Still on about stools

Whaddaya know, it’s a two-blog day.

In response to a suggestion that I make a cover for the stool for added comfort    (although my own posterior is plenty well-padded and certainly needs nothing further), I shall show you these: for weeks I have been playing around with variations on crocheted covers for footstools, and, as it happens, the first one (knitted) was unsuccessful. It is, however, PERFECT for the stool.

And here are the crocheted covers. As much as I like the shell edge, I find it’s better to do a border that tightens up because it sits better on the foam.  Can’t show you any actual footstools… they are in the wings awaiting paint.

Incidentally, it was through Tamara that I found a tutorial for a granny rectangle.  Thanks again for that :-)

To be continued…

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Stool sample

Every time I go into the foam shop in Claremont, my eye is drawn to the ancient little stool that is kept at one of the sewing machine tables.

It looks so shabby and tired, as if it has tried really hard over the years to earn its keep!

I asked if I could borrow it for a couple of days to show someone I knew who works with wood, because I wanted my own version. Long to short, Gerrie made me a beautiful stool out of reclaimed wood, which I collected on Saturday at the Hope Street market.

It isn’t as A-frame as the old one, and the top is slightly bigger – which I think is a good thing (from a comfort point of view). I can’t decide whether to leave the wood as it is or to give it a weathered look.  I also can’t decide where it is going to live, so for now it’s in the lounge and gets moved around every couple of hours.  Such a silly, simple thing – but it makes me happy.

To be continued…

tassels for Africa

So Anne asked me the other day what I’d done with all my tassels. I went through a huge tassel passion about 8 or 9 years ago, going so far as to run tassel workshops! It seems they had been wrapped in tissue paper and stored in a box in the garage all this time. A bit like bulbs, and hopefully – like bulbs – they will now come back to life.

I’d forgotten how very much I like them, and how very much I liked making them. Seeing the zebra one made from a cotton reel makes me think I could use other waste things in tassels to come.
The others have special wooden shaped heads, which were made by a very handy man called Laurie who used to live next door to my first shop in Rosebank. He had all the right carpentry equipment and used to turn some really beautiful shapes for me.

A woman asked me one day what on earth a tassel was, and when I showed her, she then asked what on earth it would be used for. [No imagination, some people.] Think of them as house jewellery, I said, just for starters.

To be continued…

Goldberg and Goldberg

Alex did this picture when she was in Grade 5, so she must have been 9 or 10.  A few years later, I found a grotty old frame in a junk shop in Salt River (I think it’s called Charms), so I cleaned it up and added some tiles.  I’m not a very good framer and I think the picture is held in at the back with prestik, a bit of sticky tape and the top of a shoebox, but I am extremely fond of it. It’s on my bedroom wall.

And if that girl carries on the way she is going now, it might be worth a lot of money one day :-)

To be continued…

 

(A-side) table

A side table or an aside-table? Either way, it makes me think Lily Pad, and it’s my First Mosaic Table.  I found it in a junk shop in Sedgefield last month, spotted it on top of a pile of other stuff as we were driving past.  After three and a half years, Rob has become expert at interpreting the tone and volume with which I yell Stop. It is a word he hears often: Stop – there’s a car coming! Stop – I want to look at that red dress in the window of the shop we just passed! Stop – I need to find a loo! Stop – there’s a pile of junk on the side of the road and I want to scrabble through it in case it yields something I can use! He has become an excellent stopper.

I love this table and don’t think I will be able to part with it, even though I have been getting it ready in time for Saturday’s open day and it would be wonderful if someone saw it and thought Ohmygod I have to have that. It has a cunning built-in coaster for one’s coffee mug. Mine, I think. 

To be continued…