2020 Limited Edition Ornament Kits

 Just 11 Left!

More gilt spangles arrived yesterday and am counting counting them today~ I feel like Rumpelstiltskin!

I have just 11 kits left, once they are gone I will not be reordering supplies to make up more kits, its too late in the year. If you are interested in making up your own gold encrusted 17th c inspired covered book, you can order one here

Fun with Scraps

Lil Cuties

  What have ya'll been up to?  I am super lucky that my oldest daughter only lives 8 miles from me.  One day she called me and mentioned how much she missed getting to watch me make dollys. (When the children were little, I had a bed in the studio beside my work table so they could nap and play right there were I could keep an eye on them)....  So I told her to come on over and we'll make something.  We picked thru the scrap bins and a few days later, I had 3 lil mini punkin cuties. Shes not done with hers yet, but they came out just as cute as mine!

I dont know what the heck I was thinking when I sculpted this lil punkin....she is so blasted tiny~ I had a heck of a time trying to hold onto her arms while trying to stitch on her sleeves. Shes a little cone puppet

She likes to hide in her cone and then pop out and try to scare her friends.....but shes not scary. 

 This is Full Moon Party~ she is named after one of my favorite teas. What is super fun about making small things, is that tiny scraps are all you need. This size of doll doesnt take much of anything to make, just some time, imagination, and lots of laughs with your daughter ;)

Beneath Thy Poft Oak

 Class is Full & Wait List is Open

If you would like to be put on the wait list for my next running of Beneath Thy Poft Oak, just drop me an email at rlkinnison@yahoo.com

There is ONE spot left!

 My New Online 17th Century Beadwork Class

Starts October 1st!

I am very excited for class to start~ its going to be super fabulous! Tricia at Thistle Threads is my gracious hostess for 12 months worth of online lessons to work the above pastoral Texas view.  There will be technique videos illustrating stitches taught in class and we are scouting out an online platform so everyone can get together in a group/class setting to discuss the lessons and anything else having to do with period Beugle Works.

This is my most in depth class yet, and I aim to provide a firm foundation of basic techniques that can be used not only for this class piece, but that can be applied to future projects as well.  My lesson on making detached yellow roses can be applied to making any flower that you can dream up in your head~ real or not! 

All class kits are in the mail, so for my students, check your email for your tracking number because they have already been sent.

 There is one spot remaining in class, so if you would be interested in taking this journey with us, please email me at rlkinnison@yahoo.com

Spiffing Up

c1770 Child's Ticking Stripe Shoes

With all the children going back to school, I thought I would share these super cunning little shoes with ya'll. As a mom myself, the children were always asking to spiff up their wardrobe. I would jazz up britches with fun embroidered patches...that sort of thing. When I first saw these shoes they immediately looked like something I would do! Eighteenth century children's shoes are rare enough, but this example really spoke to me. They are hand stitched from a blue stripe ticking

 Upon looking closer...they have been overstitched/embroidered in pink. The construction of the shoes tells us this was not an afterthought. The silk binding, now quite faded, is also pink, as are the kid covered latchet buttons and heels.

I would love to know the original story behind these shoes~ you know there has got to be a great one! They are fully lined so the back of the embroidery cannot be studied, 

but beneath the shelter of the latchets, the embroidery remains bright and vivid. Was there special significance to the blue ticking stripe??? Did the owner have a fondness for all things pink? I wonder if these matched the outfit they were worn with???

In any case, they are just cute as a button.....and in typical Eighteenth century fashion, the stitching on them is beautiful and very skilled. Their wedge heels are covered in the same pink kid (goatskin) leather as the buttons

They show obvious signs of being worn. The stitching channel for the wedge heel has been worn away, exposing the stitching. Super wide throats on these with ever so slight rounded toes.

One of my favorite aspects of early shoes are the soles~ one had to have very strong hands to stitch thru the layers, but yet have a delicate touch at the same time.  I would have liked to have been a shoemaker.

This is actually the first pair of latchet shoes in the collection to have button closures. They make perfect sense though on a child's shoe~ it would be much easier to button once than fight with a buckle to get on and off. 

Sundayes Past Well Spent

It's Finally Finished!

  Super happy that I finally managed to finish painting the last two sides of my flat top casket's travel case. I have been so busy that it's got pushed aside for quite a while now, but this past weekend I finished painting the top and can officially call her done done done!

 I don't think I posted it when I finished painting the back panel. Should have done a little more with the trees, but then I really wanted to portray what my patterns looked like before I stitched them~ so one could compare the case with the casket and see how the patterns evolved as I was stitching them

 Here is the inside when the case is opened~ I wanted it to be like in the beginning of the movie The Wizard of Oz, when it goes from black and white to colour.

 Strange to think of it as finally finished.  I have so many ideas for more, I hope I live long enough to see them all come to life

 There is such a difference between the monochromatic outer shell and the surprise inside.

Here is a short video, really short cause I only have two hands....

 

Inside one of the secret drawers my broken soldiers lie peacefully. Job well done I tell them. The thought of throwing them away just did not sit well with me, so I gave them a true place of honor in the casket they themselves stitched...every single stitch. 
I think it's time to swear in a new group of soldiers and start afresh...time's a wastin!

All Preorders Have Been Shipped

 2020 Ltd Edition Ornament Kit is Very Limited

 The last of the preordered kits for this year's ornament are on the way today, and I have sent out all shipping notices. If you ordered a kit and don't see an email from me, please check your spam box! I want to thank everyone who has purchased a kit, I really, really do appreciate your patronage. I know it is expensive this year, and I really did try to find a suitable substitute for using real gold spangles to keep the cost down~ over half of this kit cost is just the gold spangles.  To appreciate the original 17th century embroidery one really must at least use an all metal spangle, and blast it, I just could not find any in the amount I needed. For that, I do apologize. 

 I spent literally days counting each and every spangle out for each kit~ sorting out any imperfect ones. You will definitely need them all!  
I want to give an update on my remaining kits. I have only 12 remaining, and those 12 are awaiting  the their gold spangles to get to me from France. France is of coarse on their month long annual holiday that runs the entire month of August, so I look for the spangles to arrive hopefully in September. 

Because of the absolute craziness of this year, I am right now not confident that I will be able to offer any more kits past the 12 I have ready to go when their spangles arrive, so if you have your eye on this embroidered bookcover, don't wait too long, you may miss it!