Fiber Raven Soiree

The Chippendale Adventure

There has been a terrible disaster in the Parlor. The inviting warmth of the gas fireplace has been choked off by some fireplace-disabling demon. This has disrupted the life of Happy Holler to a great extent. Everyone knows that Madame knits in the parlor, that the Theatre is in the same vicinity and that the Yarnitorium is just down the hall. All of these are virtually impossible to inhabit with our recent cold weather and no heat.

Faced with this bleak situation and unable to contact Festus Confestus, the handyman, Madame has been stuck in Compurgatory designing a fair isle sweater. Well, it's not very traditional, but she thinks it will work.

When she becomes inspired, Madame is extremely intent on her objective. She turns off all programs on her computer, including mail and internet browsers, so that Fireworks, Stitch Painter and other contributing programs might have all the memory available. She shuts herself off from the world while Jojo and Ginger take turns attempting to commandeer her lap and Sherlock jumps like a pogo stick in an attempt to get her out of her special chair.

She gets up only for bio breaks and more coffee or water and stays up past her bedtime in an effort to get just a little more done.

In the current instance, inspiration arrived in wood. Papa and Madame Glitchbane went in search of a round table on Sunday. We have a favorite consignment store, Far-Fetched Consignments, that often has great furniture at decent prices. We wandered through, feeling sorry for the cast-off sofas inviting us to sit in their laps, grimacing at the shiny enamel bedroom sets, and smiling at those 1950's style lamp tables that our grandmothers had in their living rooms. But no decent dining room tables were to be found.

We decided to stop at the new Bassett store on our way home, and there we found it-- not a round table, but one so pretty we could not resist. A Chippendale reproduction dining set. The carved backs of the chairs could inspire a leech. The gently curving sides of the table were graceful, and the outwardly curving legs pure joy to one stuck with the arts and crafts straightness of a mission-style table.

While we conducted business with the perfect furniture salesman-- a handsome gay designer-- I pulled out a piece of paper and drew the carving. I could hardly wait to get home and start interpreting it in stitches.

And that, my dear friends, is what I have been doing for the last two days. I began a large swatch yesterday, and when I have finished it it shall be revealed. I must say, I am like a five-year-old at Christmas and can't wait to see it in real life.

In the meantime, please visit The Terrible Knitter of Kent and a long-awaited blog from a very talented writer, the Yarn Harlot.