The Design Shows the Way

The last factor that can effect your choice of casket is the design concept you want to do and how that fits on a casket.

The first thing to do if the design concept/story or technique is the most important factor to you is to make a list of everything you want on your casket.  Then look at the list and divide it into major items and minor items.  The easy way to think about that is to separate the ones that are to be in the background like trees, flowers, cats, castles, etc. and put those in the minor category.  The figures like the characters, family members, etc. are in the foreground and they are the major items.  Typically, only one major item will fit on a panel and the minor items will be used as the background fillers.  You can have two to three on a large panel like the top of a Flat Casket or the back of a piece if you have some that relate in a scene of a story.

Now count up how many of the panels you have.  If I was doing my family I would have four people and thus four panels.  Then look at the guide in the diagram.  Four panels would fit well on a Flat or Short Flat casket if you used something else for the top (like a flower jar).

If you had six different major characters (a family of six, lets say) it would be easier to fit that on a Double Casket with the two doors, two sides, a back and a top which equals six panels.

Hopefully this helps show how your design can lead to a smaller number of casket type options that you can pick from, and then you can use other factors to chose the one you want.

Tomorrow, I will start to talk about other factors that keep us from starting - how perfect is the enemy of the good.

Tricia

Which Casket? - The Budget

Continuing yesterday's thread of the three primary reasons people use to choose which casket they want to get, we will consider budget today.  Again, you have to choose which of the three is the dominant factor for you.

When people talk about budget, it is from two different angles.  The first is that they can't afford a very expensive item in their fixed budget.  The second is that they have so many ideas that they want to execute that they feel the need to buy several caskets and that really exceeds what they should spend.

Lets take the second one as that is easiest.  Having many ideas is great!  But after trying to design many caskets based on my ideas and failing many times, I have realized that it is hard and not all ideas fit on a casket very well.  So having many ideas you want to do is actually great.

I would suggest in that case that you work with them on paper and try to design a casket, mirror or picture with each idea.  One of those shapes will work for it.  The one that works on a casket is the one you go with.  And meanwhile, you have 'parked' the rest of the ideas on shapes (mirror and picture) that I can support for you for many years forward and that are low in cost (no support structure cost for a stumpwork picture and only around $500 for a mirror).

This comes from experience I have gained in this class myself, trying to design many caskets for the course as well as mirrors.  I have many unfinished casket designs that are such because they just don't fit the symmetry of the object I am trying to force it on well.  So many ideas are good and sometimes you just have to accept that a cool idea would be better as a framed picture on the wall instead of a casket.

Now the back to the first angle, budget is the issue.  While there are seven different options, some are so close in price to make there really only four options - a price point for the structure of nothing (picture), $500 (Short Casket or one of the Mirrors), $1000 (Flat Casket) or over $2400 (Double Casket or Flat Top with Doors).

In my little diagram I use the greater than sign to remind you that there are additional costs like the papers, glue, woven tapes, and lining fabrics to account for and that they scale with the options.  As in there will be less of those for the mirrors than for the double casket.

The first thing you should think about is if putting these items on a monthly plan would make the one you want more affordable.  If so, then use that as a basis.  If not, use the budget number you have to draw the line and choose among the items below that.  While often stitchers oh and ah over the double casket, the short flat casket can be done up so over the top that you would never know that you hadn't gone with the expensive option.

2017 - The Year I Start My Casket

So I have announced that I am doing a Stitch-Along for our caskets starting in January and as part of that, I have been preparing information that I think might be helpful for everyone who has been in the Cabinet of Curiosities.  My point is to make everyone who wants to make a casket (or mirror) get started and overcome whatever is in their way.

So today starts a series of helpful (hopefully) blogs that will lead you through decisions - some practical and some emotional.  We all get stuck and paralyzed somewhere in the process of starting a project and it isn't the same for everyone.  And this project is massive, can be expensive, is time consuming and effectively I have asked you to put what you know best aside and become a designer, so for many of you this is uncharted territory.  I have to laugh as if it was grown women who did this in the 17th century - we might only have five examples to view in museums!  Children are fearless and dive in...we need to emulate them to get started.

So I have been writing down all the reasons I hear from everyone (and myself) that starting is hard.  For the next three days, our topic is "What Casket" should I get/do.  We will then talk about the fear of failure, permission to enjoy ourselves and go into the design decisions to make so you can have linen on frames in January!  I have prepared checklists and decision flow charts that will be posted on the class website soon - and am using pieces of them here in these blogs so you can reflect daily.

Which Casket?

Where will your piece live and does it fit?

I think there are three major themes that drive everyone's choice of a casket and you have to decide which one of these themes is most important to you and then follow that decision flow chart.  They are:  What you will do with it, your budget, and does it fit your design concept.  Today, I want to treat the easiest of them - what you will do with it.

The space inside the casket can be an easy way to convince yourself of which one you want to work.  This is emotional and not practical - you have a dream or a scenario in your head of where this piece is going to live and what you are going to do with it.  It is the adult version of the Barbie Dream House that you wanted so bad that one Christmas.  So what do you envision?

Will you store your jewelry in it and use it daily?  So you might want doors that can be ajar so you

There are two levels of drawers like
this in the double casket
to give you a feeling of what will fit.

can get to the small drawers easily.  Put your needlework tools and threads inside as a workbox?  So a big space is useful.  Is it going to be a place that you put something highly personal or collectible inside?  Or are you thinking of expressing yourself further in the box with an embroidered garden, a music box or some other creative idea?

Or, is your nose wrinkled right now.  I am not touching it, you are thinking to yourself.  No one is touching it!  It is a museum object - damn it!  I am putting it under one of those plexi cases to keep it from the dust and little lights trained on it and maybe if I don't will it to my favorite relative I will take it with me!

Well each of those use cases infers what kind of space is inside and can cut your decisions down to one or two options.  Much easier to make a decision now!  Take a look at this flow diagram and what kind of casket is recommended based on the use.

Yes, this is emotional and yes I mentioned ashes.  Don't judge the person who wants to make their

The contents of my stitching stuff
 on my 'nest' table stuffed
into the drawers of a double
casket.  Not much fits.

casket a memorial to a special person or pet.  And yes, I have seen this happen in a 17th century casket with modern ashes so I have an idea of what space is needed.  Trust me.

And if you want it to live as a museum object in your home, where you might walk by it with your guests and serendipitously turn on a few lights to highlight your accomplishment... you will want the big one with all the bells and whistles.  I give you permission.

You want it to be useful and have it near your stitching nest so you can enjoy it daily and use that excuse with the other partner in your checking book - then get the Short Casket - it is cost effective, has lots of room and won't drive you insane automatically locking every time you close the lid because it doesn't have a lock!  (Just to clarify, the lid locks on those that have them click when the lid is closed, engaging the lock automatically, needing the key to open.  You can gently place the lid ajar and open and close without a key - but if this is something that would drive you insane to have it lock or have it always ajar, take it into consideration).

These are the tall drawers and some tubes of thread and my
glasses stick up over the side of the drawers

And if you have a desired use sceniaro that isn't really listed here - let me know about it!  I promise I won't laugh (and really, after seeing one used as an urn... there isn't anything you can tell me that will make me blink).  I might be able to help you figure out which one would do the trick best.

Tomorrow - budget as a decision point.

Some mementos of the classes in my Flat Casket tray

The tray out of the Flat Casket and showing how much
extra space there is under it in the box

What fits in the bottom of the Flat Casket and the tray fits on
top of it.  All of the packages of Soie Gobelin, Soie Paris, Soie Ovale,
and Soie Perlee in the class.

This is the Short Flat Casket.  It has no tray and a smaller area to store things,
but I still get all the Soie Perlee, Soie Ovale, and Soie Paris in their bulky packaging inside!

Thanksgiving Sale until Monday Night

Just to let everyone know that the sale on the items for Thanksgiving is going on until Monday night (commonly called Cyber Monday).  You just need to put BlackFriday2016 into the discount box when ordering from the Thanksgiving Collection on the site.

To give you a preview of what is on sale:

Black Friday Sale

I have almost finished the uploads of all the rest of the items I have found in the grand clean out of my teaching bins.  If you thought there was great stuff before - just wait!

On Friday morning (called Black Friday here in the USA), I will be opening up the items I have been putting up in the Special Deals section AND I will be opening up the Black Friday Sale that will go from the 25th to the 28th.

To get in on the 20% off items in the Thanksgiving Sale Collection - you need to use the code:  BlackFriday2016 in the discount box on the checkout.

Don't forget to check in and see what is on sale!

Tricia

A New Casket to View

There was an auction while I was at Winterthur recently which featured two pieces of stumpwork, one was a casket with an interesting set of women inside garlands on the doors.  Often these are seen in the corners of a large rectangle mirror.

Below are the pictures of it on all sides.  Note the last one - do you see the little boy in the fruit tree?  I thought that was just precious.

Tricia

Cowan's Auctions Lot 324

Girlhood Embroidery by Betty Ring

This is the 'bible' of embroidery books about American samplers.  A two volume set, it was the culmination of the life's work by Betty Ring.  She was able to identify that these girlhood embroideries were done in schools and use genealogy and advertisements to identify the groups of samplers from different regions around the USA.

A group of speakers at the recent Winterthur Symposium were talking at a lovely dinner hosted by some eminent collectors, when the host asked several of us (Amelia Peck at the MET, Amy Finkel, and myself) if Betty's work still held up to the scrutiny of time.  We all enthusiastically said YES!  Many of us had worked on projects to delve into individual regions she covered and knew of many others who had done the same.  None of us knew a case where an extreme focus on a region had uncovered contradictory information, although many of us had found more supporting samplers and information to further validate her initial conclusions.  That is pretty incredible.

A set of her books is being sold on auction tomorrow on live auctioneers and the bidding is low at the moment.  Perhaps one of the readers would like to add it to their library and here is a chance.

Tricia