Happy Holidays!

It's that time of the year!

This photo shows my Dad's cousin on his visit to Santa--live pony and all. I'm not quite convinced by that Santa. Some time in the 1920s or very early 1930s.

Yesterday we had the Christmas girls' day out--this is becoming the best habit! We visited Geneva, IL, and got spices at the Spice House, wandered in and out of the shops, remembered mom at Little Traveler (she loved that place), noshed at Nosh. We walked quickly past the aromatic popcorn shop (oh, the caramel corn!), past Graham's Chocolates, past the cupcake shop. We ran errands, bought presents and necessities, and talked incessantly. At the end of the day, my sister-in-law treated us all to a small glass of eggnog. We sat in my sister's kitchen, sipping, eating very good cookies (white chocolate, cranberry, oatmeal), and reveling in the company. A very good day.

It was a dull, grey day and I brought the camera but didn't take any pictures.

As is often the way with holiday shopping, I got myself a present. Embroidered Flora and Fauna by Lesley Turpin-Delport and Nikki Delport-Wepener. Here's a review. I've been looking at it for a while now, ever since Paula (formerly of The Beauty of Life, a lovely blog that is now gone) brought it to my attention. A coupon and me and a copy of the book all came together at the right time, so I got it for half-price!

It's one of those books that already has me visualizing things differently. It's not a how-to-copy this-design-exactly book. It's more--here's how we used these materials to express this. I'm not saying it well. The review above is probably clearer. Anyway, good book. I'm smilin'.

I still have a lot to do to get ready for the holidays. I've decided on several presents to make and I need to get them done. And I'd like to do a bit of baking. We'll see. Presents first. Have a great weekend.

A Bit Frustrated...

I spent last week and the weekend working very hard to complete my crewel project that I'm going to teach next summer at my local EGA chapter. I think it's pretty cool and I can't show it off until after our January meeting (happily it's at the beginning of the month). sigh. I hope the members like it.

But it means I don't have any needlework to show and share this week.

I spent last night browsing some old Christmas magazines-Better Homes & Gardens from 1970. It kind of made me smile...all of today's talk about recycling, reusing--repurposing wasn't a word back then but if it had been, they'd have used it! The gifts were hand made--dips in bell pepper cups, cookies and candies galore, and very creative ornaments and wrappings. Wire mesh was prominent in several designs. Used plastic of all types was utilized to make interesting, creative and just plain strange decorations and gifts.This isn't a recycled project, but I've wanted to make this wax ball ornament since the 70s. Back then, I was quite intimidated by the many steps and working with wax. By the time my skills were up to it, I couldn't find the right images. One day I still expect it will all come together.This train is a marvel of creative recycling. It looks pretty cool. I'd be happy to see the candy filled cars under my tree.I made some of these. We all trooped into the local hardware store and baffled the guys by buying random legs and finials and such. Everything was antiqued and now it looks so old fashioned. We also made our own candles--I had a disaster with a sand candle where the damp sand soaked through the cardboard box. We were scraping wax off the wall for years. But if you look toward the middle left, I still think those very simple red tapers in a row of weighted blue ball ornament candle holders are lovely.I spent a lot of time in the 70s playing with paper mache. I never made a huge outdoor ornament like this (and even back then I suspected anything anyone made at home would not look like the magical vignettes in the photos), but I did make lots of big, fun pinatas using this technique. If you look by the door to the left, there are tree-like towers from pentagons glued together into dodecahedrons and color plastic inserted in the round openings. I had those paper pentagons (I was very much into geodesics and tensegrity and all sorts of 3-D geometric things)--I had a large open paper dodecahedron hanging in my room for ages. Creative repurposing at it's best. I've never had the nerve to make them (mostly because I can't quite imagine wearing them) but probably will one day. The necklace to the center left is garment hooks and eyes. The one on the center right is thimbles and tailor's thimbles (with no tops--so beads could be glued on) linked with more hooks and eyes. The purse barely visible on the right is snaps wired together.

The shawl on the left is 70s mesh fabric with ribbons threaded and looped through it--much to mundane for my tastes. By the time I saw this, I had already knit and crocheted myself several large and fringy shawls.

I generally pull out these two magazines once a year and dive into nostalgia. McCall's Needlework and Crafts and Better Homes and Gardens were staples in my childhood home. (Oh, and McCall's magazine--I was a great Betsey McCall fan!) I was well into adulthood before I realized the impact they had on me.

Finished sampler

I finished this Monday afternoon while I was home with this cold. This project was by Mary Corbet of Needle'n'Thread. It ain't great. But I learned a lot which is the point. Mary included wonderful macro photos. I wouldn't dare take detail photos of mine.

I traced the outlines before beginning any stitching and followed them for the borders. It highlights the distortions. It would have been much better well stretched on a proper frame. I did it in a hoop. I'm much happier working in a hoop and I've found that I complete projects in hand or in a hoop much more diligently than those on frames.

I also used a piece of very light-weight muslin that was hanging around. It's much lighter than I probably should have selected, but I learned from the choice. I could see the threads clearly and where I was making my stitches. I tend to stitch heavily and this forced me to try and be lighter.

For the leaves and flower and circles, this fabric was okay. For the heavier stitching, especially the Om, it was too light. I got the feel of what it would be like to stitch some of the elaborate whitework from the 19th Century, the stuff with rather heavy stitching on really fine muslin and linen, and I rather enjoyed it. I could see an improvement in my embroidery between the first square to the last leaf.

I was going to stitch the M in the center in long and short, too, but realized once I had the split stitch outline in that it would overwhelm the sampler. Since I already had the outline in, I just left it and now I rather like it.

At the bottom of the M I put my initials MEHK and 9 for the year. As I was cutting the thread from the 9, after taking my last stitch, I was distracted and the scissors snipped a V into the fabric just above the 9.

I was crushed. My husband is great most of the time when I have a meltdown and he was wonderful. It didn't help too much that he pointed out that I was overtired and sick and probably shouldn't have been pushing myself to finish the piece. But he also came up with several creative, innovative and some downright silly suggestions for fixing the problem. He also reminded me of my expertise in textile care and repair and said he had no doubt I could fix it. That confidence in me was just what I needed. He suggested I put it away and think about it.

Of course, I couldn't. I needed to work with it a bit to see what I had. First, I carefully washed it, laying the fabric on some plastic screening and laying it in soapy water and washing it (as if it were an antique). After rinsing, again carefully, I laid it between towels to dry a bit. While it was still damp, I pressed it face down on the towel. When I was done, I could barely see the snip.

And just being pressed made the piece look better. It looked mostly like a wadded up tissue for most of the time I'd been working on it--the nature of the cheap muslin in and out of a hoop for weeks. So, now it's sitting there, slowly getting mussed again as it's moved from place to place in the house. How I fix the hole will depend on what I decide to do with the sampler in the end. But I've made my peace with it--and, really, the whole point was the learning process, not the end result.

Odds and ends

This is my first holiday gift of the season. I missed the Christmas party with my EGA chapter last week because of my cold. Before I headed home from work that night, I gave a friend who was going my presents to share and she gave hers to me. I love morning glories, so this is perfect! She lined the tin, too, so it will make a nice storage box for needlework tools.

She accompanied this with tasty treats: spicy-sweet almonds and candy coated pretzel sticks. I've been noshing on both and enjoying them. Over the past couple of weeks, my carry-along project was knit washcloths. The first one is square. The second is more of an oblong. I started out to make a hexagon but then began thinking about an oblong for back scrubbing so I made it as long as I could before running out of yarn.

I'm on a roll with these washcloths. My mom used to knit them endlessly and I can see why. I finished four rows while waiting during the mammogram process earlier this week. It kind of feels like something from nothing.

Plimoth Jadcket Unveiled Today

Today's finally the day when the reproduction jacket created by Plimoth Plantation will be revealed. I've been following this closely and it's an amazing and inspiring project. There's an article in the Boston Globe today. Beginning at 3:30 today, Chicago time, Tricia Wilson Nguyen (who shepherded this project) will be posting photos from the unveiling on her blog. I can't wait!

Winter!

Winter weather has blasted into the Chicago area. On my ride home yesterday I encountered rain, sleet, snow and a bit of tiny hail. Mostly sleet. Today is very windy and snowish (not really snowing but almost) and the temperature is dropping.

The conference is over. It went well and people were happy. Now there's the huge aftermath, clean up, pay bills, gather forms, document continuing education credits, and catch up with things set aside for the conference. And I just want to go home and sleep.

I still have my cold. It's eased quite a bit but I'm really dragging. Today I got my annual mammogram and took myself out for a Mexican breakfast afterward. Whinge over.

I'm chipping away at it all, slowly, and making some progress.

During the conference, I knit. (I'm mostly stuck at a registration table, with no place to plug in my computer, or running around checking on this and organizing that. I need something to occupy me in the odd quiet moments--something that I can pick up and put down in an instant. Simple knitting is perfect.)At the event, I worked on a new, small entrelac bag to be felted, this with the leftover yarns from the first bag I made. At home, I worked on a washcloth. Good, easy mindless knitting. I love these colors (Lily Sugar 'n' Cream).

Oh, My!

I completely forgot I had a giveaway going on that ended Monday! Not much interest in this one but that's okay. Alena said she really wanted the canvas and hers was the only comment so it works out. Alena--you didn't leave an e-mail address so please get in touch with me. Thanks!