International Polar Bear Day

Today is International Polar Bear Day.   As luck would have it, I just finished a whole-cloth polar bear crib-sized quilt this past weekend at my guild's Community Sew Day.

When I started this last month, I was going to free-motion around each polar bear.  I accidentally forgot to bring my free-motion foot to the January Sew Day, so I did the wavy lines instead.  I think my subconscious was doing me a favor by forgetting to bring it.  The wavy lines took long enough.

My friend Ginny donated an entire bolt of this fabric.  The blues are lovely and rich. 

This is the back.  She donated a bolt of this, as well.  It looks like leaping dolphins from here...

but now you can see they are Harry Potter-ish owls.

Sometimes I think quilters get too concerned with worrying if their quilts are good enough or interesting or unusual or artistic.  The child that gets this quilt won't care that it wasn't pieced.  They're going to have fun looking at polar bears and owls.

And finally, polar bear beads and an "ice flow" bead.  I bought these several years ago and still haven't come up with the right project for them.  In the meantime, the glacier bead is a vase in my miniature house, holding miniature grass.

Tea for Tuesday - Piggy Tea Party

On occasional Tuesdays I'll be featuring a vignette of tea-related items.  Most of them will have one of my teapots; they all have at least one thing you could use at a tea party.

 I had a nice surprise in the mail yesterday.   My friend Suzanne sent me this extraordinarily cute book.

 I read it to the pigs.  This is their favorite page.

It's too cold outside for a picnic, but just right for indoor tea.  Piggy on the right has invited a guest to tea.  I bet the guest has come to stay.

Dick and Jane and Spot and Molly and Pete and Ginger

In the early 1900s, American textbooks were dreary things, wordy and mostly without illustrations.  For the most part, they consisted of either literature excerpts or Bible stories.  

By the 1920s, publisher Scott, Foresman and Company had hired the nation's foremost reading authority, William Gray, to develop books that children wanted to read.  They were full of large color illustrations, simple words that were part of children's vocabulary, and most importantly - filled with activities that the children could relate to.  

It was in this environment that Dick and Jane and Spot were conceived in thought in 1927 by Zerna Sharp.  Hired by Gray to develop a family of characters, Sharp worked with teams of writers, editors, illustrators, and psychologists over the years.  Dick and Jane first appeared in 1930 and made their exit in 1970.  They were at their peak of popularity in the 1950s when 80% of American first graders learned to read with Dick and Jane books.

Every five years, stories were revised and illustrations were updated to reflect changes in clothing, household furnishings, and cars.  This is the family in the 1960s.  Jane and Sally look pretty much like they always did, but Mother, Father, and Dick look way different, in my opinion.  (So do Grandmother and Grandfather, but they're not shown here.)

That bothers me.  It's like when there were two Darrens on Bewitched or two Carols (Ross's first wife) on Friends.  Or weirdest of all, when Roseanne had First Becky, then Second Becky, then First Becky came back.

Spot was originally a terrier because that was the most popular breed in the early 1930s.  In 1936 there was a different best-selling dog, so Spot changed his spots and morphed into a cocker spaniel.  Thankfully he stayed that way.

Jane wore at least 200 different outfits based on clothing from Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs.   Many of her dresses looked similar to this dress I found at a garage sale last year.  I bought it from a woman who was a child in the 1950s; she said it was one of her doll's dresses.

I found this ball at the same neighborhood sale.  It is very similar to one that Dick and Jane would have played with.  

One of my favorite Dick and Jane stories is "Who Wants a Toy?"  It's a morality tale about being satisfied with what you have.  Dick and Jane and Sally are looking in the window of a toy store.  Sally sees a red duck she wants.  Dick and Jane tell her she has a yellow duck at home and Sally decides she doesn't need the red one.  

Then Jane sees a doll that can talk.  This is more of a temptation, since a talking doll is an upgrade.  Dick and Sally point out that she has two dolls at home.  Jane decides she has all the dolls she wants.

Finally, Dick sees a red boat and wants it.  Jane and Sally remind him he already has a yellow boat.  He decides to go home and play with his yellow boat.

How many of us have that much restraint and good judgment when "window shopping"?  I know I don't. 

 

Through the 1950s, everyone in the books was happy and well-behaved.  The children shared, they were kind, they were responsible.  Mother and Father had no reason to scold or correct them.  None of us believe that children were like that all the time.  But it was nice to see good behavior modeled.

So I'm not sure why the teams of educators and psychologists decided to introduce bratty behavior.  How do you intrepret this picture?  Were Sally and Puff playing with the ball first, and Dick came along to take over?  Or was Dick playing with the ball first, and Sally decides she wants it?  Either way, this type of tension wasn't in earlier books.  And Ronald Reagan, oh sorry - I guess that's Dad -  in the background isn't going to stand for it.
 

Due to the success of Dick and Jane books, competing textbook companies came up with their own versions.  Molly, Pete, and Ginger are new to me.  This book, a recent acquisition, was published in 1955 and made its way to a local school's library in 1956. 

Maybe the reason it's lasted so well over 57 years is because it didn't see a lot of use.  It looks like Lynne, Dean, and Scott each signed their own name on the card.  My theory is that the librarian signed Donna's name for her.  After the third time, she told her "just keep the darn thing!"  And it stayed with Donna until I found it.

If you'd like to learn lots more about Dick and Jane, check out Growing Up with Dick and Jane.

Cheers to Dick...

  

And cheers to Jane and Sally.  Here's looking at you, kids!



 

International Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day

Today is International Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day.  As far as I knew, the pigs had neither dogs nor dog biscuits.  I see they now have a dog, and I'm OK with that.

But this piggy, as lovable and well-intentioned as she is, has missed the boat a little.  She thought it was International Dog TRISCUIT Day.  

It Hadn't a Thing to Wear

If you've been reading this blog for awhile, you'll know that I like dress forms.  I made an appliqued dress form framed wall hanging, a pieced wonky log cabin dress form quilt, and have started a dress form collection.

They were all nice, but they weren't a REAL dress form.  I used to have a real dress form until we had our roof replaced.  That dress form was ugly and bionic looking - grey covering, silver stand, body split into sections controlled by knobs.  Since I don't make clothes any longer, I didn't really need it, and the dumpster in the driveway just invited us to do some junk purging.

Well, last week I bought a real dress form that is up my alley - purely decorative...

I got it at JoAnn Fabrics.  They were nice enough to open the box for me, since they didn't have one on display.  They were really happy when I took the box I made them open.  The dress form came with two covers, neither one to my taste.  So really, it didn't have a thing to wear, and I was just the person to make something!

An apron seemed like the perfect thing.  All the aprons I made in the past have been without a pattern, inspired by various issues of Apronology.  I showed you two of them - Tea Time Apron and Tomato Apron.  Some day I'll show you Swamp Apron and Umbrella Apron.

But now I felt like patterns!  And they were on sale, 5 for $5.   I knew that I didn't have to buy 5.  You can buy 1 for $1 or you can buy 3 for $3 or you can buy 9 for $9.  I tried to stop myself from buying 5, but I have to admit I didn't try too hard.  Into the cart they went.

This would be a great way to use up some of that fabric at home, right?

Except I didn't have any of this at home and ooh, it's so pretty and apron-ish.  Into the cart it went.  My cart was getting sort of full.  I put back the cutting ruler I had been waiting for to go on sale.  Dress forms and aprons suddenly moved up on my priority list.

Now my dress form has something to wear!!  I used Simplicity 4987.  It sure is a long apron, though.  But since I'm not the one wearing it, who am I to complain?  The fabric is the star of this apron.

The dress form has a little trouble dressing - note the slanted waistband.  I made it perfectly even, honest.  Maybe it's the piggy weight on that side that's pulling it down. 

 

I bought a length of green/fuchsia/gold pom-poms to go on the bottom, but I didn't get enough.  Hence the rick rack.  You know you're going to see pom poms on a future apron, right?

Design Challenge - Horizontal

In my little quilting group, we are studying modern quilts as well as quilt design.  As part of our challenge, I'm making two styles of blocks in each of nine design compositions.  I'm a week ahead this time!  I'm making my batik blocks without patterns.  For the most part, the modern blocks will be made with patterns.

This is my batik horizontal, fused applique, machine-edge-stitched block.  It's approximately 10 inches square.

Here it is with the diagonal block.  This time I rotated the horizontal block 180 degrees so that the orange strips are on the top.  I think I like it better the other way.  What do you think?

This is my modern horizontal block, approximately 14 inches square.  I didn't really have a pattern for this - who needs a pattern to cut strips?  But I used an inspiration photo from Holly Hickman's Line Art quilt that was in Quilts and More, Winter 2010.

And here it is with the diagonal block.  I thought that diagonal block was too big when I made it.  And what did I do?  I made a horizontal block even bigger.  Sigh.

Still to come, in no particular order:

1. vertical
2. circular
3. radiating
4. grid
5. framed/border
6. symmetrical
7. asymmetrical