Effie Arbon
May 25, 2013 4:35 PM
A Saturday of Sewing by Effie Arbon
Effie had had a pleasant stroll through the gardens and one just long enough to take her away from the main thoroughfares. She was not off the beaten track, just out of the way of people to-ing and fro-ing. She sat on one of the stone benches. On one side of her, perhaps optimistically, rested her sewing basket. On her other side, sat her cat, Hemlock. Being a Maine Coone, he had always been large. As a kitten, it had seemed like his owner had been bringing an already fully grown cat (albeit an extremely fluffy one) with her. He had grown disproportionately in relation to her, and now created the optical illusion that Effie was rather smaller than she actually was.Her hair was swept back in a ponytail, which she had looped through itself to create a twisting effect down to the level of the band, and a sketch pad lay open on her legs. On it a number of As and Ds were beginning to appear, intertwined various ways around a tree. In her first year, whilst missing her sisters, she had embroidered a bookmark for each of them. These had been well received, and she had made them each a miniature of some flowers in her second year, which she had presented as Christmas gifts. A third year in a row, she felt, would establish it as a tradition. She had been musing over ideas on the wagon ride and during idle moments of the first week. Now that she had her first free day, she was beginning this year's project, which she had decided would be seven monogrammed handkerchiefs for each sibling, one for each day of the week. The design would incorporate each girl's initial around the tree which formed part of the Arbon family crest and was an important symbol within the family; each of the girls had a silver necklace with her initial worked into the branches, and her brother had a gold signet ring bearing the tree and his initial. Effie's hand subconsciously lifted to twist the small tree, which she wore at all times, between her fingers. They needed something beyond the initial and the tree though... Yes, they were Aborns and that was of paramount importance. But they were more than that – they were her sisters, and they were themselves. She wanted to give each something to reflect that. She began to sketch little flowers around the 'D' designs. Alongside this, she made a list of colours Mauve, royal blue, sky blue, indigo, cream, powder pink, dark pink.
“Delphiniums for Delphine...” she mused, reaching over to scratch Hemlock's ears. “Too obvious?” she asked the cat, rhetorically, “And it rather restricts the colour palette...” she sighed.
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