Hand-decorated Pincushions

I can tell you one thing:

The women who made these pincushions would have been blogging about them, if they'd had the opportunity!



Can't you just imagine them, sharing patterns over the net?

Buying beads and silks online? Although, I think a trip to the shop would have been a lot more exciting - I'd love to have gone with them!

I imagine that they got a lot of their patterns in newspapers and periodicals.

This one has faded so much, but in a way the photo brings out some of the details, and the incredible depth of the painting.

Very textured paint, this one.

I love this one - shame about the mottling.

Punched and stitched cardboard - how incredible!

I imagine these talented ladies gave away quite a lot of their handicraft - so they'd have liked this challenge from The Year of Less! I'm going to be joining in, but I know I won't be able to make anything as beautiful as these 100-year old pincushions, collected over the years and found by me in the famous Elephant Box.

Inside the Elephant Box - Part 1

There are two layers in my elephant box!

The box was given to my mother and grandmother by friends whose Victorian grandmother had been quite a collector...

As many of you guessed, it contains a lot of sewing equipment (no buttons, Betty, so you can read on!), including this quirky little pin cushion designed like a domino.

The domino pin cusion was in a compartment on the left, and, lifting the little lid above it, I found this leather needle case, the large 'needle' and the two amber rods... even after years of treating this box as my 'rainy day' box, to share with my grandmother, I really don't know everything that's in it!

Juanita makes a key point- not only is the box's inlay ivory, but the needle case seems to have snake skin on it and the 'needle' is almost certainly tortoise shell. My mother taught me to be horrified by the killing, but to respect these antique artefacts - I wonder what the rest of you think?

Just to add to my ethical issues over the ancient massacres of endangered animals, here is a collection of carved ivory bangles my mother bought in charity shops and (one of) my grandmother's crocodile-skin handbags. My mother bought the ivory bracelets because she couldn't bear to see something which represented so much life and work (obviously mainly on the part of the elephant) being sold as if it were plastic. She never wore them.  My grandmother bought the handbag because that was just what you did in those days... what do we do with it all now, I wonder?

Mirrors and Bunting

Traditional (and even semi-traditional) French houses are very dark, with a roof over most windows to keep out the blazing summer sun - you can just see our patio roof in this picture. It works brilliantly, but everyone has to find ways to bring more light into their homes. Electric lighting is bound to provide some of it, but Ben and I have tride hard to maximise the available natural light with pale walls and lots of mirrors.
j
I'm always on the look out for mirrors!
The French mirror above came home with me from Scotland this time - it used to belong to my grandmother. The terrible old one below cost me a few euros at a Vide Grenier and I fell strangely in love with it, despite its damaged mirror glass and strange, wood-effect metal frame. I honestly like it, folks!

On Sunday Ben finally stopped his outdoor work (rain and darkness stopped play) and came in brandishing tools, offering to put the mirrors up. Once he'd replaced the dreadful old fixing, they went up quite quickly, and looked like this. Clutter visible, realists - I hope you're proud of me!These lovely hooks I got (and altered) for my birthday got put up in the kitchen at the same time. They now house my two Garden Party tea cosies and the vintage apron which Kate sent me, leaving the other hooks for more prosaic kitchen stuff.

So on Monday evening, as homework took place all around me (maths and physics - thank goodness Ben was home), I fiddled and tweaked the area around the mirrors (and dusted, too!)

I got my megaplant, which was but a baby when the boys bought it for me a few years ago, to drape itself elegantly over the French/Scottish mirror. Happy mummy.The other side was looking decidedly bare, so I thought and thought (even giving Ben a second to make suggestions, but coming to a conclusion before he said anything, poor man). What I thought of was some bunting/garland that I'd just made following Tif's wonderfully vague instructions over at dottie angel. Here is Tif's seasonal festive garland.

I'd wanted to make this ever since I saw her tutorial, but I wanted it to be more than just a poor copy of a dottie angel garland. After all, Tif is an English woman who flits around a mossy shed in Seattle, wearing a customised slip and studiously avoiding her shift key. On the other hand I am an English woman who stomps around a barn-type house in France, wearing loads of woolies and lazily over-using ellipsis...

...so I wanted to make mine different, somehow.

j

The moment of epiphany came when I remembered the 'useless' little bits of Victorian quilt that I'd saved after making all the 'useful' pieces into cushions or whatever. I quickly hauled them out of the cupboard and got to work:

I added bits of French embroidery from whatever I was prepared to cut up:

And to give it the wintery theme I wanted I cut up a sweetly embroidered blouse with Inuit people and snowflakes on it:

I draped it from the bookshelf, sort of echoing the draping pattern of my plant on the other side:

And took it down to the pitcher of bullrushes in the corner.

I am quite happy with the result, although I might just 'tweak' a bit more!

So thanks, Ben, for the hard work, and thanks, Tif, for the great idea!

A little bit of everything...

Denise and then Pomona have shown us their darning mushrooms, and used them as a symbol of their 'Make Do and Mend' approach to dottie angel's Utmost Challenge. I thought I should show you what must surely be a French equivalent - do you not think this must be a darning egg? Alternative suggestions are welcome... I bought it as part of a job lot of sewing notions at a Vide Grenier earlier this year. Now, temptations for those of us doing the Utmost Challenge come in all shapes and sizes. Mine was so small it could fit inside a napkin ring...

Look at that - I had forgotten - Ben's credit card offers us a half price subscription to a magazine for six months, starting every September! I already get Avantages, the French version of Easy Living, at a permanently reduced rate - it helps me improve my French, honest, so it's not an indulgence (much). However, la Journal de la Maison and (swoon) Campagne Decoration??? Folks, I resisted. This was my first real trial, I have to admit. On a brighter note, Seranata has just come to my rescue in an extraordinary way, over a bit of trouble finding a second hand guitar tuner! More info to come...

Now to my Rentré Resolutions, which are listed accusingly to your left... As you can see, I'm cycling to school with my boys every morning and it's not usually hard to go on a cycle ride after leaving them behind their bars(!). You saw photographic evidence of a cycle ride yesterday, so that one is going fine...

Watching the French news is just not working out. It's either at 8pm (too early, too busy) or 10.30 (OK if I'm home alone, but annoying if Ben's at home and we're chatting, eating, drinking, working etc). Thus, except when Ben's been working abroad, that resolution isn't happening yet, and I'm feeling the lack of a nightly news update.

j

Isn't the photo above just too wonderful? Or wouldn't it have been wonderful, if I'd had the foresight to take a floral mug, instead of the tacky one Ben won at the fair?

These rather scrummy photos kill two birds with one stone. They show you the very charming quilted throw that I bought second hand this weekend (the VG was off, for unpublished reasons, but there was a Braderie in the next village, so I survived).
j
They also lead us on to my next resolution, which is about keeping up with my spiritual journal. That's the pretty notebook - Paperchase's recycled range, bought before I started the Challenge! Basically, that's going well, although I need to remember to make time earlier in the day whenever I can (hence the rocking chair under the grape vine), rather than trying to write in it when I'm going to bed, and just too tired to think.

The final challenge is about not taking on too much. It helped me when I saw this great swap (still time to sign up), and I actually took a few days to think about what I would make, and how I would make it all work out, before I signed up. That was a helpful discipline - wish I could do it more often! I'm trying to apply the same principle to Bekimarie's Christmas Stocking Swap; just giving it a few days to plan what I would do and reflect on if I have the time.

It's been a really useful resolution at work, too. I've started some exciting, but challenging, work for a very exclusive Language School. All my training is being done by the boss, and it's a great opportunity, but the school basically has more work available than it has teachers to do it. I've taken on some slots, and some one-offs, but have remembered that I am a mum before I am an earner, and said 'no' when I've needed to. A timely resolution, then!
j

Finally, at the Braderie, Father Christmas and his elves (Pere Noel et ses lutins) got involved in the Utmost Challenge in a big way, if you get my meaning. I also bought a Swatch watch for 15 euros - not cheap but much needed and 'as new'. I then waltzed up to the very cheerful ladies at the cash desk with this:

'Ah, une chemise de nuit ancienne!' they exclaimed (with looks of 'How on earth did I miss that one myself?' etched across their faces - he-he!)

j

'C'est pas ancienne,' I disagreed, looking at the plastic buttons, the machine stitching, the '70s label inside...
j

'Si, elle a peut-etre 30 ans!' they replied... Ooh, 30 years old is ancienne, now... I feel so old...

But it disn't stop me from wearing it as a dress today. Son 2 said I looked like a cross between a ghost and a housemaid. Thanks, Son.

Pretty as a Picture!

There's been a lot of visual prettiness around here recently. My youngest pupil brought me a picture of the two of us today:

Awww!

Yesterday afternoon I found a few of my new purchaces in the ironing pile...

... for a while it became more interesting to gather my nicest French embroideries and iron them...

... than to do the shirts!

The little village scene comes from a napkin holder (at least that's what I think these little bags are):

I've found some beautiful embroidery on these bags, and no-one seems to value them any more.

This beautiful scene, covering all seasons, is half of a wonderful cloth which elizabethd gave me when we met last month.I found this emboridered woolen picture at a VG last week.

This is a teatowel - these could also be one of the things I'd be prepared to sell (thanks so much for your thoughts and advice below, BTW - I am going to take my time to think about it).Its wonderful black background leads us on to the next set of visual prettiness, prepared by Son 1 while he's been off school ill...He's gathered together his origami books, old and new, and used origami paper to make some of his favourite models.This one's a tadpole, in case you were wondering!

Son 2, however, has been inspired by his geometry lessons at College.He had a real challenge producing a design a bit like this for homework, then next thing we know, he's doing it for fun!This is another circle made with straight lines - he thinks it's magic!

A last visual treat for you, but a tasty one for us - breakfast grapes from the vine over Ben's pergola. We finally netted them to keep the birds off.

Goodbye for now and enjoy your Wednesday!