Workin My Fingers to the Bone

 My Dayes of Frostbite & Sunburns are over!!!

   I have been working overtime double triple and beyond the past few months, and today, today! I spent my first 'quiet time' painting in my new woodshop! woo hooo!!!!!!  For our 25th wedding anniversary, husband bought me a 10x20 Weather King Lofted Barn...well...I should rephrase that...he wanted to get a 30' long and skinny tube of a building....but I have been pining for a lofted barn for at least the last 5 years, and no Sir...I would not give in! As excited as I was to see it being delivered....I also got kind of overwhelmed~ I had a lot of work to do to get it ready for me. 

 As I work now, my embroidery and wood are all in the same areas~ if I have to do any cutting, sanding, planing ect....I have to dig out my equipment, drag it outside, set it up....then work out in the weather...so in the winter I literally freeze my tuccass and fingers off, and in the summer I get the most horrible sunburns!  If its raining, I cant do anything~ so alot of my work sched is dependent on the weather. 

Well....not any more!

  See the dirt to the left of me here under the building....as I am signing for my shop....thats 12 ton of road base that I spread out~ and then my son & I got up close and personal with a 'jumping jack' tamper to get it all level. This stuff is harder than cement once its compacted. 

  The ditch for the new electric ...120 feet long and 4 and half feet deep....and yes, I got to fill it all back in by hand...plus another 18 ton of road base I got to spread out over the driveway afterwards...took me over a week...never want to see another pile of dirt for at least a couple of years.  

 Weather King makes awesome buildings~ you can even design your own on their website. I chose the lofted barn with the two big doors, so I can wheel  my tablesaw outside onto the deck when I need to cut something big...and  the two lofts above give me plenty of storage~ one side for wood, the other for all my packing/shipping materials. After the electric was finished, next came insulation.

Peg board wonderful pegboards! I have always loved them~ I can hang all my tools and wood so I can seeeeeeee everything~ oh it will be glorious for sure!

In the midst of working on the shop, I have been finishing up prep for class in August~ 54 pages of step by step instructions back from the printer, ready to go! I really am looking forward to getting all my woodworking things into their own space, so I can get back to having my embroidery out full time, instead of piles of wood everywhere...and I mean EVERYWHERE! 

Things getting messy.....but progressing

Nearly done~ got my work bench made in the center, that I can move around, with benches round the walls

Done and varnished! I have soooo much bench space now~ I can work on cabinets and cases and slate frames and boxes all at the same time~ going to be fantabulous. Shelves round the entire shop to put up all my tools

So I finished yesterday, and was supposed to be moving all the equipment in today....but I am painting on a slate frame and palette set and the shop was just calling to me to sit and paint...so thats what I did. Its so nice and quiet, I can now sit or stand by my window here and listen to my blackbirds and paint....so look for something pretty awesome coming to eBay....after I get my orders finished so I can work on it....you may be able to sneek a lil peek if you look hard in the corner!

Museum Monday!

A c1850 Spit Curl Beauty, p.130

This week's Museum Monday is one of my favorite daguerreotypes. I know her as LRM picture archive 130, aka my Spit Curl Beauty.  Aside from the hand tinting and  2 baskets in the picture, there is just a ton of stuff going on in this view that makes it a favorite for me. This is a  privileged child~ did you know the cost of having a single daguerreotype made was more than what some working class people made in an entire year? She is standing with a proud, erect posture~ holding her basket on one arm, with the toe of one foot kicked out sideways. If you click and view it larger, the folds of her knit stockings can be seen peeking out from under that one pantaloon leg that has crept up a bit. Her sun hat is kicked back on her head and shows off those picture perfect curls~ I wonder how long it took her Mamma to do her hair? 

One of a Kind Spool Palette on eBay...again this week!

Trying again!

If you liked the spool palette I had on eBay earlier and couldn't see it or bid, I have relisted it this week. I think I got all the problems fixed. eBay is automating so many things, I am finding it harder and harder to 'successfully'  fill out the listing forms. I apologize for my lack of technical finesse. The listing is still being run as no international shipping, only because I cannot figure out how to change it~ so if you are not in the US and are interested in purchasing it, just drop me a line and I can let you know how much shipping will be to you.  

You can find it here on eBay. 

Museum Monday!

Have You Ever been Struck by Lightning?

I suppose one may think I'm talking about actually being, physically, struck down by a bolt of lightning. Well...I'm not. For me, every now and then, when something rare and fabulous finds me...(some may call it pure dumb luck)...I call it being struck by lightning. I mean...sometimes, I just have to think,,,what on earth are the chances of finding a certain something....or, like last Museum Monday, another something that was obviously made to pair with a something.... I'm being a bit vague I suppose...so lets look back to the Museum Monday on 12 Dec of last year....those pretty green kid leather stamped children's shoes, 878.2016.01.  They didn't find me, nor were they donated...they're just a marvelous pair of early stamped shoes! Amazing condition. Rare survivors. Wonderful shoes and I am so blessed to have them.

I have been overwhelmingly busy as of late~ getting ready for class this August at the Bath Textile Summer School....getting ready for a trip to Yellowstone National Park...building a new woodshop so I can make all sorts of fantabulous things for ya'll no matter what the weather is doing outside....and in the middle of this tornado of activity....WHAM! I got struck by lightning!

Let me explain....because its really quite comical when I think about it... I am outside working on the new shop and come in to look up a ceiling fan on the computer....my recent trek 100 miles up north yielded no fan suitable for my shop...couldn't find anything under 36" in diameter....but I did find a funky garage fan that was about perfect for what I wanted, but it snapped into some even stranger garage door opener contraption and couldn't be hardwired in....so I am on the computer madly pressing buttons and searching all sorts of weird terms for a ceiling fan...garage fan.....exhaust fan...boxed fan....caged fan....basket fan~ anything! So am on eBay, and  somehow in my fan search, up came a single early shoe, along with a fan! Strange. So me being me, I clicked on it cause the shoe was a nice early shoe....but it was a single, and as a rule, I usually dont bother with a single of anything.....and then, as I scrolled down, they have  the advertisements of what other things seller is selling....and my eye caught a glimpse of something very interesting.....and thats exactly the moment I got struck by the lightning.

Do these look familiar?????!!!!

What are the odds???? How can this be????  I am looking for a ceiling fan.....and end up staring at these shoes!

 I still cant believe it. The red pair is about an 1/8" longer than the green....and that could be due to the fact the sole has flattened out. Note the spring(or curve) in the sole of the green pair above~ both look to have ample wear in the right areas to have been worn. I do not believe these to be show shoes~

 The gilt stamping is not just  similar, it is exact. Absolutely exact in every way, shape and form. Red shoes stamping has less wear than the green and shows more brilliantly.

 One lace is missing, and the other, complete with its brass tips, is only long enough to lace thru the bottom 4 sets of eyelet holes~ which was common for these not to be laced all the way to the top, unless one had particularly spindly legs. I would say that of all the period photographs I have seen showing front lacing shoes,  the majority are only laced halfway up the throats.

 Little angels are placed to be facing up to the wearer when they look down at their feet~

Could I ever hope to find a white pair...or perhaps a blue????  I never thought I'd see a red pair, so perhaps!

Museum Monday

Green Wool Baby Shoes 958.2017.04

 This weeks Museum Monday is a cutie patutie pair of green wool baby booties....I mean, these things are Ka~UTE!  If you have ever studied or admired the early 1840-50 folkart child portraits of the time, these look like they could have just jumped straight off of a canvas with their vivid bright colors and decorative stitchings.

  They are fully lined in a cream figured silk taffeta~ a scrap of  Pappa's waistcoat most likely...and are the usual construction of upper joined with the sole via bound edges of each whipped together.

  They are side lacing, which makes them a bit unique, and retain their original multi color braided lacings with poms at the ends. One could speculate that they could be doll shoes, from their nice condition and small size~ indeed its quite hard to tell period doll clothing from childrens~ but as I was unstuffing these after I bought them, there was a *surprise* tucked tight down into the toe of one of them~

 Kind of a bittersweet surprise....first I found the little curl of chestnut brown hair, and then tucked carefully to the side, was a folded paper~ I was SO hoping for a name, but alas, upon opening it up, it is a carefully cut piece of advertisement that reads, 'Winchester's Hypophosphite of Lime and Soda'. I thought this quite odd....why would someone cut out those words, and place them in the shoes along with a tiny lock of hair?  I looked up Winchester's Hypophosphite and found that it was introduced in 1858, about the same era in time of our little shoes here, and that it was a tonic used to treat pulmonary consumption & lung disorders... One cannot help to assume, that the little angel who once wore these precious little shoes was fatally afflicted~

Museum Monday!

c1820 Girls Gown 92.2000.23

Happy Monday!  I have decided, that if I am going to bring back Museum Mondays...this year, I get to pick the topic, and will share some of my favorites with you...maybe next year can be least favorites...if there is such a thing.  Every now and then, I do random Google image searches to see where photos of pieces in my collection show up...I have found a few in bogus eBay auctions...criminals will lift the pic off my blog and use it to run a fake auction...they dont even bother to block out the watermark on my images!!!!... Then sometimes, I get a pleasant surprise and find something that really gets me excited....like with today's piece~ a wonderful, ever so charming, quaint little girls dress. I saw a photo in my search and thought~ is this my dress??? The sleeves are different...and when I clicked on the link that took me to the Met's Museum page...I was really excited!

When I purchased my little gown from its family at Nappa Hall in the UK, it was a dirty crumpled little mess. I had it sent to me across the pond and showered it with love and care and its such a charming, beautiful little gown. c1820, with full little cap sleeves drawn up in thirds, trimmed in pretty little double mull frills~ the gown itself is quite plain....white muslin...but the little mull frills~ all have their edges whipped in pink thread, as well as pink whipping along the top of the growth tucks and front stitchings. 6 precious Dorset buttons adorn the front, with pink accent stitching in their centers.  In an era when clothing was hand stitched at home, before the days of ready made or ready to wear clothing.....one would tend to assume.....that they had a one of a kind gown......but ....then along came Google and its all seeing worldwide search......

This is the Met's gown~ you can see it here. 

This is no coincidence. Absolutely not. They purchased their gown 13 years before I purchased mine, but both come from the UK, and they are so near identical in construction, they were most likely gowns for siblings. (Other than the sleeves and the neckline/pointe trim being different, they are constructed the same). The Met gown's color is much deeper and richer than mine~ but upon close inspection, I have found my gown's thread to be quite faded~ behind the Dorset buttons and in protected areas, its much darker.  The Met's web page has date of construction about 20 years later than what I believe the age of garment to be~ even so, its always exciting to find a mate~ perhaps one day they can share the same space with each other again
Both full views are large, so you may click on them to see all their details!