Rachel at Ten Hour Stitcher (LINK) is our
host for this compltely brilliant SAL.
Thanks again, Rachel, for the much needed kick in the pants!
This one requires a little
history. In 1995, I was able to attend
the Spirit of Cross Stitch Festival in Valley Forge. It was the second time I’d gone to SOCS and
this time I not only knew what my class projects looked like *before* class
started, I was prepared for the awesome merchandise mall. By that I mean I was ready to look for charts
and supplies for classes from a previous year that I’d fallen in love
with. One of the charts I picked up was
Merry Cox’s Sampler Sewing Case. After a minor debate with myself, I also
bought the SOCS video class with Merry since the project was a similarly
designed sewing case.
Understand that the intent behind
purchasing the video was to get detailed finishing instruction for the other chart –
I had no intention of stitching the case in the video.
Are you laughing yet?
Of course at some point after finishing the
first sewing case, I ended up contacting Merry in order to acquire her
materials kit for the case in the video.
The original sampler case was stitched in 1997 and fully finished shortly
thereafter.
While working on the second sampler
case, I decided I wanted it to be different from the first one – my chart has
so many notes and ideas in the margins!
The plan was to turn Merry’s normal mattress pincushion into a
pocket. And oh, while I’m at it, let’s
make the needlebook a bit snazzier too.
Stitching for this small was finished
in (*cough*) 2003. Ever since, it’s been
rolled up and tucked carefully into my (Merry Cox SOCS class) Shaker Box with a
number of my completed smalls, patiently waiting for me to go through my making-quilts frenzy and come back to stitching.
(This
is Merry’s case – screenshots from video class)
A few years ago I got a bug to finish
the sewing case. For some reason, I’d
thought it was larger than the first case.
Nope. As charted, it's not even as big as the first one. So
there was pondering as to how to enlarge it without losing the original feel of
the project (and also without broad expanses of blank linen). I trawled eBay to acquire more of one of the
project threads, DMC flower thread (long gone from LNS inventories), then
planned and stitched a border.
And then I got cold feet.
Really, what had I been thinking? A tool-holding pouch with a flap closure in
this itty-bitty case? Back into the
Shaker box it went so it could … age a bit more.
Enter Rachel’s SAL (*whoops and cheers
and applause*), which got me seriously thinking about this project again. Preparing to work on the project required some
serious advance planning steps, beginning with figuring a way to transfer the
video file to my laptop which does not have an integral DVD drive. Hey, at least it was *on* a DVD rather than a
now-useless VHS tape thanks to Wonderful Husband.
For the past few weekends I’ve
disappeared into the back bedroom (where sewing machine, ironing board, and
other essentials reside) for an hour or so a day. Yes, in addition to being a slow stitcher, I’m
a slow finisher as well.
Now when one is off the instructions
map, one needs mock ups and templates to ensure plans and ideas work. Especially when one’s design is way too
fancypants for one’s own good.
That tiny bit of paper with staples is
my pocket model and the other paper is my pattern. I even basted
the pieces to the outer case this time!
I changed the poem just a touch since I saw no reason to break words across two lines.
Rather than nun’s edged linen needlepages, I used felted wool to better protect my needles and pins from rust - our climate is more humid than I'd like.
Here's that pesky double pocket that took so long to
go from wisp of idea to reality.
Even though I didn’t want to add all the bows that Merry used on her case, I thought the waxer pouch was a good place for the little bow charm. The drawstring on the other pouch is made from some of the silk ribbon provided to make those triple bows (see pics of Merry's case) – they were a bit too frou-frou for me.
