A Bluestocking Knits

Celebrating International Translation Day

In honor of International Translation Day and the often-unsung translators without whom the world of literature, and thus the world itself, would be poorer, here is a link to an interesting article about translations of Jane Eyre.

A Cavalcade of Cushions

Or "plethora of pillows"!  (Though for some reason, I tend to use "pillow" for the kind you sleep on, and "cushion" for the kind you keep on sofas or chairs ... why is that, I wonder?)

Having bought a piece of 40-count silk gauze for a petit-point contest this summer that I ended up not joining, I went a bit crazy with stitching cushions instead -- it only takes a piece of gauze the size of the palm of your hand! you could make dozens! -- so over the course of August, I stitched four, plus the second of a pair of kits, to make five.  The tops sat on the edge of my desk for most of September, because I kept putting off sewing them up, but I decided this past weekend that I was going to finish them.

These are, at the top, the "J" from a fanciful alphabet that is circulating Pinterest without an apparent source, "Rose" that was a gift to the old Petitpointers list when it was on Yahoo, and the charming and excellent "Bijar" kit (which is on 48-count gauze) from from Frances Peterson Petitpoint, and at the bottom the "Persian" cushion by Sue Bakker, and "Willow" that was also on the old Petitpointers list.  The Willow and the Bijar are worked exactly to the chart, the Persian I "faded" by using threads two shades lighter (except for the white) than on the chart -- the "J" I had to re-color as the numbers were mostly illegible, and the Rose I used more Gallica-like colors than the coppery original, and it also came out slightly bigger across since I made a counting mistake and discovered when I was well underway that I was two stitches off, so I just sort of ... made it fit.

They all really have to be sewn up by hand, as they are too small to fit into my sewing machine, so with that caveat, I have to say that despite the non-fraying and beautifully-draping properties of microfiber cloth, I don't like sewing it -- sometimes it is quite an effort to get even a really sharp needle through it.  I used the microfiber that came with the kit for the Bijar, and for the "J" cushion I used a rather pretty glasses cleaning cloth that came from my optometrist -- extra-thin, so excellent for miniature cushions!  The Willow is backed with some tan Linen Look from Joann's, and the other two are backed with Kona Cotton, both of which are nice to sew on even at this scale. 

I wanted them to look like they had been made by different people, and so I didn't mind experimenting with stuffings as well as sewing methods.  The Bijar cushion is filled with 10/0 beads, the smallest that my Joann's carries, the Persian and the "J" are filled with micro-beads, and the Rose and Willow are filled with glitter, which in these conditions has the properties of sand without as much of the potential for leakage.  Most full-sized cushions are piped, it seems, but piping in 1:12 scale is fraught with the possibility of mishap, as Jeeves would say.  I tend to recoil from the thought of gluing fabric, though of course in more practical moments I understand the rationale for it in miniature, and so I have experimented with couching a length of perle cotton around a petit-point cushion top before stitching it up (mostly successful), or simply doing without piping at all, as in three of these five.  My last experiment here was to make my own piping, using -- wait for it! -- spray fabric adhesive! and some crochet cotton, which turned out rather well, though I will use a finer crochet cotton than no.10 next time, as the scale is just a little too big.  It basted on surprisingly easily, though stitching the back and front together was a pain, and the piping made the thing stiff enough that I thought I was never going to get it turned right-side-out.  I didn't get the join together as smoothly as I would have liked, but it's a method worth refining, certainly.

The bench is from a Jane Harrop tutorial that has since disappeared -- I'm really glad I saved it, as it is a charming little bench that went together surprisingly easily, and cost me nothing since it was all scrap pieces!  I haven't decided yet if I'm going to paint it or "age" it, which is why it's still bare.  My idea is to have a bench outside the carpet shop, with "old" cushions on it -- at least some of these, though I have a plan for the "J" to go in one of the other shops-to-be.

And a bit of a non sequitur, but here is a lovely sunrise from the other day! --