More Eye Candy from the Files

I'm always grabbing images off the web to keep for reference.

Now my computer is complaining. So I'll have to print them off onto paper in order to uncrowd my image memory. So, here's a few goodies:

Certainly worth saving choicey bits of fabric, cording, beads, buttons, and frill-frall. Don't you think?

Eye Candy for those who Sew

Well, it's been a while since I posted on this blog.....life seems to intrude and other demands take the time from these things.....

I have been working on a project relating to my clay work (http://www.jeanetteharrisblog.blogspot.com).

I did run across a couple of photos from the web showing a beautiful coat made of denim. It reminded me of a Bog Coat with a modified front placket. I've made a few Bog Coats. They never go out of style and the pattern is so versatile.

They are a wonderful design if you have a very choicey piece of fabric, but not much of it. In a future post, I will publish some material on making Bog Coats, but for now, back to work.

How to Wear a Sari

This is from an old brochure I've had in my files since the 1960's. It came from a business in Kowloon, Hong Kong.

The instructions say:

1.  Standing with a blouse and a slip, hold the unborder end of the saree in your left hand and take it round the waist as shown.

2.  Tuck it around into the slip.

3.  Next, gather together between 1 1/2 yd and two:

4.  Tuck the gathers in  your front like this.

5.  Next, carry the balance around your waist, pass below the left arm like this.

6.  Then pass below the right arm.

7.  Next, after just a little pull for smartness, hold the balance in the left hand as shown.

8.  And finally throw over the left shoulder.

AND THERE YOU ARE.

Charming.

What it doesn't tell you is how to make the neat pleats in the front before tucking it into the front layer.
You do this by making a pincher movement between your first and second fingers and a second pincher between your thumb and the 3rd and little finger. You layer back and forth making a pleat about 3 inches wide.

Then you turn it so the pleats show in front, fan-like and tuck it into the waist.

Antique Embroidery Hoop

This is a lovely thing.

So very simple. A well-made hoop, heavy enough in construction to not need fabric binding or alteration to make it fit snugly.

It's amazing that, at it's age, it is still kept it's 'round'.

Because wood shrinks at different rates horizontally and vertically, i.e. with and across the grain, whoever made this understood their material well. It is probably made of "Box" or Linden wood, possibly Scandinavian in origin.

There is absolutely no metal involved. A handmade wood screw still holds the hoop securely to the table top.

The attaching piece allows the hoop to rotate out from the clamp for ease of use.

An absolute pleasure to use.

Addendum

Yee Gods!

I was looking up something else, as always on the computer, and ran across a listing for a clamp pin cushion very like the little one I mentioned in the previous post.

It was for sale at nearly $500.00!

I guess I had better lock it in the safe.  heh

Who would believe such a little tool some husband/father probably made would be worth so much?

Clamp Pincushion

Isn't this the neatest thing?

I picked this little pincushion/clamp up at an antique store somewhere in Missouri.

It may have been made by the Amish, but it may be something brought from the East Coast and much older. It looks very New England. Maybe dating from the late 1700's - early 1800's?

Somebody made this little jewel. The whole thing is such a pleasing thing to have around.

The wooden clamp was probably turned on a lathe.

The screw is wooden too. I think there was a tool with a small metal bit in it to cut wooden screw threads. I believe I've seen one somewhere. Maybe even in my father's wood shop years and years ago.


What a nice little tweeky knob at the end. Exactly right for finger-tightening.

I keep the wood screw working smoothly with a little beeswax now and then. It seems to be the right thing to use on it.


And it is such a lovely, burnished black finish that only comes from being touched many times by hands.



The fabric on the top is woven; maybe handwoven by some woman. Simple white and blue plad with an overshot zig-zaggy variation pattern....The threads are even but course. I haven't disturbed it and probably never will. There might be other fabric below the top cover. It is sewn on tightly with two kinds of coarse thread.


The stuffing is coarse and springy black and white horsehair. The plow horse's mane? The favorite riding horse's tail strands? A forelock clipped and wound around a finger?

Beneath the stuffing is a small mushroom-shaped, slightly domed small knob.


The clamp has a firm bite to any table edge.

Sewing table?

Quilt frame?



If only it could talk.


Click the photos for a more detailed view.

A Gift

One year my quilt guild exchanged Christmas gifts. The gift I received was this pincushion made by one of my friends who was a member.




















She took a small basket, filled it with a styrofoam ball and added batting scraps to cushion it all the way around, then covered it with the cloth piece that looked old-fashioned.

She trimmed it with a heavy gold cord to finish the join between the fabric and the basket edge,

Then she trimmed the rim of the basket with a heavy braid to pick up the gold and repeat it.

The bow mirrors the cream of the trim and makes the whole thing look like an antique.

I would never dream of taking all these elements and putting them together.

Such a simple little thing, but the combination all together looks like a sweet heirloom.

Every time I use it, I think of her.