Switcheroo

Part of the fun in doing my various calligraphy cards, I think, is the fact that few people know they'll be getting one. A few people have expressly requested one, but most recipients have no clue, until they get a photo, or, in this case, it's in their hands.

I had been invited to a friend's eighteenth birthday party, and, well, I had absolutely no idea what to get her (and I hold "your presence is a gift enough" to be a cop-out); so I fell back on the common (well, somewhat common in my family) "make something yourself!" As opposed to most of the cards I'd done so far, the text was one of the first things I had settled on. Both her and I were dancers (well, she still is; I start, and then drop out once the skill required for the dances pass me by. I'm far from being a good dancer), and the text is (once again) a Hungarian folk greeting, this time from the region of Szék (now Sic, in Transylvania), which is well-known in Hungarian folk-dance circles.

As for the design, I was having trouble finding a nice "centrepiece" design (like in "Out of the Gate"), so I chose to go with a frame design. Here's where "switcheroo" comes in... Originally, I had planned to make one with a design from the Matyó region of northern Hungary, but I was unsure about the colour scheme. So I asked a friend of mine, who's knowledgeable in the various embroidery colour schemes, and her questions (like "which village?" and "which decade?") made me realize that I had picked the wrong region for a sudden-onset project. So I had to go back to the drawing board, and pick a design that I could pull together quickly. The winner? A border embroidery design from the Palóc region, which, as it happens, borders on the Matyó region! Right next door, and yet, so different. From a multitude of colours and shades, to two: red and blue. Once I knew what shades I needed, things could progress.



By this time, the party had come and gone. So much for a deadline.

But my sister (who makes cards), and I (who, apparently, does calligraphy) teamed up to provide a hand-made and hand-written card.

Of course, there was no hint that the "real" gift was forthcoming.

When I finished it, and gave it to her at a scout leaders' conference (yes, another scout...), the others were ribbing her that since it was so delayed, she shouldn't accept it. And I actually had to say "aren't you going to unwrap it?"...

I don't know if I've mentionned it before, but it usually takes me two days to write a card (in addition to the time spent working on the design). The first evening is a draft, measuring, making sure the writing will fit in the space set aside for it, and seeing how the lines will line up. Basically, making sure that everything will be perfect when the time comes to make the final write-up.

OK. Here's where I totally, and I mean, totally ruin the card for my friend. (Actually, I'm expecting a message asking "you gave me this CRAP?!" after she reads this. If she reads the blog, that is. There's a reason I don't name names.)

This is due to a number of factors that would have been discovered, and resolved, had I not decided to make a card on short notice.

Do I regret making the card for my friend? Absolutely not. Do I regret not having done a better job of it? Absolutely.

I'm disappointed with the way the lines didn't line up evenly: I "solved" this by making all the lines indent, but they don't even indent evenly! I'm disappointed with how crowded it is. Just because you can fill most of the white space, doesn't mean you should. Keep an eye out for when you need to refill the nib, so you don't have words in the middle of the line looking like they're in bold. And if one of your lines ends up being a different size than the rest, when it shouldn't be, RE-LINE IT!

And, of course, there's a mistake in the last line of the poem. Two, actually.

This is one of those times I go "I'm glad people don't know how easy it is to do calligraphy. If they did, they'd know how bad my stuff is."