Trillium Hat

My storytelling video shoot is tomorrow morning! Please think good thoughts for all of us. I did some practice work in front of the camera yesterday, and I had one assessment for my voice: breathy. I have a voice lesson today, so maybe I'll have some sort of breakthrough.

Last night, I needed a break, so I removed the tattered rosette from my old hat and stitched up a trillium blossom based on the pattern I made for the wake-robin trillium nature table figure:



I hope by next week I can start making my regular blog rounds. In the meantime, thank you for checking in-- even if you don't leave a comment, I'm glad that you stopped by.

Eating Cookies Makes You a Better Reader

Just kidding. Here is the real article title:

An Orderly Home Affects Early Literacy Skills, Study Says
By Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal.

If this is true, my child doesn't have a chance. With two cats in an old house that has forced-air heating, we're very dusty. Wait a minute.... Oh good! There are other factors, too, as examined in the article: home literacy and maternal reading ability are important as well. However, I had to snort when I read this passage:

[Anne] Martin [of Columbia University] notes that perhaps the same mothers who are above-average readers are also those who are more likely to keep a tidy home and to implement daily household routines.

I crave tidiness. You wouldn't know it to look at my desk, but I do. Two weeks ago, I sorted the items on my desk, recycled some papers, shoved a bunch of "to be dealt with later" items in a bag and stacked it on top of my other "to be dealt with later" bags in the bedroom. The insidious clutter has come creeping back. I wonder if my daughter will ever pick up the desire to be tidy. When I was her age, that is, almost six, my bedroom was a wreck, but I had my paperdolls sorted into envelopes I'd made with construction paper and staples. My dollies were all dressed and sitting on their shelves because I didn't want them to get cold, and I certainly didn't want them to feel bad by leaving them lying on the floor. This reminds me of a regular conversation I have with my daughter:

Me: Please pick your dollies up off the floor, They're cold and lonely.

Lucia: Dollies don't get cold! They don't have feelings!

Me: It hurts their feelings when you say that.

Regarding the title of this post, I bought two boxes of Girl Scout Cookies today, even though tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. I had a few cookies today and I'm storing the rest in the freezer until Easter.

The Great Simon and Garfunkel Sing-Along

Back in 1993, before Heather Kropf had recorded her first album and I had no musical aspirations beyond wistfully wishing I could sing and play guitar at a campus-hosted coffee-house, I lived with 4 other young women in a rental house painted green, and consequently was called the Greenhouse. Technically, the Greenhouse was off-campus housing, but since it was right across the street from campus, we had the best of both worlds: easy access to classes and events without the hassle of so-called "open-house hours" whereby members of the opposite sex couldn't be in each others rooms past 11 pm on weekdays and midnight on weekends. I chafed at this rule, not because I had a boyfriend (I didn't) but because at least half of my good friends were male and we always had to cut our merry-making short or move to the common lounges.

The Greenhouse was a good place to gather. One week in late winter, Heather Kropf and I decided that the way to beat the chill of a northern Indiana town in February was to invite people to attend a pot-luck followed by a Simon and Garfunkel sing-along. We came up with the following flyer, which we printed up and hung around campus. If you're a Simon and Garfunkel/Paul Simon fan, see how many song-titles you can name from the flyer:

If you’ve got the paranoia blues from hangin’ around in Goshen…
If you’ve been seeking out the poorer quarters where the ragged people go…
If you’ve been Mick Jaggered and silver-daggered…
If you find someone’s taken your place after you’ve washed your face…
If you’ve heard words you’ve never heard in the Bible…
If the zookeeper is very fond of rum…
If you’ve seen a shadow touch a shadow’s hand…
If you dreamed you were dying…
If you thought the man in the gabardine hat was a spy…
If you read your Emily Dickinson while he reads his Robert Frost…
If you’re a Citizens for Boysenberry Jam fan…
If your group has more cavities than theirs…
If you’ve laughed them all with Frank Lloyd Wright…
If you think it will be terribly strange to be seventy…
If you’re only fakin’ it and not really makin’ it through the hazy shade of winter…

The game is over. Why don’t we stop fooling ourselves?
There must be fifty ways to have a good time. On February 16, 1993, at 9 p.m., say goodbye to the Queen of Corona and come to the big bright Greenhouse, where flowers never bend with the rainfall.

For all you Simon and Garfunkel fans that need a pre-midterm study break… or just an excuse to sing. Stop. Stop and think it over. Come to the Simon & Garfunkel Sing-A-Long at the Greenhouse.

People came with their guitars, Heather played the upright piano in the Greenhouse, and despite the lack of printed lyrics, we had a good time. If you weren't there, we missed you. We'll have to do it again. My rallying cry: Next time in Seattle!

To learn more about Heather Kropf beyond her website, check out this early article.

Moomintroll, Snufkin, and Mamakopp

This past Saturday, my mom and aunt flew into town. The next day, we headed off to Orcas Island for a day and two nights, and then came back into Seattle on Tuesday. Since then, I've been focusing on school auction work and the upcoming filming of the promotional storytelling video. I know! I sound like a skipping CD* with nothing new to report. I have been enjoying the family visit, though. My mom is leaving Seattle tomorrow afternoon and my aunt on early Saturday morning, and I will miss them both. As I type this, my mom is working on a moss maiden, having been inspired by my doll-making of late.

After my auction work is done, I can focus on getting my Etsy shop ready in time for May Day. Speaking of Etsy, one of the big contributors to our nature table is an artisan who works in wood. Her name is Mamakopp, and she is a Waldorf-inspired homeschooling parent of two boys. Not too long ago, I asked if she knew about the Moomin books by Tove Jansson. She hadn't, but checked out the books and was inspired to create Snufkin and Moomintroll:



I tried to resist. I really did. I went through all the usual reasons as to why it was prudent that I let someone else discover them. But then, I knew I'd be sad if I let them go by. And so, Snufkin and Moomintroll will grace our spring nature table.

The Moomintroll books are quirky. They are odd. I don't quite get them. And yet, I appreciate them. My favorite Moomin story stars Snufkin in "The Spring Tune" from Tales from Moominvalley:

"It's the right evening for a tune," Snufkin thought. A new tune, one part expectation, two parts spring sadness, and for the rest just the great delight of walking alone and liking it.

*The cliche used to be "a broken record." I am a child of the 1970's...

Love Song: Green is the Color of My Merman's Hair

Happy Valentine's Day! As I said in last year's post, I try to use this month to catch up on correspondence, as St. Valentine was a deliverer of letters. I've managed to do that once this month. I'd also meant to have a recorded version of my revised song "Green is the Color of My Merman's Hair" (to the tune of "Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair). I'll post the lyrics and chords now and the recorded version at a later time. Hold me to it!

This song is dedicated to Bede, of course.

Tidbits for Friday the 13th

Here's the latest on the Consumer Protection Safety Improvement Act:

CPSIA: It's February 10th, So Now What?

Even though small businesses don't have to undergo testing of their items for children another year (but are liable if their products end up having a certain amount of lead or Phthalates), I'm still creating my nature table figures for people who are over twelve years of age. If you don't think that grownups still play with dolls, just take a look at the Star Wars action figures and LEGO industries.

I don't have much else to report. I have a number of projects in the works, including a promotional storytelling video that VersantMedia is going to be filming on February 28. Take a look at VersantMedia's current projects. I'm there. I've got my regular bookstore gigs, plus a school visit coming up, but no birthday parties scheduled for the near future. The winter months are usually slow in terms of birthday parties, but I suspect our current economy is a factor too. Therefore, I'm glad that most of my gigs will be free to the public over the next few months.

I've also decided to open an Etsy storefront. Currently, it's just a placeholder, but by late spring, I hope to have nature table figures to offer in the shop. I plan to offer both the larger nature table figures with the elaborate embroidery and smaller root children/bulb babies. Like Bookshelves of Doom finds ways to support her habit, perhaps I'll find a way to justify my textiles expenses.

I will leave you with one of my favorite fairy tales. The link has full text, hypertext annotations, and a graphic list of the variants that star the most fascinating, complex character in Russian folklore, the great and terrible Baba Yaga. The story is Vassilisa the Beautiful, by Post Wheeler, and it comes to you courtesy of Sur La Lune Fairytales.com

Spinneret: a Nature Table Gallery

I've created a Shutterfly gallery to showcase some of my nature table dolls. The site is called Spinneret. Come visit! I've placed a link on the sidebar of Saints and Spinners, and I'll add to the gallery as I create more figures.

Sunbeams and lanterns in late winter

Photo from the BBC South Yorkshire Winter Photos site

The golden crocus reaches up
To catch a sunbeam in her cup. -Walter Crane

Last May, when I had just received my new camera with the video feature, I recorded my daughter singing the Crocus song she learned at school. Despite the rough quality and the click at the end (I hadn't yet figured out how to edit, so everything was a one-take feature), you at least hear the tune for the song:

Crocus, crocus, waking up
Catch a sunbeam in your cup
Hold it tight, let it go,
Li-la, Li-la, li-lay-lo.


In the stories my family tells, crocuses and snowdrops are best friends because they're usually the first bulb flowers to poke their noses out of the ground. Recently, I composed a verse for the snowdrop:

Snowdrop, snowdrop, hanging down
Lantern shining in the town
Cold winds blow, you still grow,
Li-la, Li-la, li-lay-lo.



Photo from Irish Gardeners

You may wonder just where that snowdrop lantern shining in the town may be. Check a copy of Voices in the Park, by Anthony Browne. You'll find it. Speaking of Voices in the Park, I've had that book for years, and for awhile, each time I read it aloud to my daughter, I discovered something in the pictures I hadn't noticed before.

Just don't mention that children's book that never should have been...

Jokes and Films Are Fun, but He Loves His Banjo is a New York Times article by Dave Itzkoff about Steve Martin's new bluegrass album called "The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo".

From the article:

Among country and bluegrass musicians, Mr. Martin is regarded as a master of a difficult five-fingered playing style known as clawhammer or frailing, in which the instrument’s strings are pushed down by fingernails, rather than pulled up with picks.

“I know I can’t play it,” said Mr. Scruggs, for whom the traditional three-fingered Scruggs style is named. “So it’s a challenge for me.”

Martin is widely quoted as saying, "You just can't sing a depressing song when you're playing the banjo." You can find a young Martin jamming with the Muppets here.