Historic Stitcher

Announcement!

2009-11-03T17:54:00.002-05:00

It has come to my attention that I am being charged with neglect of my blog.

I must plead "guilty."

This summer and autumn have been intense, and I have done a lot in the way of personal and physical decluttering. I hope you don't take offense, but I kind of withdrew in multiple venues, not only in blogging.

See, it started quite some time ago, a little over five years ago, when I moved back to Michigan. I moved into a tiny little house, and we (Little Boy and I) re-collected and re-grouped and I started to figure out where I was and what was going to come next. I threw everything we didn't need in everyday life into a storage garage and paid to keep it there.

Three years ago we moved into this larger house, with on-site storage, also known as "garage" and "basement" and I continued to ignore and procrastinate on the Stuff. I couldn't park in the garage, and I couldn't use the basement for anything but doing the laundry, but I managed to ignore it anyway.

This spring I decided I'd had enough. All summer and fall I've been decluttering my life - in terms of time, stuff, space, hobbies, stuff, wardrobe, and fiber. And did I mention the stuff? I had more stuff than I could possibly need in this lifetime, and I got tired of it.

I'm still tired of it, but I've been incredibly successful at selling it, giving it away, and tossing the junk. Only last week did I turn the corner, and start finding empty shelves and drawers around the house where I've gotten rid of so much stuff that there's spaces where I don't have anything to put there...and I LOVE it. An empty drawer in my desk! A shelf in the kitchen! Empty floor in the basement!

And I've been so focused on this process, so involved with living instead of planning that I kind of lost track of some things. Like my blog. And some friends...

And for all of this, I apologize.

I have to admit that the lack of blogging at some point went from being a case of neglect to a case of conscious choice, and it was mostly that I wanted to focus on me and my little family, and not on what I wanted to tell all of you or what would make a good blog-story.

And the truth is: I missed you. I missed all of you! And I don't want to quit you. I want to keep blogging, in some capacity. I can't get on a tight blogging schedule right now, as I am again doing NaNoWriMo (I love it!) and I am not going to let blogging compromise my novel-writing.

So maybe, in between chapters, when I'm going cross-eyed from writing fiction, I'll sneak in and update you on some of the wonderful projects and things we've done since last I filled you in.

Can you forgive me??

Accounting

2009-06-21T20:36:00.002-04:00

Kiddo's been gone since Friday afternoon...and I've done nothing on the list of things I wanted done while he was gone. Instead, I have played, spun, visited, watched movies, slept, eaten out, and drank too much (once, last night at dinner. My gin and tonic was made as a double when I asked for a single. And I drank most of it before the food arrived. Glad I wasn't driving!)

Then today I woke up with a massive headache, and have spent most of the day fighting off the migraine. now that it's nearly bedtime, I might be finally winning. Of course, the 2.5 hour midday nap doesn't make bedtime come any quicker.

So I guess the accounting for my time indicates that I am unwinding. And I assume I will eventually get around to being productive at home...but doesn't finishing half an ounce of frog-hair and finally setting up for bobbin #2 count for something? (The first bobbin has two ounces on it, and it's not even 2/3 full.) And for kicks, Jofran tried to use a McMorran balance on the frog-hair, to see if there would be enough for the Peacock shawl, and a plyback nearly 8 feet long didn't even move the balance. She's guessing there'll be enough.

I've had it. I'm heading to bed. Maybe I'll crawl into the bath first... and hope that tomorrow I can be a bit more useful and maybe find the vacuum. I might even use it!

Loading up the Etsy Shop

2009-06-16T18:27:00.004-04:00

I'm getting busy again, and have been getting a backlog of fiber and stuff for the Etsy Shop. So tonight I finally started taking pictures and getting them online. Thus, no delving into history tonight. (But since the Kiddo will be gone for a week, biking across the state with my mother next week, I should be able to throw up some more philosophical stuff and get deep again! Be sure to stop by her blog and encourage my Kiddo in his first big, multi-day ride!)

But if you'd like a sneak preview...

One new Batt Boy Batt: "Darkened Rainbow"And handmade crayons. Three sets of three crayons each, all made from Crayola wax, each unique and special! (only one set is shown here, the rest are in the shop.)

I have a huge box of vintage hats and purses I will be posting in the shop in the next week, and some of that fiber I've been taunting you with will be showing up, too. I'll be sure to let you know.

Thanks, as always, for coming by.

Oh, and Sara? The cheese tastes good - like farmer's cheese, sweet with a little tang. Very yummy. And I make yogurt all the time, and bread, too. It's all experiments in microbiology as far as I'm concerned! The trick is making sure you've got the right microbiotics in the mix - as anyone with sourdough starter gone bad will tell you!

Ghost Stories!

2009-06-15T08:17:00.003-04:00

Antonia started it, but Alwen put my attention on it - ghost stories.

Unlike them, I am somewhat sensitive, but don't really see anything. I feel things, and get "that feeling" on occasion, but certainly don't walk around seeing auras and ghosts all day! But oh, that house in Indiana!

We bought an enormous brick house on Ohio St., in Terre Haute, Indiana in 2002 from the son of the owner. The owner, Virginia, had fallen down the stairs and died later in a nursing home. Virginia moved into that house when she was 9 years old, and lived there with her grandparents, and later her husband and children, until she died in 2001 in her 90s. Her son wanted nothing to do with the house, or the contents, and lived on the east coast. He and his daughters cleaned out some personal effects, clothing, and papers, but left everything else in there, and we bought the place, as-is.

This was an enormous house - 3600 sq.ft, not including the full 7' tall basement and the ballroom-like attic. And every inch of it was stuffed with the remnants of 90 years of one family living there. I found the grandmother's junk drawer and utensil drawer in the kitchen right next to Virginia's junk drawer and utensil drawer. Nothing ever got removed or replaced unless it was complete trash, and even then it might stay.

We knew from stories from the son, and from neighbors, that it was not always a happy house. Virginia's husband had died when he fell down the stairs some years before. Her grandmother had died in her bedroom on the second floor. (And if you're into architecture, this house was where I learned about the Coffin Door on Victorian houses, as it had one, as one of the FIVE exterior doors I was paranoid about locking every night.) I didn't get evil vibes from the house, though, and so we moved in. On top of Virginia's Crap, as it became known.

The first night I was in the house (my now-ex-husband moved down there 5 months before me to rewire and properly plumb the house) I was in Virgina's old bedroom, which we had decided was to be our room, and I was setting up the baby crib for our then-2 son. While I was working with the hardware and such I saw a bright light out of the corner of my eye, and then there was an explosion next to me. I screamed as bits of glass flew all over me, and he came running up the stairs to find that the ceiling fixture had "fallen" off the ceiling and landed next to me on the footboard of our bed where it shattered. We figured it was Virginia saying "hi."

Turns out it was her grandmother. Over the next two years we had many encounters with the grandmother, particularly in her bedroom, which became my sewing room. She didn't like my then-husband one bit, and would flutter in his ear and appear in the corner of his eye while he was removing the wallpaper from the walls (that was what passed for household division of labor in those days - he had to strip the wallpaper and wash the ancient paste off the walls, and I would repair the plaster, skim coat them, then finish.) She unnerved him a little, but never bothered me except for the one time when she fluttered in my ear. I said hello, and she left me alone after that, in what became my favorite room in the house.

The house had lots of walking noises, several roving cold spots, and eventually was the final straw in my already-failing marriage. The grandmother finally stopped pestering us at all after I asked my parich priest to come bless the house and he performed a release of spitits ritual and blessed the room.

When my step-father, Pop, died suddenly, I cried myself to sleep. The next morning I felt he was bugging, pestering me, and he wasn't stopping. Finally I ended up sitting at the piano, and he made me play Fur Elise for him, and I felt him leave about halfway through, after I'd played his favorite part. He used to sit and listen to me practice for hours on end, and would encourage and critique and be my number one fan, and I learned Fur Elise for him, and worked on getting the style the way he wanted it. I haven't played it since that morning. he has been known to play pranks and leave notes, too, like the time we came home to find the thermostat turned up to 90F right after we booked a trip the the Caribbean. And when Mom was having some woodwork done in the living room, she was worried about matching the stain since he had custom-blended it himself back in the day. And a ragged slip of paper showed up in his handwriting with the recipe on it, and nothing else.

I know there's more, but that's it for now. But if you think about it, pretty much every religion in the world acknowledges some kind of a spirit world with which we can communicate in one way or another. Just the fact that the priest was prepared and unsurprised, and had multiple levels of alternatives surprised me! I suppose it shouldn't have, but it did.

We don't know everything yet, but we sure like to pretend we do!

If you have a story of your own, feel free to add it to the comments! And Dan, if I missed any good ones about Virgina's house, please chime in!

Inadvertant Cheese

2009-06-10T18:53:00.004-04:00

Little Boy came outside to tell me that the milk tasted like cream and was thick. OK, I figured, he's 9, right? It's only milk, right? I'll make it into yogurt tonight, since I just bought fresh milk today.

Not happening. Milk in its way to being yogurt does not look like this. This should be a pot of bubbling frothy white stuff, not chunky white stuff with yellow in it!
The scientist in me was interested...I couldn't ruin it any further, so why not play? I tried to stir it.
Ick. Curdled milk.

Wait a minute...! ould Great Grandmother's mother have thrown this out? It smells sweet, not sour, and it curdled up all by itself, so...

Following in the steps of our Foremothers, right?

I boiled it, then ladled out the chunks.
Left behind was yellow, pus-colored liquid. I believe this would be the whey?
So what to do with it? Ricotta!!

I added 1 Tbs of citric acid, and got more curds!!
Poured that through a makeshift cheese-cloth of linen napkins...
Hung it up to drain...
And I'm still waiting for it.

I tried to follow some online instructions to make the curds into mozzerella cheese, but I cooked them too long and got hard curds (and burnt my fingers something fierce!), so I packed it into a bowl, and we'll have farmer's cheese instead.
In the end, there's about 1/2 cup of ricotta and 400mL of farmer's cheese. Not too bad for the last of the "sour" milk!

So the interesting thing I found, after getting the mess in the kitchen mostly cleared up, is that if you do a search for cheese recipes, they all seem to call for fresh, new milk without the slightest hint of being "off". Makes sense, right? But did our foremothers really throw away or feed the pigs with imperfect milk? Or did they have some good use for it? Is this a case of lost knowledge or of my refusal to accept anything as "spoiled"?

Turns out, if you go check the old cookbooks, all the cheese recipes I found call for starting with sour milk!

Learned something new/old today.

2009-06-09T17:30:00.002-04:00

Remember when you were a kid, and it was so hard to keep track of time? You hadn't internalized "time" yet, and summer days sometimes felt like a week, and a week felt like a month?

I've had a few days like that lately.

Friday night, after working all day, I visited a few local garage sales, and discovered that there were lots of garage sales that weekend. So on a whim I decided to drag all the stuff out of the garage that was waiting for donation and slap a sign up.

It worked. I got rid of half the junk stacked in the garage and made a decent sum, as well as knit lots of rows on Gansey, Jr. and got sunburned. All the big stuff disappeared, and I'm not disappointed. Not to shabby for not planning!

Saturday afternoon we went to Mass, since Sunday morning we had to be on the road by 5:30am, which came awfully early. We were scheduled to be water safeties during the triathlon my mom was running Sunday morning (which means we paddle around in kayaks and spot people who bit off more than they could swim). Sunday morning didn't dawn...it thundered. And lightning-ed. And rained.

The race started late, after several "all hands to cars" calls. When it finally started there were 2-3 foot tall rolling waves on Lake Erie, 60F water, and 60F air. I got rolled by the waves twice, another safety got rolled by his own wife (who was swimming and grabbed the side of his kayak) and the double with Kiddo and his Grampa was the only one that stayed upright. Kayak skirts might have helped a little - the waves were rolling over the bow and into our laps! Both times I rolled were from waves washing over the side of the boat and into my lap, swamping the kayak. Fun.

By Sunday afternoon I was whupped. We came home and read on the couch all afternoon before going to bed early. Kiddo slept like a rock.

Yesterday was back to work, then down to my cousin's house to pick up this year's llama shearing!!!!!! I got almost all the crias this time, so keep your eyes open for some wonderful spinning fiber coming soon!

I'm loving the sunshine and cool weather, and happy at the progress on my projects. I managed to get the Kiddo to start clearing out his toys to make room for some new Legos I bought at a garage sale last Friday, since really all he needs is Legos, books, and K'Nex to be happy, and not piles of random stuff he's outgrown. He believes it, and wants the new Legos and I want the space cleared, so we're on the same page, sort of. (And the new Legos were an incredble bargain! A couple of $100+ sets for $14 each!! I bought a bunch...we both like Legos.)

Thank you SO much for all the wonderful stories you've been sharing! If you haven't seen them, please go read the comments from the last Home Arts post - you won't be disappointed! I'm working on the next post in the Home Arts series, and am having so much fun with this! I'm glad you're enjoying it, too!

Pass It On

2009-06-04T20:20:00.007-04:00

I chatted with my mother this evening, when I picked up the Kiddo from her house. (She had taken him on a 30 mile bike ride today. He wasn't tired out.) I told her what I had written, and my point of view on how I was raised: that when young the home arts were emphasized and when I was older I was encouraged to go to college, get a degree, and be able to support myself.

When I was young, I wanted to live like that forever. I have wonderful memories of juicing tomatoes out on the picnic table, getting them ready for canning. I thought cutting the corn off the ears was the coolest thing ever, watching the sheets of kernels fold away from the cob. And it tasted amazing in February. I used to love to look at the rows and rows of jars neatly lined up on the shelves in the pantry down in the basement - every one of them packed by us, grown by us. Dad would sometimes let me drink some of the tomato juice with him (that, and the butterscotch candies on the mantle were his, and were untouchable without invitation) and I learned to love fresh (or jarred) tomato juice with a bit of salt and pepper. (V8 tastes so fake to me)

We lived in a farm house, but didn't keep the farm. We rented the house from the owner, who lived elsewhere. So the fields around us were farmed, sometimes wheat, sometimes corn, occasionally soybeans (this was before they were such a big crop), and the barns stood big and white around the property. It was a lot of yard, and dad mowed it.

We had two gardens - one behind the house next to the field, and one across the driveway perpendicular to the road. They were HUGE, and covered far more square footage that the house and garage combined. We grew potatoes, tomatoes, corn, beans, and all kinds of good stuff. We had a Concord grape vine that make awesome grape juice (I didn't like to eat the skins, so I would peel them with my teeth and eat the sweet insides). I certainly can't forget walking long rows of potatoes with a jar of gasoline in my hand, picking off the potato bugs and dropping them into the jar. I hated killing them, but they were killing our food - the food we were going to eat until next year. Later in the season, Dad would walk along the row with a pitchfork and turn over each plant, and my sister and I would scramble to dig in the soil to find each and every potato and put it into the bushel basket, making sure that we didn't put any in the bushel basket that had been cut by the pitchfork.

We would pick raspberries in the summer, strawberries from the U-pick farm, more grapes from Grandpa's house, pull long straight carrots from the soil, and eat from this bounty all year. (Somehow, the cherry tree that I so loved to climb never seemed to yield much fruit...)

And then, of course, there was The Deer. (It's still a bit of family legend) The Deer ran across the road in front of the car (full of kids) driven by Mom's cousin, it jumped the ditch, hit the fence, and broke it's neck. we drove home, Dad called the DNR, and they gave him permission to kill it and keep the meat, if he wanted. He did, and split the meat with the cousin who was driving. That's when I learned how butchering works, and the different cuts of meat, as I assisted by sorting the cuts into the yellow buckets on the floor while Dad did the cutting up, in the basement. (I don't remember how he carried that thing down those steep stairs!) And it was my job to pick the hairs off as I sorted.

All this, and more, was "normal" to me. And it still stands as my example of how to live sustainably and self-sufficiently. And it's what I still am striving to return to.

From my mom's point of view, this was how she was raised. She loved it, staying home with us kids, gardening, sewing our clothes (I didn't mention that part, did I? She sewed most of our clothes for us) For her, this was the way to raise kids. She learned how from her mother(who learned from her mother, and so on, I'm sure, though the centuries, since that's how that kind of information usually gets passed on.)

Mom was very good at...being a Mom. She taught me to sew, to bake, to can, to garden. She showed me how parenting can be a relaxing, wonderful, happy occupation. We would play with cousins, roam the yard, try to peek in the barns that were always locked, and generally explore the outdoors around us. It was this example of motherhood and raising children that instilled in me the desire to be a mother myself.

I hear stories about and from women who never learned these things from their mothers. Some of them actually refused when asked, and told their daughters "no." They didn't want their daughters to grow up to be housewives.

And that's where I think Women's Lib went wrong...instead of offering the business world as an option, an alternative to being a housewife and mother, the business world became the only choice for many women, simply because they never learned the home arts from their mothers.

One of my (random) hobbies is reading old homekeeping manuals and cookbooks. They started appearing in about the 1830s, and are still being produced today. These books offer an amazing peek into the lives of women of the age, in what they assume you know, and in what they presume to teach. By reading through a cookbook from a different era, one can read between the lines and infer so much about the life they led - does the cookbook have recipes calling for exotic spices? Powdered sugar? sugar? honey? How about eggs, milk, butter? Does it have recipes for making butter? Some even remind you to wash the cow's teats prior to milking, using a blue cotton washcloth, not a white one (intended for kitchen use only). You've really got a gem on your hands if it tells you how to make the washcloth!

By following these books through the decades, you can actually see the transition away from knowledge passed on from mother to daughter, and to young women in need of education in the home arts. As the decades progress, the information becomes more and more basic, more fundamental and less "icing on the cake", until finally you reach a modern cookbook or homemaking book, and we are taught how to make a bed and hang clothes on a (plastic, machine-made) hanger. Reading between the lines (and in a few other references on history and the industrail revolution), we see that the need for this information comes about because young women are no longer staying home and learning this from their mothers; at about age 16, many young women left home to live in dormitories and work in factories until they got married. Then they would set up households with their new husbands, and take up homekeeping, some as late as their mid-twenties.

Fast forward a hundred years, and mothers are refusing to teach their daughters how to keep a home. And hence we need a book to tell us how to make a bed and handwash dishes. (Not me, personally, Mom - you gave me lots and lots of practice at those!)

What was your experience? Did your mother teach you how to keep a house? Garden? Sew? Or did she refuse? I'm finding the comments from Tuesday's post to be fascinating and engaging...I hope we can continue to converse on this.

Amazing

2009-06-03T20:29:00.002-04:00

I am in awe of the responses I've received to yesterday's post, both here and at Wardrobe Refashion, where I initially posted. I had no idea I was going to strike a chord with so many people!

You guys are amazing - please keep up the conversation, and I will refrain from opening a new topic until tomorrow or Friday. I would like to see where this leads.

If you're interested, we have a rather lively discussion going on about this post here.

Home Economy

2009-06-02T20:56:00.002-04:00

Today's post is an excerpt from a post I made over at Wardrobe Refashion. Please excuse the re-use, But I have every intention of going further into this over the next week or two, and it seemed a good way to start here, too.

-Erika

I've been looking into and reading up on the devaluation of the home arts in American Society (Yup - we're going deep again!) I don't know anything substantial about other societies, so please feel free to chime in and tell us if what I'm about to say is relevant, or not relevant, where you live! Please - I want to know!

The thought is that, in light of the crashing American Economy, folks seem to be finding their way back to the "home arts" in droves. They're sewing, thrifting, gardening, repairing rather than replacing, and driving their cars longer than they normally would (since when is a two-year-old car "old", anyway?) My point is that enough people are finding economy that we could nearly call it "trendy" around here.

Now, this shouldn't be such a big deal. During World War II, nearly every home and vacant lot had a victory garden growing food for the war effort, so more of the farmers' food could go overseas to support the troops. There was no call for victory gardens when we invaded the Iraq and Afganistan. Still isn't. we've been told to buy our food and support the farmers.

During WWII, there was mass rationing of commodities such as silk, aluminum, steel, eggs, and butter to support the troops and the war effort. There has been no call for that here now, and people get upset if prices go up by a tiny amount. We've been told to go shopping to support our manufacturers so they can make more.

Now we have banks collapsing, major corporations are going under, and credit is dried up completely unless you have significant cash on hand already, despite the bailouts by the federal government. Can you guess what's coming?? We've been told to go buy stuff to support the failing Economy.

Stay with me here, I'm coming back around to what we do here, promise!

The thing we're not seeing in the news is that there are really two Economies here in the US, and just about every other industrialized nation: the Formal Economy, and the Informal Economy. The Formal Economy is the one we keep hearing about in the news, the one that's ailing and we need to go buy from major corporations to "support". The formal Economy is Big Business and Corporations, and making money for the execs and investors is key.

By contrast, the Informal Economy is smaller, and exists in probably every society on the planet. It's the trade, barter, talent, home economy, or whatever you call it where you are. It's buying small, local, trading, doing favors, loaning things (and money) to friends and neighbors, and generally benefits all involved by the fair and just barter of goods and services. Have excess tomatoes in your garden this year? I'll help you paint your house for a bushel of them! That kind of thing. I once traded a doctor's treatment for painting her office for her. We both benefitted. I also traded sewing a Tudor-style court outfit for a man who plumbed my new bathroom, some years ago.

As people lose their jobs and can't find new ones, a problem especially prevalent in here in Michigan (the official unemployment number is 14%, but when you add in the people working part-time when they want full-time, and the folks who have just given up, the number went over 26% a month ago!) we find more and more people bartering. More people are shopping at the thrift stores. And more people are planting gardens.

So what, right?

Here's the so what part: it's entirely possible, that with a contraction of the Formal Economy, more people will go hungry than during the Great Depression of the 1930s, simply because of the lack of self-reliance and home arts. during the Great Depression, it was common, normal, and somewhat expected that if you had any yard at all, you grew some food. You knew how to sew, how to be frugal, and how to take care of your own. And in a worst case scenario, you most likely had family somewhere on a farm who could take you in.

That's not going to happen now. I've seen clothes thrown in the trash for want of a zipper. I've had people bring me shirts at the alteration shop because they couldn't sew a button on it for themselves! Most people don't have gardens now, and wouldn't know how to grow, can, or preserve the food if they could grow it. It's just not common knowledge anymore.

And then there's the public message: Go Shopping.

If I'm hungry, and don't have a job, why should I care about the Economy? Because Everyone will suffer if the Economy fails, we're told. In other words, we're being asked to sacrifice our credit ratings and families, and potentially our houses (to foreclosure) to save the Almighty Economy, so Others won't suffer.

Which economy?

I think everyone here at Wardrobe Refashion already "gets it." It's not about being trendy, jumping on the bandwagon, or even necessarily about getting unique fashion. It's about doing things for yourself and your own. It's about pride of accomplishment, making do, making up, and getting off the treadmill of buying "stuff" that supports large corporations and underpaid overseas workers. It's about keeping it local, keeping it real, and developing a skill set that has gone unrecognized since the Economy was invented (by men, to their standards and benefit, and using criteria they deemed important).

Home Arts disappeared even further with the women's movement and Power Women in the 1980s. The feminist women's rights movement got co-opted and turned into something it was never meant to be: it was supposed to be about freedom of choice in lifestyle, and it became anti-home. A woman had no value if she stayed home with her children, and that has remained in force until very recently with the trend of young housewives and mothers reclaiming the value of raising children and making a home.

In reclaiming the home arts as valuable, worthwhile, useful, and fun, we're reclaiming our informal economy, our home economy, and putting it back into circulation.

It all starts small. With one person. One pillowcase turned into a dress that a child is proud to wear. Made by hand is made with love.

And with Love, we can rule the world.

The Flossing of The Bricks

2009-06-01T19:16:00.004-04:00

An annual event round these parts. Or at least, it's supposed to be. It hasn't been done here in at least four years, though, and was far overdue. So I spent all day yesterday flossing them.

What's that? You've never heard of brick flossing?

I'm sorry. I'll elaborate:

Ages ago (it seems) my mother did some major re-landscaping on the property. It started with the gazebo (which holds a story all its own...) which became an island in the grass. She designed a patio and a walkway leading to the gazebo, all built from brick pavers.

And it was good.

Until the grass got into the cracks...
This has been a recurring problem ever since, but did not dissuade her from having the driveway done in the same pavers. Those will happen another day.

To floss the pavers, I use a giant WaterPik - the power washer. And I blow the crud out the cracks with the pressurized water. When finished, it looks like this:
So lovely and neat and tidy! Unfortunately for me, a long way from done!Never before did the gazebo look SO far away from the patio!

But persist I did, and managed to clear the entire path and the patio.
And power-washed the front porch (lichens+moss+porch=black, dark, ick) to boot. All in one day! Now I have to replace the sand between the pavers (much easier than getting the ick out!)

Needless to say, there has been little to no textile progress around here. I spun on the turquoise silk some more, but it loks about the same as the last photo (the downside of spinning super-fine - progress is not very visual).

Bad Momma Day

2009-05-28T20:18:00.003-04:00

Last night, the Kiddo was sick after supper. He had a bellyache, and a headache, and got really congested almost as soon as we started eating. I assumed he was having seasonal allergies and had eaten something that disagreed with him. By the time I went to bed he was moaning and crying, and finally he threw up. After that he felt fine, slept through the night, and, and got up chipper and normal.

It's over, right?

Wrong.

Kiddo was fine tonight. We ate dinner, he went back to homework. Within minutes he was complaining of being congested and feeling like he needed to vomit. I got him up to the bathroom and then started thinking....

we had leftovers toight
of yesterday's dinner
he got sick both nights
right after eating
congested, stomachache, headache, vomiting

I left him in the bathroom and checked the fridge. The pesto I used in our supper? Cashews. His #1 allergy.

We're lucky he didn't need the Epi-Pen!! I used about 2 Tbs of pesto in the dinner that fed both of us for 2 nights, so that's what? 1/32 of a tsp of cashews??

I gave him ipecac to speed up the expulsion process, and he was happy as a clam within 20 minutes. All done.

But not hungry.

Nothing like feeding your kid allergens for supper to earn a Bad Momma award, is there?

(For what it's worth, it was yummy. Pine Noodles and Weeds (aka spaghetti broken into small pieces with pesto, goat cheese, cherry tomatoes, and steamed spinach))

Turf Wars

2009-05-27T16:22:00.003-04:00

While vacation was dandy, coming home was not. And not in the usual way, either.

When we left I hadn't made my bed. I planned to change the sheets as soon as we got home, and Chaka likes to sleep on the sheet, and I seldom let him, so I left it all rumpled and the blankets piled up. When I got home, it was still rumpled with the blankets piled up, and there was cat hair all over, which I expected. (I can't have 4 cats and not expect there to be a little fur...) What I didn't expect was wet blankets.

Ick.

Someone had peed on my bed.

Knowing my cats as well as I do, I had already wondered what was up with Rotti - he was acting really, really skittish and scaredy-cat. Kiddo was getting a kick out of making noises every time Rotti started poking into something, just to see him jump! But I didn't suspect him...would you?No, I guessed the culprit was Chaka, my big, old, half-toothless boy. (His head is about the size of a softball) He long ago claimed my bed, and in the household routines around here, he defends it quite fiercely. I suspected that Rotti had moved into my bed and Chaka was marking his territory.

Later that night, when Rotti didn't crawl into bed with me and nestle behind my knees, but Chaka was curled up next to me and purring loudly, I knew I was right. Yesterday morning when I got out of bed, Rotti curled up next to my pillow and Chaka threw a kitty-hissy-fit and chased him off.

Yup, definitely Chaka.

So now I'm using the enzyme cleaner to get the scent out of my quilt and blanket and sheets (I buy by the gallon.) and using different bedding. I got lucky in that the blankets were piled up high enough that even though they were soaked, and the foam mattress topper got wet, the mattress itself was dry. (I enzymed it anyway, to be safe.)

Oh, and Alwen? This one's for you:Rotti's tail is ALL undercoat fluff. It does always look like that. Except when he's spooked - then it's bigger!

Spins like cashmere...

Oh my Goodness

2009-05-26T21:00:00.003-04:00

I am TIRED!

Spent a lovely Memorial Day weekend with friends and their family at their cabin in central Michigan. Gorgeous weather, wonderful food, fabulous place, friendly people... no complaints.

I did a little sketching, played in the lake with the kids, vegged out in the porch swing, ate too much, knit very little, plied some yarn, read a novel, and then some. Didn't sleep much, but what else is vacation for than sucking every moment of pleasure from the days and nights?

Since I have little to report, I'll share a few pictures. My camera didn't do much service, and I haven't received the pics from others yet, so there's only a few.

We were at the end of a cove in the lake, so while it looks narrow, the lake is to the right and out of view. This made it quite safe for the kids to fool around in the paddleboat and the rafts and not need to worry about currents or getting too deep or too far. We simply restricted them to staying "inside the cove" without a grownup. Bug and I took that paddleboat out of the cove and paddled all over the lake - until he was too tired to paddle!
I spent quite a bit of time just relaxing in the old bench swing glider thingy. Wonderful place to get a little (but not too much) sun and enjoy the view.Every night came the bonfires and (of course!) the s'mores.
And the view out from the porch to the lake...
Thanks, Carole, for such a wonderful, wonderful weekend!!!!

New Obsession

2009-05-19T20:56:00.003-04:00

I'm hooked. I found a new obsession.

Watercolor sketching.

I've never considered myself to be a painting-type person. I couldn't see myself standing at an easel dabbing at oil paints. It's not me.

But I used to draw. Quite a bit, too, but never considered myself to be an "artist" in that way. My "art" usually involved fabric of some kind.

Enter watercolor sketching.

I love it. I love the black ink lines, the washes of color, the not-perfect-ness of it! There's a whole spectrum of sketchers out there, ranging from a couple of bold lines to indicate an entire scene, all the way to what I would call "finished paintings." It's somewhere in the middle that I want to be - somewhere where I can scribble down my impressions of where I've been, what I've seen...and have the ability to convey the memories and mood. Something that photographs have consistently leave me feeling disappointed about.

I'm not that good. You're not going to see my pictures in a gallery any time soon. But I'm having fun and learning and splashing down images. I'm seeing the colors and lines around me better than I did before, and I'm starting to see the world around me a little differently.

So now my journaling, which I have been doing on and off since my sixth birthday, includes pictures that don't involve a camera.

I haven't decided yet if I'm going to share. Just know that it's wonderful doing it.

Ooh! Ooh! I bet it would be an awesome way to convey the depth of color in fiber!! I'll let you know if it works.

New Socks!

2009-05-13T19:14:00.004-04:00

I finished a new pair of socks today, and Blogger is being stoopid, so I guess you get to see them sideways. I needed new cotton socks for summer, and wanted ankle-height this time. Sockotta again.

Earlier this week I finished "editing" a pair of jeans. This is the first time I've attempted to make my own jeans, and I like the results a lot. They haven't been washed yet, so they don't have that "industry-made" look to them yet. And they probably won't ever, since they don't fit right.

A friend helped me to do the pattern, and a couple of mis-adjustments got made after the muslin, and... well, they just fit crappy. That, and I've lost a bit more weight (yay!), so they really don't fit now. It's all OK, though. I think of it as practice, and that I learned enough to make my own jeans, if I ever get the fit right!

As for Little Boy, we're having some power struggles lately, in the Rules Are Not For Me way, and he's in danger of failing 3rd grade for lack of turning in work. He's plenty smart enough, he just doesn't seem to think that doing the work on time and giving it to the teacher is worth the time or effort. And now, only a few weeks from the end of the school year there's a pile of unfinished work and he's got the concentration abilities of a gnat. Somehow he believes that if he sits at his desk and stares at the wall long enough, then time will be up and Rumplestiltskin will have come and the work will be done.

Can someone ask him to come and do the laundry and the dished for me when he's done with Little Boy's homework? Please??

Getting my Geek On

2009-05-09T20:00:00.002-04:00

The last few days have been rather fun, in a way I used to have fun, back in the day.

Little Boy's dad came and got him yesterday, and I've been going it alone for the weekend. And for once, I'm actually enjoying it and being productive! I've been puttering about the house all afternoon after running errands this morning. I finished sewing a pair of jeans, started sewing a couple of changing robes for some kayakers, did some laundry, tidied the kitchen, and helped move some (big! heavy!) furniture. It feels good to make some progress on projects that have been sitting around, stagnating, for what feels like forever.

Yesterday, though, was Geek Day.

I've always been a bit of a geek. I love science, followed the space shuttle launches and landings as a little kid (I still have the scrapbooks I made from newspaper clippings), and I always wanted to know why. (There's another story in that, but I'll save it for another day) I guess my child didn't fall far from the tree?

So yesterday I realized that I get another point on the Geek Scale because I'm running Linux on one of my (several) computers.

Then yesterday I hacked Linux to get it to do what I wanted. More points.

And last night? A date with my stepfather to see the new Star Trek movie. Definite geek points. And for what it's worth? Great movie. I want to see it again. Already.

And yes, I do have signed photographs of several ST actors. From back in the day, when I went to cons.

Sometimes I think it was another life, something I read in a novel. It couldn't have been me, could it? Going to cons? Playing RPGs? Staying out till late, drinking Mountain Dew?

I think I'll go back to spinning my frog-hair silk and listening to NPR now.

Friday already?

2009-05-08T08:42:00.000-04:00

I've been a little out of it. My co-worker calls it "glassy-eyed" and he's probably right.

Last Wednesday I was coughing enough to hurt. Thursday I stayed home sick. Friday, too. Saturday I slept. Sunday I went to Urgent Care because I wasn't getting any better. No pneumonia, but I have bronchitis. They got me breathing properly again, and sent me home, and I've been hopped up on codeine ever since. As in, last night's dose won't work out of my system until after noon the next day! I only took 1/8 of the prescribed dose last night and I still slept like a rock and got up groggy. Fun stuff.

And now that I'm healing, I have almost finished a pair of socks I started last Thursday when I was too tired and sick to think. Plain Jane Sockotta socks. I needed more summer cotton socks for work, anyway.

And now it's Friday and I' m not positive where the last 10 days have gone. They've flown by, and I'm facing another weekend.

At least I'm not facing a Monday!

Just Because...

2009-04-29T19:17:00.003-04:00

I'm apparently not busy enough, I've reloaded my Etsy shop with llama fiber. This is the last of the 2007 shearing, and the last of the fiber that's been processed by Zeilinger's.

The destashing has been going well, if the pile of boxes waiting to be mailed tomorrow are any indication. I'm feeling much better about the stash now, too. As I clear out the yarn I don't plan to use, I'm finding yarn I forgot I had! And since I have no plans for that, either...it's listed. I put 25 yarn lots up on Rav today, and some were claimed within minutes. Yay! Tomorrow I hope to start listing the stash fiber I'm not going to spin.

Also tomorrow, I'm hoping to put a few new things into the Etsy shop. There's been a delay in the Special Secret Project, and since I'm accumulating so much dyed fluffiness, and taunting you with it...I thought I should give you a chance to claim some for yourself. I'll let you know when it goes up.

Though I admit, I now have another problem...
He runs off with sealed Ziploc bags, too.

Fixing the Problem

2009-04-28T17:00:00.002-04:00

I've been obsessed the last few days with getting rid of stuff. I took a medium-sized box of quilting fabric to work today and let the receptionists duke it out over the cottons and calicos. I took my knitting down there to watch them at lunch - it was fun!

The strangest part of this though? I'm not a quilter. Never have been.

Tomorrow I'm taking them a box of needlepoint plastic canvas. Nearly 15 pounds of plastic canvas.

One box a day and I'll get there, right?

I've also been culling the stash in a big way - pulling out entire boxes of yarn I haven't looked at in years and just listing it. Finally, there's more in my Trade/Sell page than in my Stash page. I went upstairs after work, pulled out a big bag and three small boxes and took pictures. My goal is to keep only what I love and have plans for. If it doesn't talk to me, if I bought it om impulse and have no idea what to do with it, if I don't love it - it's gone.

I even had a nightmare last night (I haven't slept well since this started. I'm getting sick and headachy from lack of sleep) about yarn! I dreamed that someone sent me a nasty email in which she whined that "the website said all your yarn was FREE!!!!!"

Crazy.

In any case, if there was something in a picture the other day that caught you eye, check my stash page and see if it's there yet. And if you don't see it, don't be shy about asking after it. I really don't want or need to keep all this. I like spinning too much.

And Mara? I'm keeping most of the sock yarn. They do need replacing now and then. You can only keep it if you're going to learn to knit your own socks. Then I'll give you a set of needles to go with it, and lessons. <3

I have a problem?

2009-04-26T14:11:00.003-04:00

I'm embarrassed.

I can't believe I'm posting this, either. (Mom, if you're reading, just close the window and walk away...you really don't want to see this. Honest.)

Hi. My name is Erika and I have a problem.

I'm addicted to fiber. And I have to admit that I didn't realize the extent of it until I was challenged on Ravelry to show my fiber stash. Someone (several someones, actually) wanted to know what 200# of fiber stash looks like. And I decided to add in my yarn stash. So I really don't want to know how much is here. And if you see something you like, make an offer, because I'm feeling rather sick to my stomach right now, looking at this.

Here I am, trying to simplify and make life less cluttered, and I've been accumulating stash like there's not going to be any more wool or silk produced ever again. I am so totally prepared for the sheepocalypse, I could spin for the rest of my life and not finish with this stash.

I really am feeling sick about it.

Now, for the tour:

Welcome to my living room, where the "soon to be handled" and "in process" fibers reside. Next to the couch we have a wicker basket, topped with another wicker basket, topped with sweaters to be frogged for the yarn (why???? why do I feel this compulsion????) The top basket holds an abandoned sock pattern and several spindles, along with a bag of yak down.
The bottom basket holds this:
and then some.

Across from the couch is the weaving loom, wtill holding the remaining Christmas towels, unwoven. You can see under the loom where I cut a bunch of them off, so I could hem and give them out at Christmas, but I never finished the rest. And so they sit.
Next to my favorite chair, the chair Mom bought for me when I was enormous-pregnant with the Little Boy, is my current projects. And another basket full of fiber. That basket weighs about 35#. It's pretty stuffed. You can see the edge of the tapestry loom in front of the fireplace. Why I need to start playing with a tapestry loom when I can't/haven't finished last December's weaving has me stumped. Any and all good explanations currently being accepted...
The main stash is in the basement. Here we have two bins and a bag. One bin is roving and top for the Little Boy to make batts with, one is random wools, and the bag is stuff I dyed for the Mystery Project that hasn't been carded yet. The box right behind the bag holds collections of batts for the Mystery Project That Requires Lots of Pretty Fiber. Note the treadmill and the edge of the weight machine - they are NOT covered in fiber. I actually use the treadmill year-round, since I can't stand running outside in freezing cold or blazing hot.
Here's the big one: the Wall o' Crafts. The wall is lined with shelving, and there's an old table in front that holds that carder and whatever I'm working on right now, which includes book-making. At least I have somewhere to work on this stuff without junking up the dining room. the "stuff" on the weight set is my balance ball, which is stored on the seat, and the cover for the carder that keeps the cats from brushing themselves on the carding cloth.
Elsewhere in the basement I have stashed fibers. Here's a bag of clean wool I've been slowly carding.
And in the "closet" in which I store out of season coats and clothes there's another stash of box and two barrel-shaped containers. I didn't pull them out for you. Not going to.
In the main room is the knitting machine. It sits in front of the shelf of fabric, with a couple bins of coned yarn topped by two boxes of coned yarn.
So are you getting uncomfortable yet? Or is it just me?

There's a bathroom in the basement that seldom gets used. The shower hasn't been used in a few years. not for showering, anyway. It holds raw fleece now. (And a small amount of fiber from sheep Shed Studio, waiting to be dyed).

The garage holds the raw llama fleeces waiting to be cleaned and carded. These are what I sell in my Etsy shop and on Ravelry. My cousin raises them, and I process and sell the fiber. Awesome fleece! There's a little over 100# here.
On to the knitting...

each drawer is just under 3' deep.

as is the closet.The guest room holds the rest of the machine knitting stuff, and a bit more yarn.
It also holds the pretty dyed fibers I've posted here as I dye it up. Those boxes are full.

I think that's it, reserving the projects I'm actually knitting on right now, which total 4, I think.

I'm horribly aghast at the volume of wool and fiber I've accumulated. I find it disturbing. I have so little time for actually playing with it, making things, that it is exccessive. If I played with fiber all day, or was ploughing through it, I might consider this to be reasonable, but I think I have passed S.A.B.L.E. (Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy). Unless I get to be the first person to reach the ripe old age of 234.

I've seen pictures online of other people's stashes, some smaller, some making mine seem tiny (I seem to recall one where her knitting yarn completely filled her master bathroom, rendering it unusable...) but I think the fact that I'm uncomfortable with it indicates that I have too much for me.

And yet...every bit of it has the potential of being a finished object, gives me inspiration and ideas. Which of those ideas am I willing to part with first??

Greening Day

2009-04-23T12:31:00.000-04:00

Unlike Earth Day, which happens according to a date on a calendar, there's a very special day that happens once each year in early spring. It's a little unpredictable, and sometimes you don't notice that it's happening until it's already gone. It happened on Tuesday here. I noticed. And I mentioned it to my mother.

And she said "It's what day?"

Greening Day.

Haven't heard of it either? That's OK. My son's dad invented it. (Hey, if Hallmark can make up holidays whenever they feel like it, why can't he name a day that is special without having cards to celebrate it? his own private pagan holiday....)

Greening Day happens when winter is getting old. The daffodils are blooming, the crocuses are bobbing in the breeze, the snow is gone, and the grass is still dead and brown. There are no buds on trees yet, mud still fills low areas, last fall's leaves are still caught around the edges of buildings and fences, and you're getting really anxious for spring to finally arrive.

And then it rains. And it rains, and it rains.

And if you're lucky, you might notice that the air is a little brighter, the drear is a little less dreary, and there's a greenish cast on everything that's wet. If you're not that lucky, then you saw rain, rain, and more rain.

And then, when the rain stops, suddenly it shows: the buds are on trees, the grass is tall and green and needs mowing, there are shoots standing up in the flower bed where yesterday there was nothing.

Greening Day.

It took me a few years of watching to understand the signs our foremothers probably took for granted. Now it's time to put in peas. Now it's time to clean up the yard. Now it's time to start thinking about what color of flowers to put in the pots on the front porch. Your steps feel a little lighter, the sun feels a little warmer, and you can finally let out that breath you've been holding for spring.

It happens at different times in different areas. It's a very local holiday, and should be celebrated everywhere. It happened here on Tuesday, 2 days ago. And I celebrated by laughing in the rain.

Greening Day.

Have you had yours yet?

Hair of the Frog

2009-04-19T18:50:00.002-04:00

This was a lovely weekend. Little Boy's dad picked him up about 15 hours late, but it got fabulous after that.

Saturday morning, bright and early, I was running to Ann Arbor, MI on fun errands.

First stop: Hollander's! I'm still geeked about bookbinding, so I went out there for some proper supplies. I perused, and ogled, and fondled, and dreamed. I've never seen so much beautiful paper in one place! As a self-identified paper-lover, it was a heavenly experience (I was the kid playing with carbon paper and envelopes, and playing "office" so I could play with stationery and stuff.) I finally pared down my choices to what you see below: some colored waxed linen thread to replace the jewelry hemp/candle wax combo), an awl (instead of a big needle soved in the handle of a sewing tool), some needles sized appropriately for the linen thread, a 3/32" punch for the leather, a book on bookbinding (should probably start learning properly, right?), and a CD/book combo on William Morris designs (I'm exploring some patterns for tapestry). What's NOT in the picture are the enormous sheets of gorgeous paper I bought to play with. Only 4, but they were worth it.
Right outside Hollander's was the Kerrytown Farmer's Market. So I did some of my shopping. Jumbo farm-raised fresh eggs. Fresh bread. Homemade doughnut. Mmmmm.

Then it was off the Trader's Joe's for me, to get the rest of my groceries. More Mmmm.

Spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the back patio spinning frog hair and getting another minor sunburn.

Can you see that? How about a scale?

Want a real measurement? The smallest line at the top of the picture on the Spinner's Control Card is 40wpi.

That line looks enormous, doesn't it?

I've been spinning for hours and hours this weekend, and I can still see the leader-yarn. I have a four-ounce bag of this lovely dyed silk, that's screaming Peacock Shawl at me (here, for non-Rav folks.) It'll be 2-ply when I'm done. About the weight of sewing thread. The pattern calls for 150g/1500m of laceweight yarn. Think I'm going to have enough? I can't get more.

Bookish

2009-04-16T19:29:00.004-04:00

I was feeling a little bookish this week. And last week, too, to be honest.

A few years ago I made handmade books as Christmas gifts. (I didn't take any pictures, of course.) Then I promptly gave every last one of them away.

Last week I started eyeing the pretty papers I'd folded back then, all stacked up and ready to be punched and sewn. And I started eyeing the leathers sitting there in the basement, waiting to be made into something, anything! And, well, I started looking at bookbinding sites and blogs again. Next thing I knew this book showed up in my mailbox.

And now this is sitting on my desk. (Please ignore the dust. I'm too tired to re-take the picture.)
It's completely made from things I had around the house (so shoot me. doesn't everyone have good leather and craft supplies hanging around??).
It's the braided spine sewing, and it's the stitching pattern I've had in my sights for several years now. Don't know why I didn't purchase the book sooner, it was so clearly written, I had no problem doing it.
It's a wrapover book, with handmade paper (not by me) for the pages.
Now I'm not sure what to do with it. It's one of those things that I simply wanted to make. Not because I wanted the item, but because I wanted the experience of making it.

I used the natural edge of the leather, and the hole was kind of a neat feature of the natural edge. To my hand, the paper is too stiff for the soft leather, probably because I folded it across the grain 3+ years ago when I didn't know any better and it doesn't drape in my hand the way I think that it should.

After a crappy day at work, it felt good to come home and make something nice.

Making Lists

2009-04-15T18:49:00.002-04:00

And getting things done.

I pulled another disappearing act after the huge Saturday post, and have been making enormous progress on the home-organization front.

Sunday was all fun and family and friends, being Easter. It was lovely, and I got my first sunburn of the season while enjoying the sunshine on Mom's patio after brunch.

On Monday, after working all day, we came home and cleaned house, from top to bottom. I tried something a little different with the Little Boy this time, and made each of us a list. On his I listed out each specific action for a chore, and mine was just a normal list. We worked off the lists, and I didn't have to nag him to do stuff, just remind him to choose something else off the list. He could procrastinate on the things he didn't want to do, but I was happy because everything he did do was something I wanted done anyway. So we both won.

Tuesday I fell into a black hole after work and finished reading Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich. I've been sucked into the Stephanie Plum series, big time. I started them near the end of February, and finished last night. All of them. Including the "between the numbers" books. When's the next one coming out???

Tonight we tackled the basement. The dungeon. The Place to Shove Crap I Don't Want to Look At. It's certainly not perfect yet, but I have workout space, and a table to do fiber on, and someplace to sit and sew... and a huge pile of stuff to give to charity. Now we're hungry, and I'm tired.

Oh, and remember these guys?

Yeah. They're getting bigger.
The weirdest part about getting the house cleaned up is that I can't seem to get used to it. It's freaking me out a little. I'm not used to this much open space. Seems...weird.

Embroidery Explorations

2009-04-11T12:46:00.005-04:00

I recently fell into a conversation on Ravelry about embroidering period clothing for reenacting history, specifically within the SCA. I was once an active member, and have lapsed in the last five years as a single working mom trying to keep my head above water and the house passably clean (Not always successful, but trying!) Since I thought some of you might be interested in this, I'm posting my embroidery projects here along with a small amount of the history of them.

Long before I was obsessed with knitting, I was obsessed with embroidery. Particularly historic embroidery. I studied it, went to museums to examine it, searched every reference I could find to understand it, and I tried to reproduce it. Some things I finished, others are still languishing in corners and cupboards, waiting for me to get the inspiration to finish them.

Some are languishing because I later learned I was doing something "wrong". Others are sitting there because once I met the challenge of the project, I didn't feel compelled to finish it (for whatever random reason).

Some (completed ones) are lost. I loaned out the garb for a Ren Fest last summer, and it was never returned. (We'll forgive her, since she has cancer and 2 young girls...) Some that are gone were photographed, and now the photos are missing, too (No idea on that one...I'll have to dig deeper into the Piles 'O Mess around here).

In the SCA I played Lady Playne Jayne (I earned the "Lady" title during my time in Indiana with the Shire of Strikkenwoode), a merchant-class woman (my now-ex-husband was Hans Hannibal Hutter von Hutterhofen, advisor to the Holy Roman Emperor). As Playne Jane, I didn't look plain a all, and usually skirted the edges of sumptuary laws dressing to the nines in English garb with German influence (from HHHvH). I loved making the fancy outfits and finding and creating the details that set me apart from the herd.

One of those details was that I was wearing coifs before anyone else in the area. I know they're seen pretty regularly now, but I was rare back then. I had a fine linen one for when I dressed up for court, and a coarser linen one for when I was merchanting (I made and sold garb, too). And then I got the wild hair (hare?) to embroider one, like the period examples in museums. I chose this one, because I had found more available documentation on it than any other one that caught my eye at the time. (Credit for the following photo goes to an unknown internet poster years ago, she took this in the V&A Museum. If it's yours, let me know and I'll credit you)The coif was worn over the hair and under any outer hat. Some have been found totally plain, others are elaborately embroidered, and there are plenty of examples in museums to show that just about every embroidery technique of the period (1580-1610) was used on them. Some look professionally done, others are obviously amateur-stitched. They appear in portraits sometimes, but most often, being worn on the back of the head, they are out of sight and unpainted.

Using a light table, I layed out the pattern on linen and drew it on the fabric with a permanent fine-point pen (totally period). I stitched it into a frame and got to work.

Then I guess I got bored, because this is what I found in the embroidery box. Not even close to finished.
I stitched with red silk thread, following the lines and "speckling" the open spaces. Teeny tiny work.Striking, though, yes?

Part of me wants to finish it, just to say I did. And part of me thinks that there's no point, since I have no opportunity to wear it. Kind of like the next one:

I went through a blackwork embroidery phase, and starting embellishing all our linens. I was obsessing over portraits of people with blackworked linens. It was most popular a little earlier than my persona (around 1575), but I couldn't resist making some "antique" linens to show off. (What? Isn't that what all the embellishment was about in the first place? Showing off??) Lots of blackwork showed up on collars and cuffs, and often (earlier in the fad) in stripes down the front and back of the shirt/chemise.

Again, with silk on linen. I pulled the design from a portrait and went at it.

I got as far as box-pleating the ruffs onto the cuffs, but never built the shirt. I did a really wide, elaborate blackworked collar band, but can't find it right now. So sad.

Another little experiment I found in the box was this one:
Three tiny rows of stitching, 12 stitches across. Cross-stitch. I had just returned from an exhibit at the art museum in Detroit on English Embroidery, had taken lots of pictures, stood in real close taking notes and drawing sketches, and was fascinated by the stitch-count I found. Some of the finer embroideries were done at 43 stitches to the inch. The example I tried was 41, and after those three little rows I had a migraine. Compare the size of one row of stitching to the date on the penny. Then go look at a penny real close...scared yet?

The next bit I'll share with you was my (unfinished) pride and joy. The Sweete Bag. A sweete bag is one of those things we have in museums that nobody can agree on exactly what they were used for. They're usually elaborately embroidered little bags, often with an attached pincushion. It's suspected that they held fragrant herbs and spices that could be held near one's face when the "less-washed" folk were nearby. Some think they were for holding small items. I agree more with the first hypothesis, since the extant examples are not (in my opinion) distorted enough to suggest they were used for carrying anything heavy, ever.

This one is done on linen canvas, in silk and metallic to mimic the original (again, trying for a reproduction, not an "inspired by") and was never finished.
The frame its tacked to is about 7"x14", and I've never removed it. It's (period) tent stitch, 36 stitches to the inch.

I lost track of how many hours went into this project. I finally bought a period-ish embroidery stand to hold it because it was wearing me out. The multiple needles in the upper corner were so I could thread several colors and stitch until I ran out before cutting threads and threading needles again.
I wish I could find the rest of my projects, both finished and unfinished. Or the pictures, even. I have all the documentation somewhere, and it bothers me that it's "lost". I can't even find the picture of the original sweete bag!

I'll keep up the search, and post more as I find them. If you're still reading, thanks for hanging out.