Posted on 10/28/2005 6:50:00 PM PDT by Knitting A Conundrum
I need to learn to build furniture to hold the stoneware (Booth's semiporcelain china) I started to collect last year.
Stoneware does add up. I got interested in this brown and tan ware they made in the 60s and 70s that has a wheat design on it. Cheap stuff. They made all sorts of things in it. Before I know it, I have a china cabinet filled with teapots and mugs and creamers and whatnot.
I’ve embroidered a frock
And sewn the long seams,
While I stitched up a heartache
And mended my dreams.
I’ve patched a torn garment
And darned a big rent,
While I’ve worked in new hopes
And a sweeter content.
Why stitching brings gladness
Or ease for Life’s pain,
And healing from sadness
I cannot explain.
But for little hopes baffled
And foolish tears shed,
I’ve sought and found comfort
With needle and thread.
Anon
Neat verse. saw it on another list and thought it would be appropriate here.
You're doing great, abner. Chenille can be difficult to work with initially. I learned a new knitting stitch, the basket weave on suede thread. Ugh. I finally bought some inexpensive yarn and practiced on that. Finally got the stitch right.
Whitework, I want to learn whitework. Hemstitching by hand. I just learned how to bead this year, I'd like to continue on, learning how to bead on clothing.
I cleaned my house while watching/listening to the BYU-Air Force football game. (BYU won!!!) Now I am collecting items for my cruise, later on I will pop a DVD in and knit on the beaded purse for the cruise.
information you need for packing for a cruise:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=duct+tape+cruise+packing&btnG=Google+Search
You read my mind. I've been looking into corsetry myself.
Made two corsets - one for styles in ca. 1840, and one for ca. 1790. can't wear either of them now!
Thanks for the list Hocndoc! There were things on the list I hadn't thought about taking.
I use to travel for business, but with my new job, I haven't travelled for a couple of years. I try to travel as lightly as possible. I visited the USSR in the late eighties, and my luggage was lost. I learned that the essentials one must have is a passport, driver's license, and money. You can get by, I did it for 8 days with one outfit. That said, I don't want to take a cruise that way. :) I will check two bags, with clothes and other essentials divided between the two bags. I'll throw a change of clothes in my computer bag and carry that on board. The airlines can lose one bag, but odds are they won't lose both.
The one I am ordering for my wedding is three hundred if you can believe it. It's a replication of a victorian corset. It's all hand made except now instead of whale bone, it's steel :o)
During a good bit of the victorian period, especially the later part, it was steel, too...the whalebone had the consistancy more of some of the nylon boning and might not be firm enough for the later victorian corsets.
A properly made 18th cent set of stays would hold its shape without being on a form, it had so much boning.
Powerful stuff; Do you know who wrote it?
Nope...it was anon.
here's an Irish folk song involving a spinning wheel:
Mellow the moonlight to shine is beginning
Close by the window young Eileen is spinning
Bent o'er the fire her blind grandmother sitting
Crooning and moaning and drowsily knitting.
Merrily cheerily noiselessly whirring
Spins the wheel, rings the wheel while the foot's stirring
Sprightly and lightly and merrily ringing
Sounds the sweet voice of the young maiden singing.
Eileen, a chara, I hear someone tapping
'Tis the ivy dear mother against the glass flapping
Eileen, I surely hear somebody sighing
'Tis the sound mother dear of the autumn winds dying.
What's the noise I hear at the window I wonder?
'Tis the little birds chirping, the holly-bush under
What makes you shoving and moving your stool on
And singing all wrong the old song of the "Coolin"?
There's a form at the casement, the form of her true love
And he whispers with face bent, I'm waiting for you love
Get up from the stool, through the lattice step lightly
And we'll rove in the grove while the moon's shining brightly.
The maid shakes her head, on her lips lays her fingers
Steps up from the stool, longs to go and yet lingers
A frightened glance turns to her drowsy grandmother
Puts her foot on the stool spins the wheel with the other
Lazily, easily, now swings the wheel round
Slowly and lowly is heard now the reel's sound
Noiseless and light to the lattice above her
The maid steps, then leaps to the arms of her lover.
Slower... and slower... and slower the wheel swings
Lower... and lower... and lower the reel rings
Ere the reel and the wheel stop their ringing and moving
Through the grove the young lovers by moonlight are roving.
After reading on real corsets, it makes the ones I have from Fredericks a joke. There's nothing that matches a handmade corset, especially a period piece. I also love traditional bloomers and garters too and ladies sleeping hats.
Now, back to your regularly scheduled conversations.... :)
I've never used the duct tape, but I just figure it's a lucky charm.
The hardest thing is packing for classes. I'm taking "modular" classes for bioethics master so I fly to Chicago for a week several times a year - need 25 lbs of books this semester. I divide them between 2 suitcases and my monster tote bag.
It's good exercise.
I like the chenille for crocheting. I use a size N needle and 6 skeins for a sort of "half" throw. It's the right size to give hospital or wheel chair patients to use as a shawl or lap blanket.
But, the chenille does shed. I made myself a red shawl, wore it once with a black outfit.Then I couldn't take it off because of all the little red threads all over my turtleneck.
And now you've done it. I've gone over to the Digital Tradition lyrics site and started looking up folk songs with needlework connotations:
(I have this one on a recording, so I know how it goes.)
TO THE WEAVER"S GIN YE GO
(Robert Burns)
My heart was ance as blythe and free
As simmer days were lang;
But a bonie, westlin weaver lad
Has gart me change my sang.
CHORUS
To the weaver's gin ye go, fair maids,
To the weaver's gin ye go,
I rede you right, gang ne'er at night,
To the weaver's gin ye go.
My mither sent me to the town,
To warp a plaiden wab;
But the weary, weary warpin o't
Has gart me sigh and sab.
A bonie, westlin weaver lad
Sat working at his loom;
He took my heart, as wi' a net,
In every knot and thrum.
I sat beside my warpin-wheel,
And ay I ca'd it roun'.
But every shot and every knock,
My heart it gae a stoun.
The moon was sinking in the west,
Wi' visage pale and wan,
As my bonie, westlin weaver lad
Convoy'd me thro' the glen.
But what was said, or what was done,
Shame fa' me gin I tell;
But Oh! I fear the kintra soon
Will ken as weel's mysel!
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