Jay and his team are out of town. My Nemesis is in town, visiting the grand kids.
We had an absolutely lovely day together, Nemesis and I!
She’s a world class quilter and has actually put together one purse for me already and has said she wouldn’t mind doing more. I’ll have to stitch a design for her; we should all have needlepoint purses, especially designed for us, don’t you think? I do.
The shop is currently owned and operated by the daughter in law of one of our venerated founders. Keeping with tradition, her daughter is working with her, doing bookwork, inventory and coming up with inspiring ideas for designs. A week or so ago, daughter brought her oldest daughter into the shop. The 11 year old flung out her arms and cried “someday, all this will be mine!”
That’s good. It’s always reassuring to know the order of accession. Plus, if we want to keep the art of needlework alive, we need to get her and all her friends stitching.
Can’t leave an entire generation with nothing to do but knit (she spat the word, derisively). Doesn’t the world have enough ugly scarves and ill-fitting beanies? Admit it; you’ve never known anyone who actually made, much less could wear, one of those cutesy sweaters on the covers of all the knitting magazines.
No one between the ages of 3 and 93 can wear that stuff.
Needlepoint, on the other hand, can actually be tailored for your personality, age and lifetstyle.
Does that make it cool? I think it does.
Many years ago, my daughter told me that I couldn’t use the words ‘cool’ and ‘needlepoint’ in the same paragraph, much less sentence. That was before she saw the My Fair Lady purse I designed for her. Or the StarWars purse I stitched for myself. I just picked up the chair I had upholstered for her. The design is herself, sunbathing topless at Lake Calhoun.
It may not be cool but it will get you a ticket from the Park Police.
Oh relax, she’s only shown from the back. It’s a rework of one of my favorite local artists.
Back to yesterday: Mom and I picked up Nemesis and the kids and we all went to a fabric warehouse in Burnsville. I drove, thinking I knew exactly where I was going.
I didn’t.
Note to self; next time go north on 13, not south.
Eventually we found our destination and had a lovely time, perusing racks, stacks and rolls of gorgeous fabric and digging through huge bins of buttons of all descriptions, letting them drip through our fingers like pirates reveling in treasure chests. In fact, Babalouie wanted a button so we let him choose one and bought it for him. A quarter to keep a toddler happy while shopping all morning is the best deal you’re gonna find all week.
I was looking at upholstery fabric. I recently acquired a lovely old settee (a loveseat, when not quite so old or lovely) that Jay hates with a passion. He thinks it’s ugly and uncomfortable.
It’s not ugly. It is covered in gold velveteen that wasn’t it the greatest shape when I got the piece and has since attracted stains and marks, courtesy of the grandbabies. Yes, I’m blaming them. Not that I blame them but I did tell Babydoll not to color with magic markers on the cushion. Did she listen? She tried. It got away from her. These things happen.
The cushion of the loveseat is down filled. It’s quiet squishy and needs to be plumped up every time you sit on it. It does need further padding. I don’t mind sitting on it but Jay flatly refuses. Fair enough. So I thought I’d start looking for something else to cover it with.
I found at least four that would do nicely; heavy duty, gorgeous, with enough color and pattern so that every little thing won’t show on it and if we decide not to keep the settee on the porch, it will look smashing in my living room as well. Not only that but at the warehouse, everything is half price so I spent less than half of what I was prepared to spend on a beautiful fabric to recover my settees! I’ll have my gal restuff the cushion with something sturdier under the feathers so it holds its shape better. I’m not saying Jay will love it but he’ll like it better and as I said; worst case scenario is I’ll move it to my living room.
Mom bought something to back the quilt she’s working on and Nemesis found a whole stack of fabrics for the projects she’s working on.
We packed up our purchases and left just when Babydoll and Babalouie were getting so comfortable that they were on the verge of getting out of hand.
I did make one tactical error; I lifted the roll of upholstery fabric down by myself. I had gone looking for someone to help but everyone in the place was busy so I did it myself.
That sucker weighed a ton. Being incredibly stupid, I lifted it into my cart by myself. It wasn’t until hours later, after dinner, that my back punished me for my foolishness. Its okay; ice solved the problem. Ice is great. Ice and zicam are two of the best inventions of all time.
Okay, ice isn’t exactly an invention but still; whoever thought of putting it on an injury deserves to have cities named after him. (or her but who are we kidding? It was a guy. No woman would be dumb enough to think “I’m sore. I think I’ll freeze it.”)
After our trip to the fabric warehouse, we came back to my house where we baked cookies and made lasagna. While the lasagna baked, we all snuggled on the settee (we had to; Babydoll and Babalouie wanted to sit on both our laps at the same time) and watched Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella.
It was awesome.
Mom and Dad came over for dinner and Zack was here so we had a terrific time. The only downside was that I couldn’t get ahold of Katie, so I still haven’t been able to hand over her chair. Since it’s a gift from Mom and me, we all agreed not to give it to her until we’re together.
Spending the whole day with the grandies wore me out. Most of the time when Jay is out of town, I have trouble sleeping. Last night I fell asleep before ten. I was watching an old episode of 30 Rock. The last thing I remember was Jenna telling Hazel that her big mistake was not killing her when she had the chance. Hilarious!
This morning, my back is hardly stiff at all. I need to get upstairs to work, though. Too many days off are coming up so I have to work while I can. Also; customers get pissy if I tell them they can’t have their designs till after Christmas. Jeez, I have a life, too.
Oh, wait; that’s what they pay me for. Nevermind.