My Felt Wee Folk Hero*

Jules has posted her interview with Salley Mavor over at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. Mavor is the author/illustrator/embroiderer/master crafter of Felt Wee Folk, a Pocketful of Posies, and other books that you can find here. Thanks to Jules for the interview and The Library Lady for alerting me to the existence of A Pocketful of Posies.


*That's corny, but sometimes I can't resist.

Paper Doll Art

Bede is going to have two art shows at local venues this winter. One art show will be at the coffee shop 3 blocks from our house. Lucia is planning an art show, too, and has already started hanging her pictures over the fireplace. I hope that some of her paper-doll art inspired by Elisa Klevin's The Paper Princess and sequels will make it into the show. Here is a scanned reproduction of one of the paper-dolls:

Alice's Celestial Globe

The Bainbridge Island library has a copy of Alice's Celestial Globe made by Greaves and Thomas. John Tenniel's illustrations for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Thought the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There are matched with many of the known constellations. The link has photos that are much better than the ones I took last Friday plus explanations of the constellations.



The Orrery Cafe in the Isle of Wight is a planetarium that depicts Alice's celestial globe. When the House of Glee finally visits England, we must also visit the Isle of Wight for the Orrery Cafe alone.

Storytelling Fabric

Local illustrator Julie Paschkis has helped create some of my favorite picture books: The Great Smelly, Slobbery Small-Tooth Dog and Mrs. Chicken and the Hungry Crocodile are two particular stand-outs in terms of how well the pictures and text work together. Jules of Seven Impossible Things has featured Paschkis a number of times including last Sunday's post here and an interview here.

On Sunday, when I visited the local fabric store to pick up some embroidery thread, I was surprised to find that Paschkis now has a line of fabric designs for In The Beginning. The collection is called Folklorica and its target audience appears to be quilters. I do not quilt, but I do sew a little, so I bought some of this fabric to make a merry storytelling skirt:



I would enjoy looking at someone's vision of a quilt made out of Paschkis' fabrics. If you ever make one, please let me know.

Goldie the Dollmaker

A few years ago, my mom sent me her collection of M.B. Goffstein books: Brookie and Her Lamb, Two Piano Tuners, and Goldie the Dollmaker. The last one has always been a favorite.

Goldie is an orphan of indeterminate age. Her parents were dollmakers, and she has continued the business, only Goldie's dolls are much more in demand than her parents' creations ever were. Goldie carves each doll out of wood with movable joints, and then paints the doll with attention and care throughout the day:

Then she painted a little gleaming black eye on either side of the doll's nose and finally, holding it firmly arund the waist with one hand, Goldie smiled and smiled into the doll's eyes in the friendliest, sweetest way, and she painted a smile right back to herself on the little doll's face.

That smile was why shops could not keep Goldie Rosenweig's dolls in stock, and that smile was why there were more orders for her dolls than she could fill... Bcause the truth about that smile was that it was heartbreaking.

Goffstein's spare pen and ink drawings convey Goldie's loneliness as she longs to be friends with Omus the carpenter (who doesn't understand Goldie's connection to her dolls and her thirst for beauty), and her joy when she finds an exquisite lamp that far exceeds her income but which she can pay for in dolls. Omus' reaction to Goldie's purchase of the lamp unleashes Goldie's despair, but Goldie finds grace and new hope in the dream she has about the creator of the lamp.

While Goldie the Dollmaker is a children's book, the nuances of the story resonate with me far more as an adult than they ever did when I was younger. I would recommend this story (which is out of print, unfortunately) to anyone who has ever created something into which so much of the self has been invested, and been casually dismissed. I would also recommend it to the person who sees the beauty in simple things. However, I would not recommend it to someone thinks dolls are for sissies. That would be a fruitless endeavor.

You may find a complete bibliography of Goffstein's books here. At this time, it appears that they are all out of print. I wish you well in finding the books through your library systems. Don't forget about Interlibrary Loan, too!

P.S. I just found this photo of a Goldie the Dollmaker doll on a Japanese website called Rakuten:

Robert's Snow: Week 1

HipWriterMama is one of the many bloggers who has posted the schedule for bloggers highlighting illustrators who have contributed a snowflake to the Robert's Snow: for Cancer's Cure auction. Robert's Snow is a book by Grace Lin, whose husband Robert lost his life to Ewing's sarcoma. Thanks go out to Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast for organizing the bloggers to feature the illustrators on their blogs and Jen Robinson for putting the blog schedule together.