Tag: sewing

Of Ephemera, And Death, and Jumble Sales

– which sounds an unpromising combination – but hearken.

We were dropping some things off today at a jumble sale. (Yes, Akela, I will man a stall next time *slinks away apologetically*) The joy of delivering things is you get to see the goodies. Mum – who is the demon knitter, in sobriety, even if she makes up in zeal with what she lacks in accessories – found a lovely box full of knitting needles of all shapes and sizes.

Accompanying it was a bag with a half-finished pullover. Sadly the wool was beautiful, but unbranded, and there wasn’t enough knitting to work out what it was going to be.

And in the box, under the stitch holders and the counters and the needle caps and all the ephemera of a lifetime of knitting, there were seven or eight beautiful crochet hooks – engraved, tiny, delicate, shapely crochet hooks, sized to craft butterfly wings and carved with flowers and curlicues.

It was the collection of someone who had spent a lifetime making things – probably of the vintage we don’t see any more, of crochet doilies and tray cloths and itchy knit mittens. A bygone era. And, I think, a bygone knitter, who had laid down her needles one day on a half-finished pullover and never picked them up again. A competent craftswoman, judging by the variety of accessories and sizes and their assorted ages.

I hope someone is going to buy that jumper and finish it and love it.

I think someone owes it to that unknown craftswoman, who collected her needles and tools from the engraved iron days of her girlhood through enamel and shiny smooth grey metal and space-age plastic, to the day she finally set it down unfinished.

And now I just need to learn to crochet….

 

All Manner of Things Shall Be Well

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So if anybody is wondering I am still alive, still writing, still re-enacting, still making things.

To be fair, at the end of last year and the beginning of this year I had lost my mojo more than a little. The lupus was crappy, I had too many things to do and not enough time to do them in, and – you know that thing where you go it’s never going to get any better and life is going to be a horrible chaos forever? – or that may just be something that the children of alcoholics do, we didn’t cause it and we can’t cure it but before God we’re gonna try like hell to control AALLLL THE THINGS…..

And so I stopped. I stopped writing for about a month, I stopped being a fabric fiend, I stopped planting things and I think probably for a few days right about the depths of midwinter I stopped being hopeful about anything at all.

Well, midwinter passes. (Do I think it’s seasonal? Damn’ right I do.) Things start to thaw out, and the world turns. I read a book, the other day.

That actually is a thing. I read a whole book. That’s not something I’ve wanted to do for months. (I’m currently reading the new Shardlake book and finding it bloody tough going, but it seems from the Amazon reviews that I’m not alone in that, so I may curl up with the much livelier “In This House of Brede” as a lovely comfort read instead. And really, Mr Shardlake, if a book about a woman becoming a nun in the 1960s is more exciting than your current adventure, you want to give yourself a stern talking to…)

I practice gratitude. The two nesting blackbirds currently under my window. Big hugs from my boys (the big one and the little one) The cats – all the cats, even the hideously noisy Obelix aka the Tank, who is built like a Jack Russell Terrier and likes to share the love while you’re having a wee. Sunlight, and growing things, and the ability to create, again.

I’m excited about re-enactment again. I’m excited about textiles again – my lovely man has built me a two-beam loom, I mean, how much better a present can you get than a Roman two-beam loom scratch built? – I’m excited about weaving and Roman cooking and I’m starting to get a little bit excited about writing again.

I’m back, I think. Maybe not all the way back but some of the way back….

 

 

 

 

 

Making Lace While The Sun Shines

In amongst writing the Christmas novella (Apples In Store – set just after An Imperfect Enjoyment, and featuring a beau, a baby, a little sister, and a case of mistaken identity) and making phenomenal quantities of cake, I have a shocking craving to make needle-lace.

I’ve tried bobbin lace and I found it hard work. What with the cats and all, they have a habit of undoing as fast as I’m doing, and it’s not exactly portable.

So this is the design.

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It’s quite big, so I don’t know what I’m going to do with it. Possibly make it into a collar or a (modern – well, modern-ish) jacket. One of the things I like about needle-lace is it has a very three dimensional, sculpted quality: it’s not as fluid as bobbin lace.

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So as you can see from the drawing on card, I’ve couched down the outline: this is the back, but I’ve pressed down hard with a pen to give a relief outline on the dark side, so the stitches stand out to the eye.

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I’m planning to make each petal separately, for an even more sculpted effect. Here’s a close-up:

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The things we do in the name of vanity!

Bosom Buddies

– or, let’s talk about tits.

As I have been banging on about of late, I’m upping my 17th century game and I’m doing marvellous things with my everyday wardrobe.

This morning I slipped on a lovely olive green and white print blouse and my first thought was – ooo, low-slung tits, girl, pull ’em up a few notches. How unflattering. How dowdy. How –

How right for the shape of the blouse and the design period?

Convo I often have with a mate who is similarly built, but why would I aspire to have two rock-solid semi-spheres clamped to my ribcage, unless I happen to be involved in 1770s re-enactment? What with – as one Regency fashion commentator described – the “disgusting fleshy shelf”?  See this lady here with her low-cut bodice – a lady of ample chest, by the look of her – is she rocking the teetering titties, or are they sensibly secured?

(c) Valence House Museum; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Occurs to me that the eye of the beholder is so wretchedly attuned to what we consider beautiful now, that anything that doesn’t conform to the right shape, regardless of size, looks wrong to us. We often see tavern-wench bodices, even when we should be working Lady Fanshawe’s discreetly low-cut charms, because we think up-and-at-’em is the look that women must have aspired to.

(Do we? Should we?)

This is me starting a revolution, right here, right now. The discreet charm of the boobs-goisie. Lower-cut and flatter. (Surely we’re not thinking that mature ladies might be represented as having aspirational mature figures, instead of fake porn-star tits?)

Have it!