scissor case

So, the scissors andy made me are pretty scary – even closed the tip is deadly. They badly needed a case. And I needed a little weekend project as a break from the antependium, especially since, if you will kindly excuse the chavspeak, the filler panels are doing my head in a bit.

In addition to which I had some new silk I wanted to play with, and the urge to have a play with at least a smidgen of the silk velvet was almost overwhelming.

 First though, I had to wait a week whilst John made me a leather carcass for the scissor case. John has past experience of Andy’s sharp things, as many of his leatherworking tools were also made by Andy, so he was wary enough of the pointy to use his thickest sole leather for the case so that the tip of the scissors would have a harder time piercing the end of the case.

 I spent the week debating how to decorate the case. Dragons were one option, baby eating cannibals (from the chancel arch of a local norman church) were another. John suggested a Yorkshire rose, since we live in the old north riding – but the trouble is I’m not really a Yorkshire lass, for all my current abode, so I decided to go heraldic and do a simple laid and couched version of the arms of the city of Durham – the town where I was born, and in whose county I grew up. This was the first time I’ve done embroidered slips in donkey’s years, hence they may no be entirely straight – velvets hard as it moves under your needle. Laid and couched work heraldry was just nicely undemanding for a Sunday afternoon fun project though.

 And the arms for my family name on the reverse (although I think techinically they should bear a bar, since we’re descended from the titled branch of the family on the wrong side of the sheets, but its not exactly casual illegitamacy as the relationship extended to several children). The velvet, being quite thick, was quite difficult to manipulate around such an awkward shape, and I would have liked the top strand of gold to be a little straighter, but in that case I had to couch through the holes JOhn had drilled in the leather.

The pink tassel was really the lesser of available evils, being the silk that clashed least with the red. I’m hoping the colour will have a similar protective effect on these scissors as my pink polka dot dressmaking scissors, i.e. they look sooo girly that no man will even think about borrowing them.

I still have a few pieces of the silk velvet available if anyone else fancies a bit to play with.

~ by opusanglicanum on March 26, 2012.