Saturday, 28 November 2009

 

One aspect of the jewellery work I really enjoy is making pendants and links.  While it’s fun to play with combinations of beads strung on a wire or cord, there’s more craftsmanship in the wireworking, and of course the design possibilities expand tremendously.  Also I love the additional movement links and pendants create in a piece.

 

For the recent bazaar in Denmark, I made a series of pieces using some mother of pearl donut discs.  I made a simple necklace of six discs linked into lengths of chain.  I don’t have a photo of the finished necklace, but one photo of the making came out very well, and demonstrates the stages of making the link:

 

 

Upper left side, you see the first stage – start with a short neck for the link, make a loop by wrapping the wire around one jaw of the pliers, leave a second length for the neck, then bend the wire at a right angle for the start of the opposite loop at the end of the neck.  Slip the disc (bead, chain, what have you) onto the first loop.  Lower left you can see the second loop made and spare wire off to the left.  Upper right, a length of chain has been slipped onto that loop.  Lower right, finish the link by wrapping the wire very closely and neatly around the neck of wires between loops, and clip off the excess wire.

 

Close up of finished link. 

 

 

Very satisfying when it works out neatly.  Key to this is the quality of the wire – this is 0.5 mm gold filled, I also use sterling silver, both of which are very pliable and easily and smoothly wrapped with bare fingers.  Plated base metal wires are stiffer and sometimes bend at unexpectedly wonky angles and make lumpy wraps, so I end up having to cut off the bead and start again with a fresh pin or length of wire. 

 

I made another necklace and earrings using mother of pearl discs and the gold filled chain, with tiny pendants of faceted garnets.

 

 

For the earrings, I made a wrapped link on the disc like those above, but slipped three short lengths of chain onto the lower loop, then made tiny pendants on headpins (think a straight pin like you use for sewing, but 5 cm long so you have scope to make a pendant) to hang off the chains at staggered intervals.  Surrounding the earrings in that photo you can see the upper half of the necklace – single length of chain, mother of pearl discs either side, which would hang just below the collarbone. 

 

 

And from the discs again a wrapped link this time holding three lengths of chain, again with the pendants of faceted garnets. 

 

Another necklace and earring set, this time citrine rectangles and tawny swarovski crystals:

 

 

The necklace is simple stringing, with five pendants on head pins.

 

 

Earrings are lengths of chain suspended from the fish hooks, and tiny pendants of citrine or crystals on headpins linked onto the chain.  I love this style of earring, made several variations with different stones and colours, great fun.  As my friend said, these are earrings that want to have fun.

 

Finally, you can make an entire necklace of links, no chain, just each stone or bead on it’s own link, and as you work, you slip one link onto the next before closing the loop.

 

 

Here, semi precious stones topped and tailed with tiny quartz beads, and venetian glass beads topped and tailed with crystals, linked alternately.  The earrings were simple drops of the olive coloured stones (the name of which escapes me right now, unfortunately, and my notes and supplies are all in storage at the moment so I cannot check). 

 

Key to doing this neatly is to work in the style of a production line, and perform each step of each link at once – so when, for example, you wrap the wire around the pliers to make the loops, you do it at the same time, in the same place on the pliers so the loops are a consistent size.  Sometimes I eyeball it if I’m only making a couple links, but when I’m making a whole series of them, I wrap the pliers with a bit of tape and mark the point at which I want to make my loops, to be extra sure.  My friend’s daughter was watching me one day and asked why my pliers had a bandaid on them!!

 

 

Bottom right the blue handled pliers have tape on the left jaw.  The black handled pair to the left are finer nosed – you can see both pair have conical jaws, hence the concern about wrapping the wire around the same point on the jaw for a consistently sized loops on all similar links. 

Tuesday, 10 November 2009

 

Another one of my design pastimes the past couple years has been jewellery making.  My things have been admired and I have given or sold a few things to friends, all of whom have encouraged me to pursue this as a more commercial venture.

 

Well… I finally have screwed up my courage and am trying it – Pam, my friend here in Denmark, has been tied in to various organisations over the years and geographies which run a variety of bazaars, and she has helped me secure a table at a holiday bazaar here in Denmark this weekend.  Details of the bazaar are:

 

American Women's Club Holiday Bazaar

Saturday, Nov. 14th 10:00-3:00 and

Sunday, Nov.15th  11:00-2:00

at Copenhagen International School (CIS)

22 Hellerupvej, 2900 Hellerup

 

 

On the chance that this would work out, I had shipped ahead to Pam all my jewellery making supplies and tools, and the past week or so I have been very busy, pricing up some existing pieces and making new ones.  Just for fun, here’s a bit about one work in progress.

 

First, the workspace:

 

 

My room here is in the basement, and looks out across their back lawn – very lush green moss in this damp climate.  Notice all the books on Portuguese and Portugal, which I’ve been working through when not engaged in jewellery making.  Spread out, work in progress is the first piece for a triple strand necklace of a combination of champagne coloured freshwater pearls and goldstone beads – a warm cinnamonny coloured stone with golden flecks in it, which I love.  I played with a variety of necklace design ideas and various combinations of the pearls with goldstones, citrines, other coloured pearls or stones, and finally settled on this concept after about an hour of playing around, holding various strands together in and out of natural light.  A half dozen sorts of pliers and cutters are to hand, and a clock for timing myself as I work. 

 

 

All three strands strung and laid out to double check – I wanted to have a slightly descending line from one strand to the next in the change from goldstone to pearl, and I wanted to be sure the staggering of lengths between strands was proportionate and attractive.  It can be really tricky… one thing to be sure of is laying out the strands as if around a neck – in a circle – not just holding them up in mid air so they hang down vertically.  I try to hold them around my neck, but with beads on unfinished strands I’m always afraid of one end dropping and the beads scattering.  After laying out this necklace, I adjusted the length of the lower strand by removing two pearls which you see set aside.  I work on an old towelling bathmat, to prevent beads and things rolling away.

 

Finished necklace:

 

 

Looks very dirty brown on the white ground.

 

 

Looks better, but a bit orangey on the black knitted jumper wrapped around a pillow. 

 

Pam, true daughter of an American marketing guru of the 70’s and 80’s, has been helping me immensely with ideas for display and promotion for this event, as well as how to find other venues after this bazaar is over and I settle in Portugal (where she lived for two years before coming to Denmark this summer).  We spent the afternoon playing with display concepts and laying out the jewellery for photography. 

 

We settled on – what else? – a wine theme for some of the display props.

 

 

Also a wonderful layered box which makes a handsome display:

 

 

Another of Pam’s ideas was to wrap a shirt around a pillow, which I think works brilliantly.  I even had a nearly flesh coloured t-shirt to tuck into the neckline.

 

 

That’s one of my favourites – slabs of amazonite, a lovely sea green stone, with multiple strands of silver plated chain between stones, and one of those strands has a murano glass bead station, black with swirls of sea greens and pale pink.

 

I also finally got my website sort of up and running, and posted an announcement of the bazaar and a few photos of finished items.  The software to create the site is pretty rudimentary, and the resulting web page is visibly amateur in Explorer, where it at least displays correctly, and in Mozilla Firefox it looks awfully amateur – a lot of the alignment is lost so things are left aligned that should be centred, etc.  Take a look at www.lucinthiadesigns.co.uk.

 

Wish me luck – I hope to sell enough not only to cover the entry fee to the bazaar which admittedly was not high, but to pay for at least one week, if not two, of intensive Portuguese lessons when I get to Oporto.

 

This trip has not been ALL about wine… I have found time to indulge the other interests, notably fashion and textiles. 

 

Visited a couple exhibits, the first one in Paris, at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs – of the work of Madeline Vionnet.  She is known as the creator of the bias cut – not quite true, but she certainly was the one who first really explored its possibilities, and in the event scandalised the world with her sinuous frocks in the late 1920’s and into the 30’s – no undergarments permissable or possible.  But she was fascinated with the structures and volumes and geometry of clothing, so there are other garments more structured, cut on the straight grain, etc.  One dress is made of squares – two each front and back.  Imagine two squares set on point, and overlapping – the top two points are the shoulders, and the dress hangs from there.  Other garments played with circles and half circles on rectangles to create amazing drapery – one thing the exhibit did which was terrific, was to provide little videos alongside some of these garments which demonstrated how the garment was made – e.g. the plain flat pieces as they were cut from the two dimensional fabric, then animated to show the pieces coming together in three dimensions to wrap the body, where the seams come together, and how the garment falls when worn.  Fascinating.

 

The exhibit shows alongside the frocks some photos from the time they were made – generally of the house models wearing the garments.  If you think the bias cut is only for the sylph like, think again.  These models were substantial creatures, and many of the dresses were really forgiving and flattering.

 

The other exhibit was in Lyon, at the Musee des Tissus.  Lyon was the heart of the french silk weaving industry for centuries, so there is quite a detailed explanation of how silk is derived from the cocoons, about all the different weaves, innovations, etc.  Once you get through all that, you get to see the results – some fabulous heavy silks, mostly for decoration – they had panels of fabrics that were used to line walls or make the bed hangings for Marie Antoinette, Josephine, and Catherine the Great of Russia, as well as assorted lesser marquises etc.  Extraordinarily complex patterns of floral wreaths and bouquets, with or without animals and birds, some amazing partridges and pheasants, the details and shading of the design just mind boggling – and all by weaving, not printing. 

 

The museum also had some textiles from Japan (silks) and India (18^th and 19^th century cottons and cashmere shawls) and from the Ottoman Empire (silks).  Also some really ancient bits and pieces which I have to say didn’t do much for me – to see a dirty brown ragged scrap from the 3^rd century BC from some tomb … eh.  After all the other wonders, just didn’t do it for me.

 

But… upstairs, they had a special exhibit of the work of a designer named Franck Sorbier, active in Paris since the 80’s and has been doing couture as well for the past few years.  I was not familiar with him – checked later and his shows are not listed in the catwalk archives on Vogue or Elle websites, so he clearly doesn’t get the mainstream press.  The exhibit was arranged by colours and moods, and the design of the exhibit itself was really atmospheric – excellent lighting shows, music, everything to set the mood.  The first room was all black – walls, garments, mannequins – and the lighting shifted to highlight different garments at different times, which was occasionally annoying, but you can’t have strong light on textiles or they degrade, but you wanted some light to see details, so this actually was good.  Other rooms were red, blues and purples, whites, black and white, metallics, neutral or natural tones and rainbow.

 

Extraordinary manipulation of textiles – tulle crushed and ruched and then randomly machine stitched, like a quilt, to hold the ruching into a three dimensional garment shape – very shapely basques or evening frocks.  Many garments were a melange of laces cut and sewn into a patchwork, and again the shaping of the garment was the result of the coming together of the differently shaped pieces of lace.  He had one evening coat which was made entirely of grosgrain ribbon – layers and layers of it, sometimes sewn edge to edge to create a flat fabric, in other areas looped up to make a hooked rug kind of effect, or pleated or gathered on one edge, all different textures created from manipulating the ribbon.  There was also an extraodinary black satin “le smoking” jacket, beautifully beaded.

 

In the neutral toned room there were dresses and bodices of macrame raffia, and one wonderful jacket of a linen, covered with a macrame fishnet, then beaded – but the “beads” were all tiny shells sewn in clusters, as if caught in the net.  Fabulous.  In the rainbow room there was another macrame bustier, made from brightly coloured plastic tubing, the sort of thing that might be used to cover wires.  Very rasta.  Very fabulous.

 

At the end of the exhibit you were in an immense stairwell – and they had a couple benches and you could sit and watch twenty years of shows projected onto the wall – which I did, for two hours or more.  It was a rainy day, and what better way to spend it?  His designs can be a bit bizarre, but there are also some extraodinary and wearable things – think Thierry Mugler, but not quite so heavy metal.

 

Sadly, photography was not permitted in either of these exhibits, and I cannot find downloadable images.  I couldn’t even get postcards of any of these things, for pete’s sake! 

 

You can get some idea from the following websites:

 

http://www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr/francais/accueil-292/bandeau-487/francais/mode-et-textile/expositions-70/actuellement-447/madeleine-vionnet-puriste-de-la/

 

http://www.francksorbier.com/  his website with a slightly bizarre film of the current collection, also if you click on newsletter you’ll see the notice of the exhibit in Lyon and a little about it

 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x88rqr_defile-haute-couture-ete-2009-franc_creation  has a video of the current collection which is also interesting… but you see the clothes better!

 

 

Meanwhile… I am near broke and have to carry my entire household on my back which trust me is no joke… but I still indulged myself in two things:

 

First was cheap and cheerful pashmina from a shop called Diwali in Paris, I just loved the wonderful pink and orange tones set off with the cool sky blue and cool olives; one side striped, the other (right hand side), the photograph doesn’t show well, but it’s actually a rather cool olive ground with the pattern in the pinks and other vivid colours brought up from the other side:

 

 

 

The other more serious indulgence, madness really when I think the money could have paid for lodgings for almost a week or food for a couple weeks… never mind, some things are more important.  In Lyons I bought another shawl, a beautiful cut velvet on chiffon – this is a technique that was created by the weavers of Lyon, and I did visit one atelier where they paint the designs by hand – the scarf square was stretched in a frame and the motifs painted by hand with a sharp dabbing motion, rather like stencilling.

 

Couldn’t decide between this one in a deep cranberry red, the same in midnight blue or another rmore pashmina like shawl in a lilac colour.  The man in the shop offered his advice, that the red was the most flattering to my colouring.  Never argue with a handsome frenchman!  And he was right, too.  The photo doesn’t quite do justice to the colour, alas, but you get the idea – the other half off stage to the left is the mirror image of this half, and the fringe is silk.  God knows when or if I will have occasion to wear it, but I just had to have it.  Nice memento of a really lovely four day weekend in Lyon.  Recommend the town highly for a visit.

 

 

I bought this from a little Soierie St. Georges in Vieille Lyon, the left bank of the Saone, the part of the town that is a Unesco protected heritage area.  Absolutely beautiful, wonderful area to wander.  When he wrapped up my package, this is what I went home with:

 

 

That loop of gold ribbon – at the top above the card it’s stuffed with something white – it’s a silk cocoon.  I hated to have to throw away all the lovely packaging, but there are limits to how much I can carry… and wasn’t sure if there were worms that might yet come alive inside my backpack!

Thursday, 09 July 2009

 

Last weekend, whilst in Paris I visited the Musée des Arts Decoratifs to see the Madeleine Vionnet exhibit – well worth visiting – and then to feast my eyes again at their jewellery collection, which includes some wonderful hairpins and combs. 

 

As hoped, I found out a little bit about the man I think may have made the two staghorn items mentioned and photographed in my prior entry, Lucien Gaillard (1861-1942, Paris).  He began in his father’s atelier specialising in engraving on metals, but left that in 1892.  He was fascinated with the art of Japan – which was newly discovered in the late 19^th century, Japonisme was in vogue both in England and in France – and that guided his choice of materials and techniques thereafter.  They had a wonderful two prong hairpin of his with two staghorn sycamore seed pods.  Sadly, photography is forbidden, and they had no postcards, nothing I could take with me. 

 

There were also some extraordinary Lalique items in the collection there, pins and combs as well as jewellery with fantastic flowers and insects and sometimes art nouveau nudes, in gold, enamel, mother of pearl, all kinds of glass and precious and semi precious stones, very often a mixture of media.  I had seen many of his things, jewellery and hair ornaments, at the Gulbankian museum in Lisbon – also an extraordinary collection well worth visiting – and while I admire them as beautiful objects, many of them are slightly macabre in their imagery.  You wonder about the mind of the artist sometimes…

 

The Marais is one of my favourite bits of Paris – if you cross to the right bank from the Isle St. Louis, to the Hotel de Ville, you’re there – and there are a number of shops which feature goods imported from Japan.  In the past I’ve bought some wonderful fabrics, and admired lots of pottery I couldn’t possibly carry with me, but never found a hairpin I liked or worked well in my hair, and the selection was very limited.

 

This time, however… I was spoiled for choice at a tiny shop called Kazé at 11 Rue François Miron [they have another shop in the 1^st arondissement, at 30 Rue St. Roch, must visit another time].  First to catch my eye were two beautiful stick pins of horn, one black the other a brownish grey shaded to black on one side, both beautifully carved into ginko leaves at the decorative end.  There were some very frilly pretty cute sticks with pastel tulle and flowers and ribbons, very Harajuku girl, but best of all were some stunning painted and lacquered wooden pins.  I had a hard time deciding, and one of the ones I left behind, painted with a very lovely crane, still haunts me, but this is the one I could ill afford, but bought anyway.  Gold lacquer crescent moon, and gold and pearly white cherry blossoms.  Some things are more important than food or lodgings.  On the back is painted a very simple stylised motif of a few maple leaves in gold.

 

 

Just re-reading the quilting and sewing blogs, about the quilt/portiere I wanted for the front door for next winter, and the suit I imagined I would need for interviewing. Well, after all, not… Working at the International Wine Challenge and also taking the Wine and Spirits Education Trust Advanced Certificate course (which I passed, whew! Guess that morning’s tequila tasting didn’t mess me up as badly as I feared!) combined to convince me I don’t want to work in a wine shop or for an importer or in another office ever again – I want to return to the vinyards, and work for a wine maker, learning the actual viticulture and vinification.

 

And the connection with hairpins is…? 

 

I decided to sell my house and most of my worldly goods – but NOT the hairpins – and put all the remaining possessions – including the hairpins – into storage whilst I live out of a backpack for the coming year probably, working in the vinyards of France and perhaps Portugal.  I photographed all of them for an inventory and since I have recently been asked several times where did you get that beautiful comb, or how do you put your hair up like that… etc… a blog seemed the answer.

 

So… here goes.  A bit about my hair generally, and then on to styling matters and the hairpin and comb collection.

 

About my hair

 

First, understand my hair is now down to the end of my tail bone – from the crown of my head it measures 36 inches (90 cm).   To answer the usual questions – yes I have had it short – there was a cut and perm in 1984 which was so hideously disastrous I called in sick to work for three days till I could get it all cut off, leaving my hair about one inch long.  There was also an Addicted to Love / Annie Lennox look in the early 90’s, very short and slicked back.  But otherwise it has mostly been long – somewhere between shoulders and hip, usually around waist length.  No, I have never coloured it, and no, I don’t use any special products – I wash it with a fairly natural shampoo and then condition with a blend of jojoba, argan and aromatherapy essential oils, which I make myself.  I never use a blow dryer or any implement except a very wide toothed comb (never a brush).  At one point I had not cut it for about three years and when I went for a trim the stylist was astonished at how good condition my hair was in – he says he never sees hair like that except on very small children. 

 

As for the length, that is genetically determined – not how long it can get, but for how many years a strand of hair remains in the scalp before the follicle spits it out and starts growing a new one.  The length of that cycle is what is genetic, and apparently it is typically 3 years, 6 years or indeterminate – and it’s the latter cycle that can let people grow their hair very long, if they take care not to damage it.  My grandfather’s sister (Scottish side of the family) had hair longer than she was tall, and she was about my size.  I have seen a photo of her (probably circa 1920) standing on the top step of the porch and rather coyly looking over her shoulder at the camera, and her hair down, the tail end of it coiled on the step below where she was standing.   Sadly, the picture is now lost.

 

The other usual question is how fast does it grow?  Again, it depends…  all being well, one half to three quarters of an inch per month is probably normal.  But… general health counts for a lot – at one time I was badly stressed out by a combination of work and family matters and became severely anaemic, so not only did my hair stop growing, but I lost quite a lot of it, it was tangibly thinner.  It took a year or two of treatments with a trichologist and iron, zinc and l-lysine supplements to bring it back to normal, though it still isn’t as thick as it used to be.  Scalp massage is good for encouraging health and growth, also omega 3-6-9 supplements are good for overall condition of hair, skin and nails.

 

The other thing which many people scoff at, but I have satisfied myself is valid – is cutting your hair with the cycle of the moon.  A friend who was half Cherokee half Choctaw told me about this way back in the 80’s – being a man and not wanting his hair to grow quickly because he didn’t want to be cutting it all the time, he cut it on the descending moon – meaning, a period when the moon is progressively lower above the horizon from night to night.  I asked if the inverse were true – cut on a rising moon it would grow rapidly – and he said yes.  So, we figured out a good day to cut my hair, and I told my stylist what I was up to.  He was very skeptical, but in the interest of science he cut my hair on the appointed day and then measured it – it was waist length at that point.  Six months later I went to him to have it re-measured – it had grown almost nine inches, it was down to my hip – so that would be about one and a half inches per month, or double the usual rate. 

 

So, when people scoff at gardening by the moon, or biodynamic viticulture, I only say I have proven to myself what working with the moon can do, and I am satisfied.  I’ve also tasted biodynamic wines and those also are very satisfying!  So… there you go.

 

Finally, read Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ Of Love and Other Demons… whether his account of his inspiration for the story is true or not, I love the image… of opening the tomb of a girl whose long copper hair spilled out of the vault, and the priest at the exhumation commenting the length was about right for three centuries’ continued growth…

 

Styling and The Collection Part One:  The Cinnamon Bun

 

As for putting up my hair:  the usual solution is to grab it in a high ponytail, then twist the hair till it begins to coil around on itself, and keep twisting till it’s all wound up and then tuck in the ends – your basic cinnamon bun Madame Librarian look.  The hair is held with three big straight pins which I try to conceal, and then I often set in a comb or pin so the decorative back sits above the bun, like this:

 

 

That particular pin is a real beauty, an arc of steel with facetted steel crystal-cut beads riveted on – the work is beautiful – and the arc is hinged onto a steel pin.  Likely early Victorian, maybe even Georgian, the work is so fine.  I have two other pieces made in this way, one a flat arc of steel in a grecian key pattern, which is hinged onto a tortoisehell comb, the other a pretty camellia like flower also hinged onto a tortoiseshell two prong pin:

 

 

Some other lovely combs to set this way above the bun include these two staghorn pieces.  These are Art Nouveau, so fourth quarter of the 19^th century, very likely French.  The natural colouring and slightly rough texture of the staghorn is incorporated to the design, look at the “branch” on which the moth is resting on the comb, or the bodies of the dragonflies.  The wings of all of these have been treated with an acid which creates a slight iridescence – not so visible in the photo, but very pretty and subtle in life.  I am told there was a Frenchman named Gaillard who made these, but he did not sign his work in any way, alas, and of course there were imitators.  When I visited the Musee Les Arts Decoratifs a year ago I found their jewellery hall had some wonderful similar pieces on display.  Perhaps when my french is better I could try visiting them, perhaps their curators could look at these and be able to tell me more.

 

 

Another favourite for use this way is a tortoiseshell comb with a Grindling Gibbons like floral garland in three shades of gold affixed to the back, beautifully detailed and delicate.  I wear this one a lot when tarted up for wine tasting dinners or other posh events.

 

 

 

Another way of doing  the cinnamon bun is to wind it only part way and leave a tail hanging down, or off to one side – this relieves some of the weight of the bun so it is not pulling so heavily from the front hairline.  I’m afraid whilst doing these photos I was in a bit of a rush, so didn’t comb out the tail to hang nicely, it’s just tangled and still over my shoulder where I dropped it when I stopped twisting.  Another way of adorning the bun is with a decorative pin skewered in off centre, or sometimes two pins.  This photo is of a pin with a wonderful flower – not sure if it’s real garnets or (more likely) just some kind of glass or paste – but the flower is mounted on a tight wire corkscrew which is attached to a two prong pin.  The corkscrew is slightly bent, so the flower leans forward rather than facing upward, and it also creates the most wonderful tremblant effect.  A friend of mine gave this to me, she found it whilst living in Portugal, though there is no knowing make or provenance.  Wonderful thing.

 

 

 

Some more good pins to use this way, all tortoiseshell, love the dragon in the centre, and the green and crystal pave diamante on the far right I use quite a lot.  The blue rabbit ear one is less successful – it really does look a bit too Bugs Bunny, but I love the decorative work.  All but the green and diamante have a combination of incised patterning, gilt paint and diamante to create the designs.  The green is just pave paste crystals.  These are probably more or less first quarter of the 20^th century.

 

 

 

More pins, good to skewer the bun and really hold it pretty well.  All of these are lovely pieces of beautiful tortoiseshell, with 18 ct gold pique work – tiny nailheads of gold to create the patterns.  Could be anytime, mid to late Victorian or Edwardian, these were pretty common.

 

 

 

 

Styling and The Collection Part Two:  French Twist

 

Another way of coping with the hair is a french twist or french pleat.  Now, most beauty books tell you to create this look you have to use a few dozen kerby grips set vertically up the back of your head to create a base, then hold your hair out to the side and try to roll it up like a jelly roll, then use a few dozen more pins to secure it and also hold the top and bottom edges of the jelly roll so the hair doesn’t unravel, and a half can of hairspray to finish it off.

 

All of which is wholly unnecessary.  Give me a long decorative pin and two of my three-and-a-half inch long plain pins, and I’m sorted.  And I have never used hairspray in my life.

 

Here’s how:  grab your hair in a low pony tail, right above the nape of your neck, near the hairline.  Being right handed, I grab the base in my right hand, my thumb and first finger around it, and begin to gently twist and pull simultaneously – what you want to accomplish is to wrap the hair closest to the scalp around the tail end, which is slowly being drawn up through the centre of the roll.  Like this:

 

 

Then, finally like this – my hair being so long, I leave a tail.  If you hair is anywhere between shoulders and mid-back / bra strap length, you can wrap this and all the ends will be tucked in, inside the roll.  Between bra strap and waist it can be awkward – ends too long to get concealed easily, but not long enough to make a tail that looks deliberate. 

 

 

Now, secure with a fairly long decorative pin (I need a good 4 inches long to hold mine now) skewered through the loop where you held the hair as you were twisting – this keeps the loop from untwisting.  I usually have to use two more plain pins hidden behind the decorative one to help hold this, as the weight pulling forward is considerable.  It helps to cross them slightly, and perhaps catch them across the the legs of the decorative pin.  Here’s the green and clear diamante in action – this one is very good for holding my hair in this arrangement

 

 

 

Some more good pins for this kind of thing, from left to right, a black celluloid pin, probably 1920’s, set with paste diamante across the bar (this one holds really well by itself, no other pins required); upside down tucked into that is a lovely tortoiseshell one, wonderful markings and a very elegant twist to the top of it; centre is tortoiseshell with inlaid gold with a tiny (real) turqoise bead set in the centre, next along a great hefty piece of square cut tortoiseshell with a fabulous paste ornament, and the bottom right stick pin is a very delicate piece of tortoiseshell, a slightly pale brown / grey toned shell, cut a little crudely in a fan – the cutouts aren’t perfect, but it is so delicate, the fan is no thicker than eggshell. 

 

 

 

You could also secure this type of twist with long plain pins at the top, to secure the twist loop invisibly, and then use a wide comb along the left edge, skewering the roll and sinking into the hair underneath along the scalp.  The staghorn comb above, with the moth on the branch works well this way, but the photo here shows it with a fabulous black wooden comb with wonderful mother of pearl like carved flowers:

 

 

 

Close up of that comb, so pretty:

 

 

Another way of finishing off this sort of look is instead of leaving the tail hanging down, bring it up along the left side, then drop it behind the the top of the roll so it hangs down the right.  See Michelle Yeoh in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon – and in some of the scenes she has a very long thin pin which is skewering the roll from left to right. 

 

Lastly:  Two Beauties and An Oddity

 

One of my most recent acquisitions, which I have not yet had occasion to wear, is the most fabulous aigrette – a tortoiseshell hair pin with a diamante star hinged onto the top, and a plume of egret feathers.  I would set this skew whiff through a cinnamon bun, like the garnet pin photographed above.

 

 

This next is good fun – a comb with an amazing design of plaited wire coiled in loops, set with beads, and wonderful details in the bead caps and tiny pendants and swagged chains. When I bought it, it had a few glass beads that were mostly broken, missing or just a bit tatty, with the finish peeling off.  But – it was Georgian, and had great potential.  Mind you, it was probably cheap and cheerful Georgian, not high end – it’s only a slightly brassy gold coloured base metal – fans of Georgette Heyer think Pantheon Bazaar, not Rundell and Bridge.

 

When I looked at it more carefully I could see that the beads had been bodged about before – there were some wires that clearly were original but had been inexplicably clipped off – the soddering matched the comb – and other bits clearly later – didn’t match in colour or weight and were twisted in, not soddered.  I figured since clearly a few people before me had had a go at this thing, and it was so tatty as was, it would not be an act of vandalism to try to re-make it myself.  I should say that amongst other things, I do make some jewellery, just beading and wire work, but the skills were sufficient to give me confidence to try this.

 

Decided on carnelian as a good contrast to both the yellow gold colour of the comb and the colour of my hair, and the result was this:

 

 

Love it. 

 

Finally, an oddity:  the first comb I bought in England was… this thing. 

 

 

When I saw it in a vintage clothing shop in Bath I asked the woman what it was, how it worked.  She allowed as how she didn’t have any idea.  I asked if she would mind if I tried playing with it, and she graciously said, feel free… as soon as I had it in one hand and my hair in the other, it became intuitively obvious how it had to work – you sink the comb into some kind of twist or knot to secure it, then you wrap your hair around it, spiralling so it settles into the spaces between the snaking tortoiseshell.  Like this:

 

First, sink the comb into a twist of hair – my hair is too thick to all fit through the snake, so I pulled up a half-ponytail, gave it a twist, and set the comb into that.

 

 

Next, start spiralling your hair around the bends of the snake, here from right to left:

 

 

Then again, left to right:

 

 

 

And fait accompli, you have this ripple of hair through the snake of tortoiseshell.  Shame I goofed and missed the top two wraps, but you get the idea.  Fascinating.

 

 

 

 

Credits

 

All credit must go to my main sources for these lovely things the past five or ten years in London, who kindly kept me in mind and let me know when they had interesting things and then patiently waited while I dithered and played with them in my hair before making up mind and draining my bank account: 

 

Peter and Naneen Brooks, also their son, Gareth Brooks, all at Alfie’s Antiques Market, Church Street, off the Edgeware Road, ground floor around the back.  Beautiful antique and vintage jewellery, I’ve bought some exquisite necklaces from them, as well as many of my combs and pins. 

 

Gillian Horsup – in the Mews at Greys Antiques Market, downstairs, all the way to the back on the right.  Wonderful collection of jewellery, compacts, sunglasses, you name it, whatever takes her fancy, from Georgian to 70’s, though her special weakness seems to be art deco. 

 

Finally, huge thanks to Leslie Verrinder, of TinTin Collectibles, also at Alfie’s Antiques Market, just inside the first door as you approach from Edgeware Road.  He has fabulous clothing and accessories (some visible in the background of the hair shots) and mountains of luggage, mostly early 20^th century, though check out the Mary Quant tights, and you should have seen Maggie Thatcher’s old tweed suit!  Not only did he give me first pick on a collection of combs which he bought, not only is he a brilliant gossip and bottomlessly knowledgeable about vintage clothing and accessories, but he played David Hemmings to my rather feeble and staid Veruschka to give us the in-hair photos above. Thank you, Leslie!!

 

Friday, 13 February 2009

 

Worked on the quilt a while, have made good progress, but living as I am in hopes of getting an interview for a job, thought I would re-line a favourite old suit, the lining of which I always hated.  When the interviewer asks what you do in your spare time, and I tell them I design and make my own clothes I like to be able to say, this suit I am wearing, for instance … it never fails to impress. 

 

I made the suit in a mad rush in 2000 for an interview with a consulting firm, and the only material I had handy suitable for lining use was a plain vanilla acetate, so I used it for expediency’s sake.  I got the job, and the suit has always been a favourite, and much admired since.  I’ve even been stopped in Charing Cross by a stranger to tell me how fabulous it looked.  The jacket is cut very slender (about a half stone more slender than me, I fear!), with a shirt-style collar on a stand, and the sleeves are cut in one with the jacket fronts and backs, again quite slender and fitted, with a diamond shaped gusset under the arm so you can actually move.  The fabric is an oatmeal and black marled wool crepe, the collar of a solid black wool crepe, and the buttons are marvellous jet black cut glass.  All of which was rather let down by the lining, I always thought.  Add to that the facts that the suit was now 9 years old, that acetate creates ghastly static in my now hip-long hair, and that madly printed linings have become a sort of trademark of mine, and it was time to re-line.

 

Bought a fabulous remnant of silk with a large scale paisley print in rich pink, taupe, black, ivory, etc. etc. from Joel and Sons (Church Street off the Edgeware Road – fabric nirvana), and got to work.  Had good fun tinkering with lining up the pieces and  matching the patterns at seams, centring motifs, etc.  Very chuffed with the results for the jacket:

 

 

 

You see the mitring and mirror-imaging from the centre back seam. 

 

The skirt is a straight pencil skirt, so the lining was cut in a single piece, with darts over the hips rather than seams, and a single seam down the centre back.  Because of the scale and repeat of the print and size of the piece of fabric remaining after cutting the jacket lining, I had no choice but to cut it centred on the fabric – fine, because that puts major motifs at centre front, and again allows for perfect mitring and mirror imaging at centre back.  Shame about the arrangement of paisleys, though!!!

 

 

Very glad this is a lining and those twin brown paisleys which merge together soooooooo attractively (!) won’t be seen twitching about over my haunches as I stride  down the streets of London!    In the photo above the lining was assembled but not yet sewn into the skirt, so the lower part of the seam is not yet stitched / mitred – it will be folded back around the vent in the skirt.  Note that the first photo gives a truer sense of the colours, the skirt photo is a bit dark and yellowey looking, at least on my computer.

 

As it happened, I just got the current job in question without an in-person interview, so all this was for naught, but the job is a short term one, working at the International Wine Challenge in April, so I may yet have need for this, interviewing for a permanent job somewhere, some day…

 

Must get back to the quilt now.  Should have it done in time for the balmy spring weather!  Oh well, it will be done, and a good comforter for curling up for a kip, and ready to go on a curtain rod behind the kitchen door next winter, or during any freak snow storms this summer.

 

From left to right in the photo below, my little gilt stork scissors, which I keep just for quilting, very fine, narrow, wicked sharp blades and points!  Then my thimble collection, and behind them at the left end is my thimble cage – a pendant in which you can tuck your thimble when it’s not on your finger, to keep it handy.  I always wear this when I am doing any sewing of any kind – it’s kind of a ritual, when I put this on, it means I’m getting down to business now.  Finally a packet of size 10 betweens, which I’ve had probably 30 years or more, the price tag is from the shop in Westport, Connecticut where I bought most of my fabrics until I left for university at 18.  Only 4 left out of a packet of 20.

 

The thimbles, from left to right:

 

1. A pewter thimble in the shape of the Liberty Bell.  Story here is that a high school boyfriend agreed to take me to my senior prom, and then at the last minute dumped me to attend – get ready for it – a Boy Scout Jamboree in Philadelphia.  By way of amends, he brought me the thimble from Philly.  I had never used one before, but this gift made me finally learn.  I’ve forgotten how many years it took, I think about ten, but I used it so much the pewter actually wore away and the needle began to pierce the end of it – if you hold it up to the light you can see the holes. 
2. Very small (and very tarnished!) silver thimble, American, Priscilla brand.  I think my grandmother gave me this one. 
3. Another American silver thimble, with a very pretty deeply incised pattern, rather like oriental paintings of clouds, which holds the needle well.  I bought this when the pewter one gave out, at a wonderful quilt shop in Newport, Rhode Island.  This is the one I used for all my sewing for close to 20 years, until I bought the fifth one.  I use it now for my patchwork and quilting.
4. A silver thimble from Buenos Aires.  In 1998 I was in Buenos Aires two or three times on business, and bought this for a memento.  Loved the city.  This I found in a little shop in San Telmo, which is the old part of the city – the heart of the tango culture.  [If you’ve ever seen the movie Moulin Rouge, there is that wonderful brutal tango to “Roxanne”, which opens with one male dancer, the narcoleptic Argentinian, stalking out into the middle of the floor growling, “there is a dance, in the brothels of Buenos Aires…”  That is San Telmo he’s referring to.]  I use this one when I am sewing very heavy fabrics, notably patching denim jeans (which I have made into something of an art form, ever since high school – must write about that some time!)
5. A British silver thimble, Dorcas, which I bought from a little antiquey junquey gifte shoppe here in Paddock Wood three or four years ago.  It was run by a wonderful woman who used to deal in antique clothing up in London.  When her husband retired they moved to Paddock Wood and she opened this shop, where I bought some wonderful antique tortoiseshell combs dirt cheap, this thimble, and also some old laces, antique lace collars, etc.  I remember sitting and chatting with her for some hours one day, she told me she used to supply a lot of costumes for period movies and dramas, I remember her telling me very proudly how she had supplied all the period knickers and undergarments for some major BBC production of Dickens!    Sadly her shop has gone the way of the fruiterer and fishmonger… death of a village high street.  There was a little tea shop there briefly, then they went out of business and it’s empty now.  Anyway, this is the thimble I use now for all my dressmaking.

 

 

 

I did turn the quilt around so the edge was at the top of the frame, and the rolled portion at the bottom, so I could quilt top to bottom, towards myself.  I also found it was more comfortable to move the whole thing a couple notches up the frame, so I wasn’t so very bent over to sew. 

 

Friday night whilst I was getting the quilt in the frame I was also doing laundry, and when I was through with the quilt for the night, I went to re-make the bed, and one of the pillowcases split.  It’s only four or five years old, I’m annoyed it’s worn through already.  On the other hand, Saturday morning I tore it up for the rag bag and found it gave me strips  the right length for pinning to the left and right edges of the quilt and tensioning them out, by wrapping the strips around the side frames and pinning them again to the quilt edge.  It is definitely easier to quilt with the quilt held taught in every direction.  You can see I have chalked lines on the deep red ottoman to more or less line up with alternate cranberry stripes in the tweed, for the vertical lines of quilting. 

 

 

 

You can just about see my quilting here in the next photo, I tried to rub off the chalk once I’d sewn.  Very hard to get even stitches, as the weft (crosswise) threads of this ottoman are a bit nubbly.  I kept taking out and re-sewing the first line, and finally just accepted this fact and carried on.  The stitches are also not nearly as short and fine as I can do in cotton, but then this is quite thick wool.  I did crawl underneath the frame with a torch and look at the stitching on the underside, and it isn’t very bad, all things considered.  At least all my stitches are getting through to the back.  And I have the puncture wounds on my left first finger tip to prove it!  On my computer this photo makes the fabric look a bit orangey red – it is in fact the deep dark blue-black -red colour of a ripe cranberry.

 

 

 

I’ve carried on quilting – the ottoman was done on Saturday, and today, Sunday 25^th, I’ve begun quilting the tweed section.  After all I have decided to quilt both the alternate cranberry stripes vertically, and alternate pine green stripes horizontally, which will give a grid of quilting roughly 3.5 inches square.  Because I am sewing with the grain and on a thick wool tweed with matching cranberry or pine thread, the stitches are barely visible.  Again crawled under the frame to look at the back, to reassure myself I really was getting some quilting done!

 

Working so closely to quilt, I can fully appreciate the subtlety and complexity of the tweed – from a distance you basically see slatey blue grey and the cranberry verticals.  Closer to, you realise there are the pine green horizontals, a couple different shades of blue and grey going on, but also a wonderful granite pink in the weft – if you look at the second to last photo again, the second broad bar of the plaid, below the first stripe of pine green, the weft is mostly this stoney pink, though in the photo it reads as just pale grey-blue.  I almost regret having used the fabric for this, but I have so much, far too much, fabric stockpiled, and there are other tweeds I would use sooner for jackets, hence the decision to use this one. 

 

One of the rather magical things about quilts is the memories associated with the fabrics used.  I already mentioned the ottoman as left over from a suit dating from my prior life in the trading rooms of Wall Street in the early 80’s.  The story behind the tweed is this:  when I came to London in January of 1997 to look for a job, I found my job within a few days and then had a week in which to simply look around and get to know my new city.  I wandered into one of those touristy shops on Regent Street that sell cashmere jumpers, Barbours, sporrans and jacket and suit lengths of tweed.  That’s where I bought this, quite inexpensively (my first experience of the famed January sales!!).  I carried it back to Boston, then packed it up and it came back home to England with me a few months later – I entered the country on the morning of 11^th March 1997, to live and work and settle here for good. 

 

I lived in a very crummy B&B at the back of Leicester Square (£50 a night and a whole family of mice in the mattress at no extra cost!  And people thought I would be lonely here!) for 2 or 3 weeks till I found and moved into a house in Eltham in early April.  My things arrived from the States in early May – I remember my moving day was election day, the day Tony Blair first became prime minister.  It was also incredibly hot, and though I plied the movers with water and orange juice, they were disgusted I didn’t yet have a kettle or tea.  I learned my lesson and since then practically the first words I say to anyone who crosses my threshold – friend, plumber, builder, mover – are “cuppa tcha, luv?”  Tellingly, the only furniture items I brought over from the States were my sewing table and chair, and my great grandmother’s rocker.  The rest of my shipment was mostly books, fabric, yarn, all my needlework accoutrements, and my kitchen things.

 

Anyway… I shall be quilting madly for the next few days – howling winds today and the draught from the kitchen door across to where I was sitting at the quilt in the dining room very motivating!

 

Friday, 23 January, 2009

 

I recently began work on a (sort of) quilt and decided to use my great grandmother’s quilting frames to do the quilting.  When I pulled out the frames it occurred to me various friends and relations might be interested in the project, either from a craft or a family folklore perspective, so I have decided to write a blog rather than fill mailboxes with emails and photos.

 

Hope this will be of interest – feedback, and any additions or corrections from family re the historical aspects would be welcome.  Email me and I will gladly make entries to include the news.  I may carry on writing on various needlework, textile or craft subjects once the quilt is done.

 

The combined circumstances of unemployment and a severe winter finally motivated me to start a project which has been on the to-do list since I first moved into this house, namely, make a patchwork portiere to catch the draft behind the front door. 

 

The patchwork is made up of scraps from my dressmaking, many of which are too thick or fragile or otherwise unsuitable for quilting [I will describe it in greater detail in another entry].  I decided instead to quilt the backing to the batting [interlining], and then tack all the layers together and finally bind the edges to finish – half quilt, half comforter.

 

The backing is mostly a length of rather lovely Wain Sheil English wool tweed, wet-slate grey blue with a plaid of dark blue, deep olive and cranberry.  The piece was not quite long enough so I have topped and tailed it with some left over cranberry wool ottoman, an Oscar de la Renta suiting fabric from the mid 80’s (relic of my power suited glory days in the trading rooms of Wall Street). 

 

In the past, I have quilted proper traditional cotton patchwork quilts on Mountain Mist batting and used a standing 36 inch diameter hoop, which I love, but I was afraid the constant re-positioning in the circular hoop would stretch the thick wool and batting  for this project too much.

 

So… drumroll please… I decided to use my great grandmother’s quilting frames, for the first time.

 

Story of the quilt frames

 

A little geneology and family history:

 

My mother’s parents were Sidney Carlisle Northrop and Marie Pauline Schmutzler Northrop. 

 

You guessed it – Gramma was German.  All of her assorted ancestors we know of  emigrated from Germany and settled in Watertown, Wisconsin (half way between Milwaukee and Madison) in the mid 19^th century.  Her parents were Ferdinand Schmutzler and Augusta Weber Schmutzler.

 

By family folklore, these frames were originally Great Gramma Augusta Schmutzler’s.  If we assume they were made for her when she was say, 20 years old, that would date them to the late 1860’s.  They subsequently passed to Aunt Lyd, Gramma’s much older sister.

 

My mother can remember these frames in use at quilting bees at Aunt Lyd’s house in Watertown – probably in the 1930’s.  My sister Kris has at least one quilt, possibly two, that we think Aunt Lyd made.  More on those another time. 

 

When Aunt Lyd passed away, Gramma kept the quilting frames, though she never sewed, and I am not aware of anyone else in the family using them. 

 

I began sewing when I was 8 or 9 years old.  Mrs. Richards, who lived across the road and had been my pre-school and later Sunday school teacher, was moving away, and before she left gave me a little round suit case filled with scraps of fabrics and trims  from her sewing.  I remember starting to make clothes for my trolls, then cutting one piece into a sleeveless t-shirt for myself – imagine a caftan top, that round neckline with a slit, and sleeveless.  After that I began to buy patterns and fabrics and books and teach myself to sew properly, and made many of my own clothes  – I can distinctly remember clothes I wore in my fifth grade class [age of 10] which were not my first projects, but more advanced ones. 

 

I made my first patchwork blocks when I was 13 or 14, as a project for an American History class.  I still have those, as well as one of the fabrics Mrs. Richards gave me. 

 

After university I moved out to Chicago, not far from my grandparents in Watertown.  Gramma gave me the quilting frames in 1981 or 1982 and I took them home to Chicago – to the best of my knowledge that would have been the first time they left Watertown. 

 

Since then, I have taken these frames with me from Chicago, to Brooklyn (1984), to Providence (1986), to Boston (1994), then brought them to England, first Eltham (southeast London) (1997) and finally to my home here in Kent (2001).

 

And for the first time, I have room to use them – well, almost.

 

The Quilt Frames

 

The frames are four long pieces of lumber, 2 inches wide, 1 inch thick.  One pair is 82 inches long (6’10”) and the other pair 96 inches long (8’).  The long pair are slightly longer than my dining room ceiling is high!  For all the years in this house, they have lived propped on the skirting board on the stairway from the 1^st floor to the loft, tied together with some very old scraps of rope, and the pegs tied in a very old plastic bag. 

 

 

All four pieces are drilled with holes along the entire length, evenly spaced – and perfectly measured so each pair would be perfectly aligned when set up.  All four also have a thick piece of grey felt – like carpet underlay – tacked along one side.

 

 

 

Notice wallpaper excavation on the wall behind!  Don’t know how old the anaglypta is, but that pink stripy stuff is probably from the 30’s and further upstairs under that I found another which I think is original – house was built around 1900, no later than 1905.  Still some work to be done in this house…

 

The bundle of pegs included eight and half pegs – one broken too short for use.  All but one are whittled down twigs, the last one looks as if it was once a banister spindle.

 

 

Amazingly, all four frame pieces are still true – they have not warped or bent at all in any direction, which is pretty miraculous, given their age, all the moves, and less than ideal storage conditions.  My only complaint is that no matter how many times I dusted and wiped them down, a reddish colour comes off on the dust rags, so whatever stain was used on the wood seems to be giving up the ghost.

 

Setting the quilt into the frames

 

I will describe how I have set in my quilt, and how I’ve had to do things a little differently from tradition.

 

First I basted the batting to the wool backing – this photo is of the batting uppermost, spread out on my beloved dining room table (9 foot long, 3 foot wide, bless!) and weighted with a couple books to stop it slipping to the floor while I baste.  Because this is fairly small – only 50 inches wide by 80 inches long – and I am not planning to quilt very heavily, I am basting only crosswise every 6 inches or so. 

 

 

 

Traditionally, properly, the three layers – patchwork top, batting and backing – would be laid out flat and the fabric sandwich basted in a starburst pattern from the centre of the quilt, so the fabric can be smoothed from the centre outwards to the edges as you go, then in a grid as well.

 

When the basting was done, I then attached strips of an old sheet along the top and bottom edges, which will be pinned to the felt on the top and bottom frames.   Because the frames seem to be exuding old stain, I made the strips very wide – about 18 inches – so that the wood would be wrapped by several layers of sheet before the quilt was wrapped on, to protect it from picking up any of the wood stain.

 

Notice the rather classy book / weight there, Clive Coates’s The Wines of Burgundy (my greatest passion besides sewing!).  Thanks again to the friend who recently gave it to me, I do think of you as I am working.  The far end of the quilt is weighted with Coates’s first book on Burgundy, The Cote d’Or.

 

 

 

One end of the quilt rolled onto the frame.

 

 

 

And that bar pegged to the side bars of the frame.  The pegs slid home with a satisfying thunk – still fit perfectly after 150 years. 

 

I really ought to tidy up a bit before I take these photos!!  The rug on the wall is from Morocco, another attempt at draught prevention.

 

 

 

I pegged in the bottom bar, and then pinned the sheet to the felt, pulling taught, and measuring from the bar to the edge of the quilt, to be sure it was even.  Rolling the fabric onto the bars evenly is critical to ensure that the quilt is smooth – you risk rucking up the fabrics if you are not careful.  I have to say, if the quilt were any larger I would have been glad of help, it is a bit tricky and unwieldy.

 

 

 

Lower bar rolled up, wrapped in sheet, pegged in place ready to quilt.  Actually, looking at this again, I think I may reverse it.  Quilting is easiest if you start at arm’s length and sew towards yourself.  I am planning to quilt just straight lines the length of the quilt, about 4 inches apart – I ought to start at the top edge – which is at the bottom in this photo.  Right, well, you know what I will be doing first thing tomorrow morning!

 

 

 

Traditionally, ideally, the quilt is laid out full size, flat, not rolled up on the bars, and there would be scrap strips tensioning the quilt out to the side bars, as well as the top and bottom.  If the quilt has to be rolled top and bottom, so you are working on only the central rectangle to start, you would still tension out to the sides. 

 

Since I am planning to quilt only straight vertical lines – not diagonally or any fancy patterns – I am going to try to get away without side tension.  See how I get on.

 

Also traditionally, the frame would then be laid flat, resting on chair backs, or possibly saw horses or a trestle.  I haven’t room for that, so I am going to be working as you see it in the last photo – propped at a roughly 45 degree angle against the dining room table.  The left and right bars are braced against the skirting board of the wall off stage left in the photo.  The door into the dining room is between these two bars – which means I had better turn on the lights when I go downstairs after dark – I don’t usually.  But propped like this, I can at least step over the near bar to get to the kitchen (behind me as I took the photo).  Besides, as you can see, my chairs have slightly rounded backs, wouldn’t work. 

 

The other traditional arrangement, which I think is an excellent idea, is to hang the frame from ropes which pass through pulleys in the ceiling.  This is ideal because it means you can raise and lower the quilt so you can quilt either sitting or standing.  The other consideration is that you can winch it up to the ceiling to be out of the way between quilting sessions.  If a quilt was done at a quilting bee it was usually completed in one day, but if a woman was quilting alone in a small cabin, as so many of the pioneers did, it could take weeks, and raising it to the ceiling to be out of the way, without having to take it out of the frames, would be a tremendous help. 

 

I seriously thought about this arrangement, but the two best rooms for size are the dining room – shame about the chandelier – or the sewing room – which is in the loft, shame about wonky angled ceiling sections, and a ceiling fan.  Rats!  But I shall bear this in mind, if ever I leave this house and look for another.

 

Just spotted something – for the family members in the audience.  Go back to the last photo and look carefully at the china in the welsh dresser – top left is a small rectangular dish, Gramma always used for olives.  Top right end is a small plate, pale green, also was hers.  Standing on the cupboard top just left of centre is a little white jug, which is decorated with gold and green shamrocks in a band, also Gramma’s, the matching sugar pot is put away.  All her green glass is stored in the cupboards below or in the cupboard in the other little dresser which is at the opposite end of the room.  A lot of the green glass was used, and much admired, at a recent thanksgiving dinner.  Also the three-candle glass candlestick with the chandelier drops on two arms which she always kept in the centre of the dining room table in Watertown – that generally resides on my living room mantel piece, but was also a feature of the dinner table in November.