Sinister Craftiness

After a brief breather from Thing One’s school activities, May ended with out-of-town guests and a wedding!  My brother and his bride were married May 30 in Seattle; the weather cooperated and was gorgeous, with stunning views from the Space Needle for their evening reception.  My other brother and his family have been visiting for the past week and will stay through most of this week as well.  GimletBlog has all the details and photos of our days entertaining the little nephews and nieces and the wedding plans, but as far as this blog goes … as you can tell, stitching has been put aside for the time being.  I usually spread all my stuff out on the dining room table, which is getting a workout from an extended family dinner every night, and boxing up my current projects has been the best way to keep curious little fingers (and kitty paws) at bay.  We’ve been having a wonderful time, but I’m going through a little stitching withdrawal and look forward to unpacking everything this weekend.

I did discover another quilting shop while we were getting ready for our visitors:  Undercover Quilts, located in the south arcade of the Pike Place Market, is a wonderful source for Pacific Northwest-themed fabrics and quilt patterns, and they offer a set of collectibles for shop-hoppers.  Any quilter stopping in Seattle during an Alaska cruise should take the time to find this little gem during your visit to the Pike Place Market; you won’t be disappointed!  The shop is just a little south of the Pike Place Fish Market (the famous “flying fish”).

If you can see the little purple sign in the top right corner of the photo above, it points to a lavender stall in the arcade just northwest of the fish market.  I bought a big bag of Sequim lavender to make into sachets (or as Thing One calls them, “smell bags”).  I have a small gift in mind for the end of Thing One’s school year, but even with our late end to school (the rest of the US seems to be done with school already, but our school district doesn’t end until late June) I don’t know if I’ll have enough time to get it done.  At any rate, the lavender smells delightful and would make a very useful souvenir for our summer tourist stitchers.

The June wallpaper is available for download from Solitary Elegance. This month’s fashions are an 1809 walking dress (on the left) and an 1815 ball dress (on the right). This month’s background comes from part of an embroidery pattern for muslin found in an 1817 edition of Ackermann’s Repository.  I don’t have any juicy fashion gossip this time, so enjoy instead a lovely assortment of head dresses from 1811.

May’s wallpaper is available for download from Solitary Elegance. This month’s fashions are an 1809 ball dress (on the left) and an 1810 promenade dress (on the right). The elaborate background is derived from an embroidery pattern featured in an 1812 edition of Ackermann’s Repository.

Last month you may recall that the General Observations essay took issue with the abundance of green in spring fashions; not only is our May wallpaper green, but the Arbiter Elegantiarum is also forced to reconsider his position in this month’s General Observations.

The ball dress may look a little familiar: yes, this is the plate on which my JASNA ball dress is based! I didn’t have it when the dress was finished, but was able to buy one about a year later. This is the plate that started my interest in collecting fashion plates: I thought it would be fun to have a gown based on an actual Regency design, and after looking through several on-line image galleries, the May 1809 ball dress from Ackermann’s Repository was a favorite. Then it seemed like a good idea to have the matching fashion plate to go with the dress. While I looked through print shops and online auctions, I saw other interesting and lovely fashion plates, and the collection has grown little by little ever since.

After a snowy start to April and a few frosty mornings, the camellia has bloomed!  Hooray!

And what could that be on the blossoms and leaves?  It’s so shiny … so bright … is it … sunshine?

To commemorate the return of flowers and sunshine, I started stitching Just Nan’s Floral Fifteen biscornu this weekend:

It’s a fifteen-sided (!) biscornu; I’ve started with the five green panels, then I’ll do the ten white panels.  Other springy goodies from Just Nan:  a new limited edition biscornu and a peek at the upcoming Grow! tin.

The wonderful hand embroidery blog Needle’nThread is featuring an April sale by The French Needle!  April isn’t over yet, so don’t miss out; head on over to Needle’nThread for all the details.  The French Needle features beautiful French needlework books, charts and kits, and accessories.  I picked up some Rouge du Rhin charts that have been on my wish list for some time.  Now if only those gorgeous scissors would go on sale; you know, the ones that cost more than the first Gimletmobile …

After all that shopping and stitching, the most rewarding stitching I did over the weekend was repairing Thing Two’s blankie.  Blankie is an old receiving blanket dating from Thing One’s baby days, but  afghans were more Thing One’s style.  Thing Two, on the other hand, showed a preference for receiving blankets almost immediately. Luckily there are two of them, and even more luckily, Thing Two likes to have them washed.  Both blankets are starting to fray at the edges, so after an especially big adventure, repairs are occasionally needed.

This is a ball of #8 perle cotton.

This is Nanaimo.

After I leave to run errands, here’s what happens when the two combine.

April’s wallpaper is now available for download from my Jane Austen web site, Solitary Elegance.  I’ve also been able to add a little more information to January and February; it’s exciting to finally have the text describing the first Ackermann fashion plate.

Back to April:  most of the ladies have had to stand up since January, so this month’s pair is taking a seat for a well-earned rest.  The 1809 gown, on the right, is a full dress, while the gorgeous pink gown on the left is a ball dress from April 1812.  (Yes, it’s my favorite of the pair, as well as one of my all-around favorites.)  This month’s “General Observations on Fashion” article is a snarky delight, bringing to mind Dame Maggie Smith’s perfectly devastating  “Difficult color, green.” Enjoy!