gurdymonkey

acanthusleaf

A rollicking Mastodon lived in Spain,
     In the trunk of a Tranquil Tree.
His face was plain, but his jocular vein
     Was a burst of the wildest glee.
His voice was strong and his laugh so long
     That people came many a mile,
And offered to pay a guinea a day
     For the fractional part of a smile.

The Rollicking Mastodon's laugh was wide--
       Indeed, 't was a matter of family pride;
     And oh! so proud of his jocular vein
       Was the Rollicking Mastodon over in Spain.

The Rollicking Mastodon said one day,
     "I feel that I need some air,
For a little ozone's a tonic for bones,
     As well as a gloss for the hair."
So he skipped along and warbled a song
     In his own triumphulant way.
His smile was bright and his skip was light
     As he chirruped his roundelay.

The Rollicking Mastodon tripped along,
       And sang what Mastodons call a song;
     But every note of it seemed to pain
       The Rollicking Mastodon over in Spain.

A Little Peetookle came over the hill,
     Dressed up in a bollitant coat;
And he said, "You need some harroway seed,
     And a little advice for your throat."
The Mastodon smiled and said, "My child,
     There's a chance for your taste to grow.
If you polish your mind, you'll certainly find
     How little, how little you know."

The Little Peetookle, his teeth he ground
     At the Mastodon's singular sense of sound;
For he felt it a sort of a musical stain
     On the Rollicking Mastodon over in Spain.
"Alas! and alas! has it come to this pass?"
     Said the Little Peetookle. "Dear me!
It certainly seems your horrible screams
     Intended for music must be!"

The Mastodon stopped, his ditty he dropped,
     And murmured, "Good morning, my dear!
I never will sing to a sensitive thing
     That shatters a song with a sneer!"
The Rollicking Mastodon bade him "adieu."
     Of course 't was a sensible thing to do;
For Little Peetookle is spared the strain
     Of the Rollicking Mastodon over in Spain.

      -Arthur Macy

More nonsense verse can be found here.

scatoday

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scatoday

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thelbk

Now, we ALL know that I have a horrible habit of biting off way more than I can chew in projects, which leaves me hanging in the "oh shit this will take years if at all" wind...  or I hit a complication wall, understand that I can't make it perfect and thus loose the drive to finish a less than perfect piece.

Because everything is ALWAYS more complicated than it looks, and I ALWAYS have to reach too high (sigh).  On occasion I do dream longingly of the early happy t-tunics J

So my over all pattern for years now is that it only gets done if it's for someone else or a service project.  If it's for me? ouch.  Comes to a screeching halt at the test piece…

Not this time.  Just this once, I'm working very hard at being realistic.

After my usual grandiose "I want to make (insert way too labor intensive project here)... I came back down to earth.
I picked out the embroidered stockings from the new  "janet arnold" book.   The actual stitching techniques here are straight forward and understood, no cutting edge 'did they really do it that way' let's spend a year or two on a project only to have people still argue it's wrong...  No.  The goal here is start to finish display piece in a given period of time that will give me my 'okay I feel good about this' feeling.  That's all.  The "Controllable Project"

So I drew out the design straight from the photos of the original piece.  I measured what length I think I will need for the stocking to fit my own calf (because I intend to wear them someday), folded over a garter with the extra couple of gathers at the back as shown in the photo.  Taking measurements from the photo (vertical and horizontal) and that measurement for me (horizontal and 'X"), it was a simple algebra solve for X  and the use of my happy grid paper to bring the pattern up to a real world will fit me size.  Had to use a magnifying glass to get all the details, but I'm rather confident of the design as a faithful reproduction.

I've a good solid high quality linen (can't remember the thread count off the top of my head but it's higher than the 30s... I bought it years ago from Lacis  - I'll need to do a final check on that thread count).  I'm confident that the linen weight is appropriate for the piece (which has been a stumbling block for me for embroidered chemises up till now - the correct materials are just so important to achieve the correct end result). 

I then transferred the pattern onto the linen by placing the linen over the pattern over a light source.  We have period sources showing the use of candles below the design transfer - me?  I used the window on a bright shinny day :-)  So by the end of that day I had two strips of pattern drawn out on one large piece of linen.

I was going to mount it onto one large frame, following the period sources that we have.  In the end I borrowed a wonderfully convenient little frame from Aldith that I can carry with me, which allows me much more freedom regarding where and when I can work on this... after all, I work full time and commute for several hours a day;  I have very little time to get this done.  So she helped me mount the first strip on to this clever little frame and I'm off and rolling :-)

A trip to Lacis for the silk was a bit of a disappointment as I couldn't find the stranded silk I really wanted to use... but they had Eterna, and I was already resolved that I would probably have to used that for the padded satin stitch anyway, simply due to availability issues.  Color wise there are also some compromises due to availability issues - I will not set this project aside because a color or a material cannot be found... not this time.  So compromise will be had.  I chose to use the color photos from both the embroidered breeches from the same book and/or my original project's photos as the source for color choices.  They are contemporary pieces of the same style.  I am confident that if a color or material was available for one of the pieces it would have been for use on the other.  I can do little about color variations from time or photography and I can't afford to go visit the original pieces, so I'm going with the sources that I have.  Between my trip to Lacis and my stash at home (all hail the stash!!!) I feel good about all but one of the colors... I need a brighter more acid yellow than what I have but I'm working on that.  As for the couched gold and silver, I plan to use what I have in my stash for this too.  I still have rolls of the stuff from our Benson & Johnson order years ago in several sizes.  I haven't decided on if I'm going to use the real silver yet, as it tarnished.  I've been successful at cleaning it, but hey... it will tarnish again, and this time on my finished piece??? not so sure I like that... so we shall see.

The project has reached the enjoyable "working" stage (Yay!!!!).  This is that wonderful stage that you take it everywhere with you, curl up on couches to movie marathons etc... and stitch stitch stitch...

Step one is to lay down the white cotton "padding" stitches to the areas that will be finished with the stranded silk padded satin stitch.  Step two will be the silk layer, then step three will be to couch down the gold & silver for the vines.  

 I have enough of the linen in the end to make the full set of stockings, but my focus is on one for 12th night.  I am now willing to admit that my wild ambition to make the bobbin lace to go with it will have to wait a bit, so I'll have to find something comparable for now...

Anyway, that's the status report for the 12th night project.  Now on to the stitch stitch stitch... :-)

scatoday

http://www.scatoday.net/node/14458

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scatoday

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scatoday

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scatoday

http://www.scatoday.net/node/14444

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