having newlyweds in the family who live nearby:  they need stuff, and we just happened to have a spare room full of furniture and other items that we just don’t need any more.  When they got back from their honeymoon, they pretty much cleared out the spare room, leaving me with …

A craft/hobby/quilting area, “fiber arts studio”, Mom’s play room, sanity space, whatever you choose to call it.  Depending on what I’m working on any given day, it could be Salon Solitary Elegance or The Lair Sinister.  The room is about 11′ square, plus a small closet, and receives sunlight from east and south facing windows.  It’s painted a pale lavender with white trim:  the leftover paint from Thing Two’s room.

My cutting table was made by placing two 36″ high bookcases back-to-back, then a 1″ thick piece of birch plywood is the table top, with a cutting mat on top of the plywood.  I’m taller than average so I appreciate the height of this cutting table; it’s much more comfortable to work at than my current kitchen counters!  Lots of shelves for fabric, books and magazines, the binders in which I store my charts, and a little bit of display space, too.  Below, Nanaimo claims the work table … for now.

A little history:  when we first moved in, the basement had a lot of potential (standard height ceiling, full size windows, no moisture issues), but still needed a lot of work to make it a pleasant place to be.  Over a year’s time, The Gimlet tore all the walls down to the studs,  insulated, re-plumbed, and re-wired the rooms (adding lots of new outlets), hung drywall, and installed wall-to-wall carpet throughout the downstairs area.  We also replaced all the windows throughout the house.

This particular room soon devolved into an oversized closet for unused and unwanted items, with no definite plan for how and when to get rid of it all.   Enter the newlyweds, and in about an hour, the room was empty.  I spent the next day filling it up again.

It isn’t furnished with antiques or darling flea market finds; it can’t boast a top-notch organization system (much less shelves in the closet); there aren’t even any pictures on the wall yet, but I’ve moved in, and it’s wonderful to have a permanent space just for my projects.  I’m looking forward to personalizing the room and spending a lot of time here.