a little lavender

I finally stitched up these fragrant little ricebags.  They are all backed with 100% wool felt and filled with a mixture of lavender and rice, with orris root powder as a fixitive (supposed to help the scent last longer).  They are very sweet and smell fantastic.  I love how they turned out.  The “namaste” one in particular seems transformed by the purple piping and the pine green felt on the back.  I think my favorite is “bird by bird,” just because that’s really where I’m at right now mentally and I love the little birds.  I’m going to stitch up some more of these if I ever get my act together to do a craft fair.

 

the kindness of strangers

Susan F. isn’t a total stranger, since she is a friend of my momma’s, but I’ve never met her.  My mom recently gave her a coin purse I had made,  and Susan gave me a bunch of her mother’s vintage fabric and a handful of notions!  How awesome is that?!

Pretty awesome!  I want to make a kitchy skirt out of the pink tablecloth (there’s an excellent tutorial for vintage tablecloths in Sew What! Skirts) and a totebag or two out of one of the others.  I love the grey barkcloth (second from right) so much that I kind of can’t think of what to do with it besides stare at it.

Yay, Susan!

 

grey dusk

I posted similar pictures in the spring.  The light just kills me, every time…

 

grey morning

Even as I type, the sky is getting brighter, but it was a foreboding sight that greeted me this morning.  The Hudson River Valley can be gloomy in the winter, which is approaching faster than I would like.  But my brain is an engine keeping me warm right now as I furiously try to push my way forward in my dissertation.

When I first started doing research at the Legislative Archives in DC a couple of years ago (really?  2 years already?!), it had seemed to be comparable to slogging through a swamp — if you are lucky, you occasionally pick out a few stones to step on, maybe a footbridge here and there, but mostly it’s just slog, slog, slog.  That’s how it’s feeling right now.  I have such a mass of material to sift through and I’m trying desperately to pick up a trail, any trail, that will help me to figure out the story and then put it down on paper.  As the days grow shorter, I get a bit more panicked.  I need to produce something soon.  Chapter 2 is out there somewhere…if only I had a map or a guide.

Here is a variation on a theme.  A little color to brighten up a grey day.

 

flowers of innocence and remembrance

The colors and stitching of this little daisy boutonniere remind me of Girls Scout merit badges.  I finished the edges with a true buttonhole stitch (not to be confused with a blanket stitch — take a look here for the difference). 

In honor of Veterans Day on November 11th, I made a poppy out of wool felt, with French knots for the seeds.  It turns out that poppies are usually associated with Memorial Day, not Veterans Day.  This is confusing to me since November 11th is also Armistice Day — the day in 1918 when peace was signed between the Allies and Germany ending World War I — and poppies were first worn in memory of those who died during World War I, after the poem “Flanders Field,” by John McCrae.  The Department of Veterans Affairs explains that Memorial Day is for commemorating the dead, and Veterans Day is more for thanking the living, so you are supposed to save poppies for Memorial Day. 

The Veterans of Foreign Wars first started selling paper poppies in 1923 to raise money for wounded and disabled veterans.  Even when I was young, the little old men and women selling those paper poppies touched some soft spot in my heart, especially the men wearing their VFW caps and ribbons.  I try to imagine what they went through in whichever war they survived and how it must feel to stand on a street corner or in front of a store, trying to sell tissue paper poppies to a mostly disinterested public.  I am very much anti-war, especially because of what it does to the men and women who serve.  And especially, these days, because of how the rest of us carry on as though nothing is happening, our lives untouched in any way.

 

bout beauts

I stitched up these wee boutonnieres last night from little flowers I had embroidered a month or two ago.  They are so dear and a mite wonky — I love them.  They’d be great on a jacket or bag.  I have one more embroidered flower to go, but I might make more as they are so precious and fun to make.

 

more math

Do you realize that we are just six weeks away from Christmas?  Seems impossible but for crafters that means it’s time to get busy if you haven’t already.  I suspect this year I will not make all of my gifts.  The fellas are hard to craft for and there may be a point at which my female relatives have all the hand-stitched items they need/want.  Whatever I make, I must work from my stash as much as possible this year.  Time to head over to Sew Mama Sew for their annual “Handmade Holiday” gift ideas to see if that sparks anything.

Crafters, what are you making your friends and family this year?

 

history geekfest: val-kill

Trails at Val-Kill

On Saturday, my friends and I had intended to go to Val-Kill, the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, and the FDR Museum and Library in Hyde Park,  and then, if there was time, the Vanderbilt Mansion.  Well, we were up late on Friday night, catching up over red wine, so we had a leisurely morning on Saturday and didn’t get down to  Hyde Park until the afternoon.  We decided to head straight to Val-Kill and save FDR and Vanderbilt for another trip.  Val-Kill was Eleanor Roosevelt’s retreat, the only house she ever owned, and her home after the death of her husband. 

Val-Kill

Eleanor Roosevelt was an amazing woman and the greatest First Lady this country has ever had.  She was Franklin’s conscience, always pushing him to do more, especially on civil rights and poverty.  But before and after her time in the White House, she also accomplished an incredible amount.  Before her marriage, she worked in NYC settlement houses, and after FDR’s death, she worked as a diplomat.  As chair of the United Nations’ first Human Rights Commission, she wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  She was a columnist and author, writing numerous books and essays.  Touring her house, we also discovered that she was an inveterate crafter — knitting, embroidering, doing needlepoint!  What’s not to love about this woman?

ER's first book, before she claimed her own identity.

Watching the short film at Val-Kill and then touring the site, we all agreed that we need to re-read Blanche Wiesen Cook’s incredible biographies of ER.  (Speaking of amazing women, BWC is one of my personal heroes and a mentor from my years at CUNY.)