Working with Cashmere...and a purse fail.

Good news and bad news.  Let's get the bad news over first.  My orange purse that I dreamed would be perfection, luscious, amazing, superfantabulous, extraordinary? 

None of those adjectives seem to fit the bill.  I'd go with....blech.  The beaded embellishment of my vision looked ridiculous on it.  The construction was mediocre to say the best of it.  I blame the super thick wool, the lack of handbag construction experience, my cruddy old cheap sewing machine.  Whatever.  Here is the vision....  A long rectangular bag with a half moon flap, lined with vintage linen, and embellished with the most beautiful beaded dangly thing I thrifted..  this thing:

The dangly thing-y doesn't really go with the shotty craftmanship of the bag.  I don't know if there is any saving of this orange monstrosity...  give me a fricken' idea already.  I'm fresh out. 

Pointy edges, too short of a flap.  Blah.

Extra thick felted sweater + older cheap machine = crappy construction detail.  Blah.

But on an up note...

The cashmere creativity train has pulled into the station.  With two of the lovliest color of cashmere I have found to date, I made four things:

Cashmere Cowl with coordinating thrifted cotten lining

Cashmere Fingerless gloves in progress...

Cashmere Scarf of gorgeousness...

You want to touch it, don't you...

And this, the crowning achievement of an old Daniel Bishop Cashmere Sweater.  Possibly the thickest I've ever seen...  Cabled and ribbed?  This scarf is 6X thicker than any cashmere object I've ever touched.  And like a cloud.  Soft as butter...  I don't know if I can sell it, other than it is not really my color...

OMG!! 72" of luxury right there.

And one more pair of cashmere fingerless gloves, in a classic combo of linen color and tiny cables....

So, as artists, whether we are knitters, sewers, upcyclers, whatever... We take the good with the bad, right?  And sometimes the bad is very, very bad.  But the good can be very, very soft. 

Off to work!  I have a pile of cashmere and wool that needs work.

And- everyone give a shout out to Rex; he found me some lovely pieces that could become my very first design involving wool suiting... Any ideas?

Twas the Night Before Christmas Poem- Rewritten

I'm not sure you can top this.  I had my first day of break yesterday, and the goal was to clean the house, including the two squirt's room.  Here is how my Christmas story began....

Twas the first day of Christmas break-

Everything was quiet, and all through the house,
not a creature was whining, not even my youngest mouse.

The stockings were hung on the wall with command adhesive hooks,
and for my future downtime, I had picked several books.


The children were watching some silly cartoon,
visions of all the toys from the commercials landing under the tree soon.

And momma in her ponytail, cleaning the kitchen
was humming Christmas tunes and thinking of stitchen'.

When from under the cabinet overhang, something bit into my heel
A food processor blade slicing me; pure stainless steel!

I dropped to floor with a shout and a scream,
To see that my foot now had a seam.

A four inch long seam, at least half an inch deep,
Made her so mad, she wished that she'd stayed asleep.

Off to the ER, in her manual transmission,
foot wrapped up tight in an army bandage, pain blurred her vision.

11 stitches and a tetanus shot later, she's tucked in her chair
Wishing that fate instead had decided to cut her hair.

There it is folks.  I cut my foot wide open yesterday on a misplaced food processor blade and had to drive myself to the ER, to get 11 stitches and a tetanus shot.  I'm now hobbling around on Christmas eve, trying to get all that last minute business done.  (I'd show you the picture, but it is too gross.) Wish me luck!

Do you have any Christmas injury stories to share?  I'd love to hear that I'm not the only one.  *pout*

Have a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year from biologyrose- aka FrankenFoot.
:)