Sometimes I Want to Live in Jane Austen's World

In Jane Austen's world day-to-day activities took a slower pace... at least for the gentry.  In Jane Austen's world women had time to sit around and stitch doilies... if they were "accomplished" women.  In Jane Austen's world, there were no telephones, no computers, no cell phones, no Blackberries, no iPods, no mp3 players, no texting, no tweeting, no blogs.  Sometimes I want to live in Jane Austen's world and I remind myself of that every day with this old picture I found in a resale shop.  It hangs above my dresser in my bedroom.  Sometimes I sigh and imagine stitching something whilst sitting next to a sunny lace curtained window -- probably waiting for Mr. Darcy to call.

You might be able to tell from this photo that in the lower right corner of the picture, the glass is broken.  I won't replace it.  It always reminds me that nothing is perfect -- probably not even in Jane Austen's world.

Speaking of Costumes... a Technicolor Dreamcoat

About ten years ago I was chief costumer for a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat put on by our church.  I had never done stage costuming before.  Turns out, it was really fun.  I found myself thinking of the stage as a big painting and planning how the costume colors would relate to each other.  I wanted an overall color scheme and of course the dreamcoat had to be the focal point of everything.  As I thought about the dreamcoat, I decided it should be bright.  I mean, the lyrics of the songs in the musical refer to Joseph's coat of many colors as "bright," "shining," "dazzling," and "stunning."  This had to be some coat.  Taking my cues from the Broadway coat, I combined several patterns along with my imagination and came up with the following:

Here's Keaton modeling the dreamcoat.  What a good sport.  I wanted it to be a rainbow of color, but not quite just ROYGBIV.  There had to be turquoise and hot pink and the green had to be lime - don't ask me why.  In the song called "Joseph's Coat" they called off 57 colors.  This thing had to be colorful!  In order to incorporate so many colors, I decided to piece all sections of the coat (with a little help from my mom, the quilter). 

I imagined Jacob gathering the cloth for this coat for his son.  It would not be all matchy-poo.  It would have texture and be cotton or linen - no synthetics back in Canaan.  And yes, I know there was no corduroy back then either, but I wanted texture.  I pulled several of the dreamcoat fabrics from my stash of vintage textiles.

To make the colors pop even more,
I separated them with black grosgrain ribbon.

Joseph's second dream involves the sun, the moon and stars,

so I chose to applique them onto his coat...

...and blanket stitch them in gold.

There needed to be colorful details...

...and touches of glitz to catch the stage lights...

...and hint at Joseph's future elevated rank.

The daisies up the sleeves were a nod to the

flamboyant 60's production number "Go, Go, Go Joseph."

And of course there had to be golden lining.  Joseph sings about it in "Any Dream Will Do."  "I wore my coat with golden lining - bright colors shining, wonderful and new."  It had to be gold.  So much for my commitment to non-synthetics.  I know they didn't have gold tissue lamé back then... but then again those Egyptians had a thing for gold and they were pretty inventive -- they might have found a way.

More important than just about anything though,

the coat had to do that three-sixty carousel thing.

It had to open up into a full circle so the brothers could twirl

around him displaying his coat and mocking him.

Like this.

It was a wonderful show.  So many people worked so hard and it certainly paid off in a top notch production.  Here's a thank you keepsake with signatures from the cast which still hangs on my living room wall.  

Seri-what?

The day before yesterday I was digging around in the basement looking for something when I came across this painting that I have had for many years.  I picked it up remembering how much I liked it and the thought occurred to me that in this day and age of the internet I could possibly find out something about the artist.

In the summer of 1980 between semesters in college, I worked at a small art gallery on the Milwaukee/Wauwatosa border.  One day a guy came into the gallery with a bunch of paintings on canvas that he was selling.  My impression was that he was going door to door along the street, but now that I think about it, maybe he was just going to art galleries.  He laid out his paintings and this one caught my eye.  I was a big fan of Norman Rockwell at the time and this reminded me of his work.  I don't recall if my door-to-door salesman explained how the painting was created, but in his sales pitch he did say that Vincent Price was also a collector of this artist:  H. Hargrove.  I bought it for $50 or $60 and it has hung around the house ever since and I have never known anything more about it or the artist.

Isn't the internet amazing?  I've often told my kids, "Ya just don't have to wonder about anything anymore."  Every question can be answered in an instant.  So, armed with that optimism, I sat down  with my curiosity at my trusty computer and googled, "H. Hargrove."  Was this a man?  Was this a woman?  I wondered if I would learn anything at all.  I was surprised to find 134,000 results for H. Hargrove.  Turns out he is now considered one of America's most famous living artists and was named the official artist of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.  His real name is Nicolo Sturiano and he's done well for himself since I was a college student in 1980.  I was beginning to realize that this painting might have appreciated in value, but after three hours of clicking around, I was still wondering if it had a name or what its actual worth might be - not even a ballpark guess.  There wasn't one google image of my painting.  I did learn that it is a "serigraph" which Nicolo Sturiano created by layering up to 30 colors on the canvas not knowing exactly what the finished painting would look like.  He is said to "paint with silkscreening."  The reason I can't find out much about this painting is because it is a very early example of his work even before he started producing numbered, limited editions.  Gallery listings only go back to 1982 and I know I purchased this two years before that.  So I sent an email to his website.  I found out there is a service offered to identify information about the painting if I send them a picture and $15.  So that's what I'm going to do because honestly... I can't tell if it's worth $25 or $6,000.  I'll let you know.

Thank You, Anne

My friend, vice president and fellow board member, Anne, is resigning from the school board after five and a half years.

Up for re-election in April, Anne would have six months to complete in her second term.  Her last day will be this Monday, October 12th.  On that day at a public board meeting, the remaining six board members will select someone from the eleven (yes, eleven) people who have applied for the appointment to fill the remaining months of her term.  Whoever gets the appointment will have big shoes to fill.  Anne is amazing.  She is brilliant first of all... and has a memory like a steel trap.  A huge advocate for all kids, she's fair and unassuming.  Anne really understands education.  She's an attorney - a school arbitrator to be exact.  Shortly after her election, Anne received word that she could not arbitrate in the state of Wisconsin while serving on a school board.  How many people do you know that would put their career on hold for five and a half years to perform community service???  You are looking at one.  Anne has been our "in-house" expert and Menomonee Falls has been the big winner here.  Thank you, Anne.  You will be missed.

The Owls & Witches Come Out Tonight!

Halloween without fake fur is like a day without sunshine.  Here's a simple costume:  just take a flannel shirt, slice it up, and stick fake fur under the rips.  Voila!  You have a wolfman bursting through his shirt.  But beware of a full moon.  It makes six-year-olds in wolfman costumes even crazier!  Here's Keaton in between gnashing and growling.

We have so many cave man costumes at our house, we could clothe the entire family of six.  Over the years we've accumulated boulder necklaces, bone earrings, and more.  Here's Chelsea and I in our One Million Years B.C. outfits.  Raquel Welch, eat your heart out.

Here's Chelsea as Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl from Toy Story 2.  She was always game for a fun costume... but someone else was not...

Here's Jessie consoling little brother Keaton in his Deviled Egg costume.  I thought it was cute and so did everyone else... except Keaton who HATED it.  The only way I could get him to keep it on was to promise him that he could smash the paper mache'd egg to bits at the end of the evening.  That he did... with relish.

Oh well.  Ya win some.  Ya lose some.

From Eating to Seating

Many years ago I gave this old 50s embroidered and appliqued fruit tablecloth a new life and created a pillow out of it.  I never even used it.

The checkerboard border is pieced together and the piping trim is made from a striped fabric.  How would you categorize this pillow?  Retro 50s modern?  I've always wanted a sofa where this pillow would be at home.  I picture it going on a sofa like one of these:

 

And little did I know until I found them

when cleaning out my sewing room closet...

That pillow had three brothers.  I actually made four pillow faces of that tablecloth and had forgotten about them all these years.  All that work and then they sat in a bag at the bottom of the closet!

I mean this is a nicely made pillow!  With a zipper!

Wow, I used to be rather meticulous!

And, also in the bag was more fabric, more piping, and more zippers!  I was organized!  These will be sold in my Etsy shop.  Think anybody has a cool retro sofa to display them on?

Halloween Costumes!

It's that time of year again.  The time for all creative types to get busy on Halloween costumes.  And if you have kids, you know they have already started talking about what they want to "BE" this year.  The Halloween costume pressure is starting to wane in my family now that my youngest is 14.  However, that doesn't mean too much.  We have boxes and boxes of costumes in our house and everyone likes to dress up, no matter what the age... especially my husband who loves a good costume.  As a matter of fact, I remember in high school every year he would gather a large group of friends to go Christmas caroling at the mall and he would lead the way wearing a red satin cape, green shorts and tights.  Same husband once dressed up as an Oreo cookie at a Nintendo convention (believe it or not, a paid gig) and was followed around by a guy who wanted to know who the person with the nice legs in the Oreo was.  Same husband has been begging me for a Star Trek officer's uniform for years - any era: original show, Next Generation, one of the movies.  Yes, costumes are big at my house... and that won't be changing soon.

So, in honor of Halloween and creativity, this month I will be featuring pictures of Halloween costumes I have created in the past.  I'll start with my all time favorite:

The Staypuft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters.  Here is Lars, (my oldest - now 25) wearing the Staypuft outfit created from foam, felt and white cotton duck.  He loved that movie - still does.  The best thing about this costume?  It wasn't ruined by the winter coat underneath - usually a requirement for our chilly Wisconsin Halloween trick-or-treating.  His two-year-old brother was Slimer, but refused to cooperate with the costume much.  Yes, don't we all have those stories...