Happy Halloween! I know the sentiment is a bit late now but oh well. This week was full of needlepoint adventures and making space in the living room in between taking the kids to all of their various Halloween things.

Making Space

Ben and I finally got to clear out the already explored living room and move things around to make it into a livable space. There are a few more things to take care of in there but not too many. Here is what it looks like now! And if you need a refresher, here is what it looked like before.

The lovely looking green residue on the floor is from a previous rug mat. There was once a very large and lovely rug that was infested with carpet moths that was on the floor. And when it got taken away, due to before mentioned bugs, we discovered a lovely green mat underneath. And as it turns out that mat was now essentially melted to the floor. The rug had been purchased and placed an estimated 60 years ago so it would stand to reason that the now sticky, melted, green mat is just as old. We spent many hours scraping up as much of the mat as possible and this is what remains. I tried everything I could think of to get it off of the floor and have had zero luck. So refinishing the floors is in the future.

Needlepoint

Various members of the family have all been into a variety of needle crafts. I have evidence of Berlin woolwork, embroidery, tatting, crewel embroidery, and cross-stitch. I am very excited to play with and hopefully finish a few of the started but yet unfinished Berlin woolwork pieces that I have found because they are very Victorian in style and GORGEOUS. Berlin woolwork is the predecessor of needlepoint and is done with wool thread on canvas. Another project that I really want to complete on someone else’s behalf is a very very fine cross-stitch project that was meant to be a table runner, maybe? The project has been started and is done with a single strand from embroidery floss. I found with this project a pattern book filled with a variety of other birds. I didn’t find any clues as to which birds were going to be used. So I guess I get to pick which ones I want to use.

While practicing for this project I started to finish a different previously begun cross-stitch but have since had to put that down in order to organize the embroidery thread container that I had previously just thrown things into as I found them. While working through organizing the container, I kept coming across this two strand embroidery thread that was labeled as rope embroidery. I for the life of me could not figure out what this was used for as it was roughly the same thickness as a full strand of embroidery floss (six strands) but was clearly not intended to be pulled apart to use. So, I turned to some crafting friends to see if anyone knew what it was. I come to find out that it is perle cotton, and it is used for embroidery.

Other Fun Stuff

I recently received a bag of practice wool that I got to practice my spinning. It is a bunch of one ounce bags of various colors of merino wool. So laid a bunch out in rainbow order and started to spin. I got to yellow before my drop spindle was full. I then plied it and realized and that it was no longer in a fun rainbow gradient because of the way plying yarn works. So oopsie there but it is practice and still turned out really cool and fun.

I found a chair that I think will be perfect for use at the spinning wheel when it is fixed. I believe that a portion of the legs were removed at one point for some reason or another. The angle of my legs when I sit in it though should be perfect for spinning.

That is all for last week. This week may involve some attic sorting. I am also planning on taking a trip to a fiber festival so maybe a few photos from there as well!

Thanks for joining in on the adventure!

Lots of Love,

The McMullin Family