Lost Dog Found

Don’t panic, I haven’t added yet another homeless waif to my brood – this one is made of fabric and is one of the gorgeous blocks that Avis at OhSewTempting sent me back in the mists of time – well October anyway – as part of the F2F block swap I’m participating in but, because of a mix up with the postcode, we thought they were lost for all time.

Thank goodness they weren’t because they are all gorgeous but the dog one especially .

Even though the post office had changed the postcode to the correct one on the envelope, they still sent it back to the U.K. instead of forwarding it on to the correct region of France.  What were they thinking? Still, I’m just grateful they are here now.

The other three blocks are stunning too.  I’m going to have the best quilt in the world and nobody will be able to tell me different;)

Speaking of dogs, which I sort of was, I have been so disorganised leading up to Christmas this year that there has been a run on the dog collars I make to raise funds for the dog and cat shelter and I have run out of webbing.  No hope of new stock getting here in time for anybody ordering them as Christmas gifts, so unless people want red or brown collars, they can’t have one.  What a muppet!! Still, it was my first Christmas making these and I hadn’t really thought of them as being more popular at this time of year.

So, my best seller has had to be taken off the ‘virtual’  shelves

Come on you blues!!

Who knew there’d be so many Chelsea fans in the States?

but you’re in luck if you love a Scottie.

For those of you worried that I spent loads of money on a cat tree which will sit sadly, bereft of any living thing, in a corner – worry no more.

The kittens have taken to it big time.  Although they do like climbing up the centre of the Jade Tree plant in the conservatory too.  Well, they like climbing up anything really – as kittens do.  Also the ‘Ungrateful Baggage’ mentioned in an earlier post who was showing no interest, has managed to get herself into the very highest basket where the kittens can’t quite yet reach.  She sits there with a regal and self satisfied air which is what cats do.

Another week and he’ll be up there.

(Note the thing that had feathers to start with denuded and hanging limply from the top level)

Have you suddenly come to the realisation that there are things you wanted to do for Christmas that aren’t going to happen now?

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Oops! I’ve Fallen Off the Fabric Wagon

It’s true – but only a little bit – all is not lost – honest.

 Before I ‘fess up however, a bit of a distraction. It’s a bit nippy today but beautiful – they did predict some snow and they were right –  so,when I set out for our walk this morning, as well as a lead, a couple of tennis balls, a ball launcher and three dogs, I hauled my camera with me.

The view from halfway up my garden this morning.

These logs will need getting down to the bottom somehow.

Perhaps we could rig up some sort of dog sled thingy.

Anyway, back to my falling off the fabric wagon.  A couple of weeks ago, we held a fund raising event for Dog Rescue Carcassonne and the Twilight home for old and/or sick dogs where a wonderful couple here in France have dedicated their lives to looking after these dogs that nobody else will take on.  Anyway, I didn’t have a stall myself this time and just went along to chat and spend money help out.  Some of the stalls had set up the night before and one had some fabric ‘scraps’ for sale.  The stallholder hadn’t yet arrived and I went over to have a look and spotted a tempting bit of something that looked a bit vintagey and a bit storybooky .

 

When I had a closer look , there was around a yard and a half of vintage Red Riding Hood fabric with such cute designs like this

and this

that, without thinking, I nabbed it and, when she arrived, paid the 2 euros!! and put it in my bag along with 20 euros of cakes I’d just bought (oops ).

It wasn’t until a couple of hours afterwards that I remembered I was on a fabric fast.  But it was vintage.  It was 2 euros.  It was for Dog Rescue.  What would you have done?  I’m back on the wagon now, honest.

I had taken along a couple of little dog coats that I had knitted because I was hoping that – being a doggy related event – somebody might come in with the right sized dog that they would let me dress up and use as a model.  Sure enough, a couple came in with their cockerpoo (a cocker spaniel mixed with a poodle) a lovely girl called Saren and she was just the right size.  I must admit I’m a bit confused that, all my dogs are mixes of something or other but are generally called ‘mutts’ or ‘mongrels but cockerpoos, shihpoos, labradoodles, etc. all have their own names.  They all seem to include poodles.  I’m pretty sure none of my dogs have ever been near a poodle so maybe that’s why.  The nearest I could get with mine would be a bordador or a shepcol and even they would be a wild guess. Anyway, I digress, she was a lovely girl who patiently modelled my knitted coats.

I wanted some photos on a model in case I decide to add them to my dog collar shop as another item I can sell to raise funds for Dog Rescue Carcassonne.

Or, I have asked if Twilight might be able to use some for the old dogs to wear this winter.  I’d better get a move on with my boyfriend cardigan then in case they say ‘yes’.

Off to re-light the log burner.

How A Search Engine Can Start Off A Train of Thought

It’s amazing what you can find on Etsy – the home of handmade arts and crafts, vintage items,  supplies for your hobbies and, apparently, home crafted sex furniture.  I don’t want to give you a link to the particular shop but you can easily find it – and probably others like it –  by putting certain words like ‘fetish’, ‘dungeon’ or ‘cross’ in the search bar.   You may not believe me but the last word was what I put in or, more precisely ‘pedestal cross’ because I was doing a bit of price comparison research on one of my vintage items.  Honest guv!  To prove it, here is a picture of my pedestal cross.

The reason that particular shop’s home dungeon came up in my search was because the skilfully made, human-sized wooden cross for sale there can apparently be taken apart quickly by undoing one wing nut and then concealed inside a wooden pedestal which you can stand a potted plant on.  Ingenious eh?  So handy for when the vicar comes round for tea unexpectedly.

‘Shall we buy a plant stand?’

Now I don’t mind a bit of slap and tickle but the emphasis is definitely on the tickle.  I think my pain threshold is quite high – I didn’t have any pain relief when my daughters were born although, afterward, when it got to the having stitches stage, I damn well wished I had!  Plus, with my first, they had to close the window as the noise I was making was frightening the children in the playground of the school next door but I still don’t fancy being deliberately subjected to pain.  What are the statistics?  Is it mostly a man thing?  Can we blame the British public school system?  Oo-er Matron.

I won’t ever be able to go into somebody’s home where there is a wooden pedestal with a plant on top without wondering if…….  The only torture chamber in our house is the conservatory where the cats regularly bring in mice, lizards and other small beings which I am sure are not dispatched with kindness but I haven’t seen any evidence of crosses – although we do have a plant stand in there……..

Looking for the next victim

I liked the shop’s  ‘reviews’ sent in by satisfied  happy, dungeon owning customers.  One complained that there was a slight split in the wood at the base of the pedestal.   I know, I know, just because you’re going to use something as part of a fetish ritual in a basement doesn’t mean you should have to put up with faulty goods.   Another said he was delighted with the workmanship and it was of ‘heirloom quality’.  Heirloom?  If your offspring had any idea you were concealing dungeon equipment in that innocent looking plant stand next to the telly they probably would have no more to do with you, ever. Unless, of course, you had passed down the gene for the love of all things painful in which case, they might be glad of  it one day.  Also, they might think you were slightly less boring than if you made them a quilt for an heirloom – sorry girls!

It all bought to mind – although very obliquely –  ‘The Ballad of Freda and Barry’ by Victoria Wood which, even though it’s from the 80s , still made me laugh when I watched it again on YouTube.  So for those of you who aren’t Brits, or haven’t heard of Victoria Wood or haven’t seen her do this, it’s worth 5 minutes for a good laugh.  Plus, as this is from the  ‘An Audience With ..’ series, where the show is performed in front of other celebrities, it’s fun spotting those who were or still are famous – Julie Walters  is there, for example, sporting the kind of hairstyle we all had back then. Well, I did.

I hope I haven’t offended anybody by wondering out loud about this particular fetish – whatever floats your boat – and if you do want the link to the shop, just ask!

 

Branded!

I’ve been wanting to get some custom made tape from my friend Anna  for ages, to use as seam tabs in some of the things I make and maybe as package headers.  Anyway, I finally got round to it and a few font, design and colour decisions later, here’s the result.

How flash am I?

I have also been faffing about with a bit more jewellery making as I can’t resist those glass domes that you put over images – they look so effective.  Here’s one I made earlier posing against a pretty little vintage jewellery box I found the other day which turned out, once I got it home, to be Japanese not French.  Which doesn’t really matter except I tend to ‘specialise’ in French things with a bit of the rest of Europe thrown in occasionally.  Still, a charming vintage item is a charming vintage item wherever it comes from and I’m the boss of my shop so there!

Watch this space as tonight, probably, if there’s nothing good on the telly, I’m going to recover the lampshade on an old standard lamp that I found recently, with some stunning vintage Liberty fabric.  If the results are good, I’ll be putting the photos on here, if not, forget I said anything!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bunny Bentos

I don’t know whether you remember my post about making something from a Japanese craft book but, if you don’t, and you care , here  it is

Anyway, I have a Japanese speaking reader who not only offered to help me with the translation but also has now told me that these little rabbits can be used as bento which is an idea from Japan where lunch is packed into a divided box and is both nutritionally balanced and visually appealing.  I know these rabbits are not boxes but, apparently that is what they are being marketed as in the book and, because my Japanese is limited to what I hear coming out of the computer when Madamoiselle Tialys the younger is watching her interminable Manga, I hadn’t realised and thought they were just for storage.  Hoorah for helpful blog readers (thanks Jenn!).

I know that the Japanese are keen on ingeniously wrapping things in beautiful fabric so those long ears tied into a knotted handle for little children (or big ones with small lunches) to carry to school is a great idea.

Of course, bunnies being bunnies, they are multiplying and I am going to need to replenish my linen and Liberty cotton stocks soon.  I got some coloured linen last time I was in the U.K. and, as I am going to visit my family next month, I will stock up on some like this lavender colour which I matched up with some Liberty cotton in the Strawberry Thief design to make this one.

Now that I know they can be lunch bags for tinies, I might well replace the buttons with stitches – just in case.

Also, I can’t wait for the little Easter eggs to come in to the shops here in France (where they don’t jump the gun as much as they do in the U.K.) so that I can pose the buns with some eggs inside.

Do Your Research!

I found some rusty old tins in a dark, dingy corner of an even darker, dingier junk shop.  I didn’t know what they were exactly but I thought they looked interesting so I bought them, took them home and started my research.  My main clue was the brand name ‘La Perpetuelle’ and what came up was a French site who had one for sale and explained that these were used by ‘Les Poilus’ in the trenches in the First World War to keep their rations in. 

And I was off!

I asked Madamoiselle Tialys’s French boyfriend why the French soldiers were called ‘les poilus’ and he said it was because they couldn’t shave very easily in the trenches and became hairy (poilu).  How interesting!  I photographed the tins with a photograph of Mr Tialys’s grandfather who did fight in the trenches but was English although he may well have become ‘poilu’ too.  You should have read the  description in my draft listing for my shop – it was soooo fascinating.

Then, I was going to do a blog post about the item PLUS the story of how Grandpa Tialys was bayoneted  in the fighting and was so afraid that the German soldiers would finish him off, he lay pretending to be dead for several days, presumably without sustenance and in terrible pain.  Then, when they did find him and realised he was alive, they took him to hospital and treated him better than he could have imagined!  By all accounts, he was a miserable old sod but then, expriencing life in the trenches, who wouldn’t be?

Anyway, Mr. Tialys and I were rather troubled by the method of getting into the glass jar inside the tin.  Where would you find a screwdriver in the trenches?  It looked rather fiddly for men up to their knees in mud and desperate for something to eat.  So I had another look around the internet and found somebody else claiming that these are old conserve jars dating from the 19th century which makes more sense to me and so that’s what I’m going to go with even though it’s not as exciting.   

Unless you know different………………

Grandpa Tialys still got his day on my blog though!

 

 

January Blues

Is there anything more depressing than taking down the Christmas decorations?  Well, of course there are plenty of things but you know what I mean!  Plus, lots of dust which was lurking under baubles and cards and tinsel is now revealed which means the dreaded housework must be done straight away.  Bleurgh.

Still, it’s Valentine’s Day soon and hearts and flowers will be everywhere.  Today’s Saturday Selection – as this is not just a post about moaning and whingeing – is the beautifully named  ChezSucreChez where you can buy lovely little cross stitch items which have been made by them or kits for you to do yourself.  As you may recall me saying in the past, cross stitch drives me crazy and, as I don’t need any help in the frustration and eye strain department, I leave it well alone and marvel at the skill and patience of others.  However, Madamoiselle Tialys, the elder, has discovered a liking for the craft and I am busy collecting supplies for her so that she can make things for me for a change.    I have ordered this great little kit from ChezSucreChez so that she can make this one to give to her ‘petit ami’ on Valentine’s Day.  Her friends’ nickname for her is ‘squirrel’ (or ‘ecureuil’ as we are in France) so I thought this would be appropriate.

On with the dusting and vacuuming now – well, maybe after lunch…….

Something a Bit Different

This week’s Saturday Selection is, as the title says, something a bit different.

If you like books and you like handbags this great combination of the two from A Spoonful of Chocolate  is for you.

What a great conversation starter.

There’s a good selection of different books so you can express your preferences and personality. 

PLUS – for the gifted amongst you, A Spoonful of Chocolate  sells a tutorial so that you can make your very own book handbag which would be a great project for the New Year.  I’m seriously considering giving it a go as I can just see Madamoiselle Tialys with an Alice and Wonderland bag.

They do Ereader cases from books too.  I like the sort of ironic idea of carrying around an electronic book in a traditional book cover.

 

 

Cindy’s House

I just finished another custom étui box house which I am quite pleased with as it is so cheerful and the fabrics go so beautifully together.

I don’t know who Cindy is or what she did but I hope she’ll be pleased with her gift.  Plus, I hope she doesn’t read my blog as it’s supposed to be a surprise.

Is It December Already?

I never realised, before I had an Etsy shop, how far in advance you had to think about annual events in order to prepare relevant stock.  Valentines day in December, Easter in January, Halloween in July and Christmas in September – as if my mind isn’t muddled enough. 

It’s quite difficult for me to go ‘festive’ as I am drawn to neutral or muted colours in fabrics as you can see from the results of my stash enhancement expedition of yesterday.

However, I do like the Scandinavian style of design and it seems to suit Christmas very well so, as last year, I will be slipping in the odd reindeer in red just to show willing.

 

 

Happy New Year.   Well, it is October.