'tis no secret, i am partial to a stool or two in our mossy shed. i appear unable to say no to little waifs and strays of stools i come across in my daily travels. however there is one stool i hold dear, above all the other little stools within our nest. now of course i know it is terribly wrong to have favorites but i cannot help myself. for the stool in question has been there all my life... (i am quite sure i have told this story before but as it is buried deep with in the rambling archives of this here blog, i'm just going to repeat myself rather than try to find it as i fear it could take all day to unearth it) as a small child i would sit on a stool at my mother's dressing table every sunday evening. where upon i would don what can only be described as a shower cap attached to a long flexible tube which in turn was attached to a box which was attached by a cord to a plug in the wall. my mother would switch it on, the cap would inflate and hot air would start to dry my tresses. after half an hour, my mother would remove my head from the hairdryer of sorts and say "voila", where upon i would sit there silently praying that this time my hair would come out poker straight and gloriously shiny. upon opening my eyes, every sunday the vision reflected in the mirror, told me once again, my prayer had not been answered and thus a week of going to school with kinked, fuzzy, cow licky hair proceeded until the following sunday when i started praying again... despite the horrors of my childhood hair-do i still look back fondly on those moments, and i am quite sure that is mainly to do with the stool upon which my derriere sat. for it was a glorious tulip stool and its fine form, is to me, one of the best a stool can have. nearly 14 years ago, my mother kindly entrusted the tulip stool to me. in the years that followed it has had many little coats of various grandness, some quite dubious, like fake fur, or lilac sateen, but still it never felt unloved. recently, (and when i say recently i mean the past 10 days), i got itching to be stitching it a new little jacket. inspired by lovely folksy round cushions, i took one large doily and started going 'round and round' with strips of lace, fabric and one embroidered vintage doily for the middle. i spent many many happy moments with embroidery floss in hand. i then went a little nutso on the french knots which are my fabby fav thing to do. they are so peachy, you do one and it looks just right, and so you do another and before you know it, there are many little knots doing a brilliant job of looking spiffy. after which i took my large decorated folksy doily and appliqued it like a cap 'on top' my stool. i am most happy with my lovely folksy stool however i must confess, i was not happy with my man when he came in from running around a soccer pitch for 2 hours in the rain last night and promptly sat his derriere down upon my fine and roundy stool! it took all my willpower to remain quiet, i took deep breathes followed by recalling my 'labouring' breathing exercises, for fear of what was happening to my french knots under the soggy soccer gear. i thought i had it under control, i really did, i channeled my inner kindness with all my might, thinking of the long day at the office he had had, and how i needed him to fix a lamp for me and all those other good things he does for me daily but alas, no! my french knots and their fate was too much to bear. i could not get past 2 minutes before i burst and had to ask him to find another stool to plonk down on... any stool, any dumptie just get off my french knots hoppity quick 'pretty please' she has 3 lads haircuts and one 'constant canine companion' bath lined up for her thrilling saturday morning ~ Tif footynote: a little message for Katie (Bob) i have tried to send you several emails today, alas they keep on bouncing back to me, not sure why. could you please email me again with your email address so i can respond to you. many thanks :)