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I’ve always been a little bit fascinated with armour – maybe it’s all the sci-fi and fantasy that I read and have read since I was little, maybe it’s just a preoccupation with fashion, but I just think the stuff is terribly neat-o. As you may or may not know, Dear Will works at the Higgy as the conservator, and I worked there briefly, in education, a while back. So I’ve managed to learn bits and pieces about the stuff over the years.
So in 2oo8 when Man Cub wanted to be a knight for Halloween, I dug in with gusto. He and I discussed the matter at hand (fashion!), and decided on some fanceh scale armour. I researched, asked a ton of questions, and then I cut about a zillion pieces of black craft foam into chevrons, pulled an old long-sleeved tee out of the closet, and fired up the glue gun.
I fashioned the shoulders by molding them around a small pumpkin, and scaled up the shirt from the bottom up, and when I got most of the way around, I ran out of foam chevrons. So, um, I made him a cape and called it a day. Will finagled a helmet and a wooden sword, and our man cub brought home much candy that Halloween. That costume actually made it through two Halloweens (the second year spray painted gold and, “blood” spattered) before it was too small. I believe he would have worn it a third year had it not gotten tight.*
I loved the process of building the costume – the shaping and molding, and even the cutting out of chevrons was kinda meditative. And ever since that costume, I’ve been wanting to build another armour.
In our margarine!
I came home this morning from dropping Our Small Person off at school, and the fridge door was open. This is not something that couldn’t happen – it’s hard to wake up in the morning, right? The door could have been left ajar – it’s not inconceivable. Some stuff had rolled out, which made it even less suspicious – sometimes when Our Small Person rummages around in there (which he does a lot now that he’s reached the pre-teen feeding frenzy*) he’s not really all that careful about what goes where, and the door doesn’t always close all the way – then it pops open later. It’s been known to happen. So I gathered everything up and put it away, and didn’t think much about it.
Until I went to make my toast to bring down for coffee with Daniel and Skipper Jane. AND JEEBUSXMASWTFBBQ – DUDE! THERE ARE FOOTPRINTS IN THE MARGARINE!
Your old self is the fuel you will use to burn your old self to the ground. This bonfire will liberate your new self, which has been trapped in a gnarly snarl deep inside your old self. It’s only at first that you’ll feel freaked out by the flames. Very quickly a sense of relief and release will predominate. Then, as the new you makes its way to freedom, escaping its cramped quarters and flexing its vital force, you will be blessed with a foreshadowing of your future. The intoxication that follows will bring you clarity and peace of mind.
Industry is currently at a complete standstill. The stitch ripper is missing. I have torn up my desk, my workspace, the area around the sewing machine, a chunk of the basement, and a bunch of bags of work in progress, and the kitchen, just for kicks.
Faeries? Cats?
I need the damned stitch ripper. This is so not funny.
ETA: Found it! Under the printer, whut?
So we had a surprise visitor this morning! The very lovely Ms. Anne Thrope arrived in time for morning coffee with Dear Daniel and me – visitors are always welcome, of course. But when I asked what occasioned the happy surprise (I figured she was here to see the progress on her gown for next month’s show down south), she didn’t look so happy.
In fact, she looked like she’d been up all night upset about something. Turns out she had been up all night, upset. She’d talked to Daniel last night and heard how excited I was about finding the faerie ring of spools*. Then she said she owed me an apology. And sat down in the chair by the portrait of Jackie and turned the color of ripe peaches**, and started to cry.
So.
Omigodomigodomigodomigod! I WISH I COULD FIND THE CAMERA CABLE!
So! remember when I put out the heart box of fabric scraps in the basement, next to the thread and the stitch ripper? Well!
Omigodomigodomigodomigod! This is so exciting!
So the first indication that something was going on was that yesterday I walked downstairs with Daniel and there was a spool of thread all the way by the door. I was all like o.Ó even if Daniel was all like -.- and then he apologized, saying that it was Wednesday morning, and Tuesday is martini night with the ladies, and someone must’ve gotten the thread caught up in their crinoline on the way out or something. But it didn’t quite add up; I remained and o.Ó. It seemed, well, tricky, if that makes sense.
But after coffee this morning, I went to the check on the garden – we still have a couple peppers and some squash that might ripen before it gets too cold, if we’re lucky – and OMIGOD, GUISE!
There, under the squash leaves, right next to the mint that’s going to seed? A near perfect circle of spools, squished into the dirt a bit, like to anchor them. Or like someone had been sitting on them! The same spools that I left out by the fabric for the faeries! Seems the fabric wasn’t to their fancy, but the spools were. So exciting!!
I have GOT to find that camera cable.
If you’ve been following along, you know that we’ve had some evidence of Tuatha in our lovely house – which has been fine, in general. The only issue so far has been that of pieces of my fabric have been made off with – not big pieces or anything, but torn raggedly from the yardage. So I mentioned this to my lovely mother-in-law, who suggested that I put out some pieces that the faeries could pick and choose from for themselves, without issue. She believes that this will bring about some harmony in the house, and forge an alliance with the wee ones. She also warned me strongly not to piss them off. And she said it like someone with Big Experience in the area.
So!
I’ve put out some nice pieces for Our Very Small Friends, as you can see above. (I’ve misplaced the camera cable, so I had to pop these on the scanner.) I put them all in the bottom of a little box from some chocolates years ago – heart-shaped, if you will know, and lined in pink satin (thank you, Will, darling), and set the whole thing under the desk where I stack my yardage. I left a selection of threads on the lowest shelf, along with a stitch ripper, so if thread is wanted, there’s no need to haul off the entire spool. I shall keep you updated as to what happens!
First, let me give you a good look at the bookshelf:
You can see that the plant there is reaching for the sun. You can also see that it’s nowhere near anywhere that one of the cats can get to reasonably*.
Now look! Look!
Purple string!
I’m telling you, we have tuatha afoot in this house. And someone’s dress is not holding together very well.
I showed Will’s mom this afternoon when she was over to pick up our small person for lunch – she nodded and told me to cut a nicer bit of cloth for our small friends and leave it somewhere they can get to it easily, and they should stay away from the bolt. I haven’t yet put out that bag of scraps that I had been mulling over; I’ll get on that tonight, for sure.
*The cats have set off the camera trap now three times. All three times we knew it was a cat, because immediately following the shutter click, there was a resounding crash, a fluffy blur, and a mess to clean up.
This morning Daniel and I were standing in his kitchen, enjoying an early coffee, which we’ve done at least four times a week for the last two years. At least. And this morning we got a bit of a shock.
Let me explain: Our apartment building is a comfy collection of people who like each other – we’ve engineered it that way, much to the delight of our landlord. There’s a common space in the basement where folks who live here and the people we love tend to hang out a lot – there’s a fairly regular Friday night poker game/board game* marathon that happens, I have a Monday night writing group there, Skipper’s down there all the time to hang out and use the wi-fi, Daniel has Thursday night after-club martinis with the Ladies there, Lynnie brings her laundry and her paints, and we all have projects that get done on the big table. In addition to the basement being common space, when we’re home and awake, none of us really closes the inner door to our apartments unless it’s super cold out. Which is to say, there’s a fair amount of wandering between apartments that happens.
Which is to say, we all know each other’s apartments pretty well. Daniel knows all the names of my plants and cats, I know every addition to his depression glass collection at a glance. We know where every piece of plumbing starts and ends** in all the apartments, and just how to track between units, the path of a squirrel that has managed its way into the walls.
Chris says that fearies don’t like to be thanked, that they get snippy with thanks. Which, I guess, would be more important if I had something to thank them for, but they’re really not doing anything that deserves gratitude. Unless you call tearing a hunk of purple organza from the bolt and making off with it thankable. Sigh.
But I’m wondering if it might not be wise to leave them a little treat or something? A tidbit to keep them off the goods I’m currently using, right? I was thinking about setting out a pile of the better scraps for them to go through and pick and choose – I wind up with a lot of pieces that I keep around for just-in-cases (or maybe one day making a taffeta patchwork teddy bear? Or something?) and they’ve been collecting – there are quite a few. Perhaps our resident fae could make Something Pretty from them.
I showed Daniel the tear this morning, and while he was sympathetic about the missing chunk*, he is still going with his assertion that we have squirrels or mice, not faeries. I ask you, fair reader, have you ever seen a squirrel in a party dress – or even a turban – made from purple organza? I can tell you with 100% sincerity that I have not.
*Daniel is a good good human being. He lets me wake him up at stupid hours of the morning, and follows me to see what I’m on about. A good good human being. Even if he doesn’t believe the evidence in front of his eyes that indicates the presence of fae.
Apple Tells All 