On "The Annoted Classic Fairy Tales": A Book Review

Title: The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales
Editor: Maria Tatar
Genre: Fiction, Non-fiction, Reference

About the Book...
Translated by and with an introduction by Maria Tatar, The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales includes annotated versions of 26 fairy tale, sections with biographical information about their authors/collectors and illustrators, several appendices with variations of the annotated tales and the work of several illustrators, and finishes with a bibliography.  

What I Think...
This is my go-to reference book when it comes to fairy tales. 

It's beautifully laid out and not too overwhelming in the way that the information is presented. As with most of the larger annotated Norton collections the annotations are in the margin and in a slightly lighter color than the text, which I find preferable to footnotes. Each story also begins with a short introduction that goes over a little bit of the history behind the particular tale and the version included adding a greater context to the story as a whole.

I like that Tatar covers a range of collectors and illustrators, including 7 different authors/collectors and 9 illustrators, as opposed to just the Brothers Grimm or Andersen, with the works of most of those included being fairly even in number (exceptions being those who are really only known for writing one tale, such as Jean-Marie Leprince de Beaumont).

Another aspect I love about this book is the variety of illustrations included with each story giving a look at how perceptions of some of the tales have changed over time. That each one comes with its own very short commentary makes it all the better, though I do wish that some of the illustrations were larger. 

To Sum it All Up...
A lovely fairy tale book that can be read for pure enjoyment or to gain insight into some of the best known fairy tales and those who collected or wrote them.♥️

On a Christmas Print Dress!

Finished up my Christmas dress just in time yesterday and am happily sharing it with you today!

Having been given a bunch of fabric recently that included this Christmas print, I decided to do a test run for Hollywood pattern 1881 before attempting it with the other fabric pictured below and for once the pattern actually fits pretty well.

This dress presented a nice opportunity to pull out my vintage shoes. 

I might still swap out the buckle, which I spent a good amount of time thinking about. For now I feel that it's a good match for the dress, though.

One interesting thing about this pattern was the collar. While the button and loop hiding under the tie part wasn't unexpected, this is the first time I've done a collar where the flaps are attached to the side of the dress and the tie attaches along the back to form the back edge of the collar so to speak. 

And for a festive touch, I lined the pockets (apologies for the blurry photo) with green for an extra festive touch!  

Overall, with this dress having turned out so well, I can't wait to make a few more in the coming year!

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas!

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On Some Vintage Christmas Decorating & A Delighful Fold-out Card!

Not too many of my decorations made it out this year, but pretty much all of the ones that did are vintage ones and resulted in a very vintage looking mantle!

Along with the two pop-out cards, which I found at the antique store a few weeks ago, I also came across this wonderful and rather extensive fold-out one. I really love the artwork on it!

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On Felt Christmas Ornament Pins: A Photo Post

Did a little Christmas crafting yesterday!

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On Clip on Earrings Turned Into a Sweater Clip and Other Swap Meet Things

While visiting the swap meet a few months ago in search of a green sweater for my rose bush costume, I came across these clip-on earrings, which while not exactly matching any thing on my lamp, I decided were too cheerful to pass up especially since they were only a dollar. It also gave me a really good excuse to attempt turning a set of clip-on earrings into a sweater clip, which I've been wanting to try for a while. Aside from struggling to get the chain open with a pair of needlenose pliers because I didn't have any gold jump rings (something I plan to remedy before doing this again), it was remarkably easy to loop the chain around the hole at the edge and comes with the benefit of getting to enjoy my clip-ons without my ears feeling like they're going to fall off. 

Other vintage findings included a handful a pins, a small blue bag, and these two lovely framed prints (now dubbed Lady Grace and Lady Prudence). 

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On "The Clockmaker's Daughter": A Book Review

Title: The Clockmaker's Daughter
Author: Kate Morton
Genre: Fiction/Mystery 

About the Book...
Told across multiple story lines from the 1860's through 2017, The Clockmaker's Daughter revolves around artist Edward Radcliffe, the priceless Radcliffe blue jewel, and the mysterious Lily Millington, all who continue to have an affect on those in the future including a school girl, a WWII evacuee, and an archivist among others.

What I Think...
Kate Morton is one of the few mainstream authors who I actually look forward to finding out has written a new book and as far as I'm concerned this is her best yet! 

Part of what I love about her books is that she jumps back and forth between the past and present combining multiple story lines that ultimately come together by the end. This particular book had about six different plot lines as opposed to the typical two or three, which I felt added a greater depth to this book than her others. While some characters and their stories were more engaging , Morton does an excellent job in balancing them all to the extent that you want to keep reading to find out how they all relate to one another. She also keeps you guessing about what happened to the Radcliffe blue and the fate of Lily without revealing too much as the book progresses. There are quite a few twists and turns overall, but each one builds on the story rather than distracting from it.

To Sum It All Up...
A well written novel that leaves you guessing until the very end and that captures the common human frailties that link the characters together over a mass span of time.♥️ 

On a Magnifying Glass Pin to Match My Nancy Drew Shirt: A Photo Post

Sometimes one just has to make an impromptu felt pin to match one's shirt...

Vinyl is tricky to sew with, but worth the look!

♥️ 🔍♥

On Being a Rose Bush

Yesterday I became one of the Queen of Heart's rose bushes, a costume that has been coming together for the past few month.  
 

It all started simply enough with the roses about mid-September. After some thoughts about getting a bouquet of fake roses at the store, I ended up deciding that I'd really rather make them out of felt, which then turned into hand-sewing them out of felt--all 15 of them--because if I hot glued them I realized the pin probably wouldn't go through. May I say while it's not too bad to do a few, 15 is a bit much? Then I got over excited about the leaves (didn't count those), but those I could at least do on the machine with the exception of attaching them to the roses. 

While I was going through this process, I still needed to find a sweater, so I made a trip to the swap meet to find one (post on the other finds coming soon!) and managed to find the one I'm wearing in the pic and a thermal green shirt as an additional option both for just a $1. 

So having found the perfect sweater and with the roses being done, I thought "It's the beginning of October and I'm already done, great!"...but being the obsessive Alice's Adventures in Wonderland girl that I am, I kept thinking of new things to add!

Suddenly, it occurred to me that I needed a paint can, which was easy enough to obtain and make a label for (using Lewis Carroll font, I might add!) and once again I thought I was done with the exception of maybe digging around the garage for a paint brush. Then last Friday, after having debated about it off and on for a month, I decided I really did need brown jeans if it was going to look right, so I stopped by a thrift store on my way home. Two pairs of brown pants in my size...one pair fit!!! Having checked that off my list, I was really truly done. You'll will by now caught on to where this is going.

 

It is now October 30th...I wanted a leaf mask! So I happily sat on the living room floor and made my mask while listening to the 1938 radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds". All done, again! Except around 7:30, I started thinking about how I should have a Queen of Hearts playing card dangling from my outfit somewhere and how nice it would have been if I had had time to make a stuffed hedgehog. So I hunt up an image of a Victorian playing card, while still thinking about hedgehogs and then it occurs to me I can make a felt one and pin it on my leg! Some sketching, hand-stitching, and machine stitching later, tada, hedgehog! All done! Except as I'm going to bed, I'm thinking, I really don't like the store bought paint brush...

October 31st, I wake up thinking about paint brushes. I can't hang any of my art paint brushes from my belt loop because there's no place to tie anything on to them. However, I  have two chop-sticks that I didn't end up using for the mask. I hot glue them together, leaving a gap to slip the ribbon through, glue on some yarn, wrap silver wire ribbon around the top of that, and add a little paint to make a fake brush that any playing card would be proud to paint with!  And that really truly concluded the costume making!

The non-Cheshire Cat wanted to know why it wasn't being fed from the "giant tin of cat food"

♥️ ♥️ ♥️

On "A Handful of Happiness": A Book Review

Title: A Handful of Happiness: How a Prickly Creature Softened a Prickly Heart 
Authors: Massimo Vacchetta and Antonella Tomaselli (Translated by Jamie Richards)
Genre: Non-Fic, Biography

About the Book... 
When Italian veterinarian Massimo Vacchetta, who normally works with livestock, crosses paths with a hedgehog his life begins to irrevocably change for the better. Before he knows it he's become devoted to Nina and soon all his time and energy is going towards rescuing these tiny creatures, eventually leading him to find that his calling is opening his own hedgehog sanctuary. 

What I Think...
I really had no expectations when I started this book and was completely drawn to it based on the hedgehog gracing the cover. However, this was one of those books where it was perfectly acceptable to judge the book on the cover.

While this is a biography, it doesn't read like one and is more narrative in nature. It was short and sweet, but not in a rushed way or a in a way that made you feel like you were missing necessary details. Unlike most animal related bios this on, while a little sad here and there, is pretty upbeat and ends happily, which I liked about it. It was also interesting learning about certain hedgehog habits (self-anointing, for example) and the functioning of hedgehog sanctuaries in Italy.

To Sum it All Up...
A lovely and sweet book that is perfect for hedgehog lovers and animal lovers in general.♥️

On a Bat Pin: A Photo Post

Needed a bat pin to go with the craft I was doing at work today, so I made one! (Feel free to sing the Batman theme now with "Bat Pin" being substituted for "Batman" :p)

 

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On "Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks": A Book Review

Title: Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks: A Librarian's Love Letters and Breakup Notes to the Books in Her Life
Author: Annie Spence
Genre: Non-Fiction, Humor

About the Book...
Broken into two sections, Dear Fahrenheit 451 is collection of letters written by librarian Annie Spence followed by book recommendations, many which appear in the letters. 

What I think...
Initially I was just going to skip around in this and read only the letters to titles I recognized, but I ended reading all the letters because they were so funny. Among my favorites were letters to the Frog and Toad Storybook Treasury, the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper", a popcorn recipe book on its way to the book sale. I also thoroughly enjoyed her letters the harlequin romance spinner rack (from a personal library standpoint, I could relate to her feelings about it) and to the library in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. I was also happy to find a letter written to Langton's The Fledgling (book 4 in The Hall Family Chronicles), since so few people ever talk about any of her books. While most of the letters were enjoyable, there were a few I'd probably skip in a re-read of this, but overall considering that the majority of letters are only two or three pages and the book is smaller in size, I didn't feel like I'd wasted any time reading them in the first place.    

The second part consisting of recommendations, I didn't care for all that much. Spence's tastes are a lot more modern and edgier than mine, so beyond maybe two or three classics she mentions and the book Little Big (which I'm always delighted to see mentioned because there so few complex and literary books that involve fairy lore out there) there was very little in this section that I cared about and I ended up just kind of skimming through. 

To Sum it All Up...
Truly a book lover's book that will have you laughing over Spence's opinionated and often relatable feelings about the books she loves and some books she'd rather not have met! ♥️

On a Delighfully Crabby Shirt

A little belated in posting...I didn't get all that much sewing done this summer, but I did manage to fit in one beach themed shirt before the summer reached it's end. 

When I found this cute crab print I instantly knew I it had to be used to make Simplicity 3223 from 1950.

Working with this pattern proved to be quite interesting, since everything you would normally fold inside the shirt as facing was folded to the outside and top stitched meaning that I really needed to be careful about things being just so. The curves on the armholes and the neck were a pain because of it, but, overall, they don't look too bad, in part I think due to the material being just busy enough to allow for tiny mistakes to go unnoticed. 

The one exception to the facings ending up on the right side was with the plackets. After machine stitching hems on the sides, I hand stitched them to the shirt and think I did such a nice job on them that I'm subjecting you to a picture of one of them. 

I did end up taking the time to get a near perfect print match on the pockets and while I tried on the button part it was cut at a slight angle, which only allowed for getting close to matching (very happy with it, though!).  

I also ended up having the perfect vintage buttons for this! Because I don't have high waist shorts to match at the moment, I ended up having to add a snap at the bottom due to lack of any more buttons. 

Of course, one needs a matching hair scarf and, as a finishing touch, I added a rope belt I've had taking up space in my trims box to get the perfect beachcomber look.

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On a Book as Bad as You'd Expect

Some older books have horribly dated covers, but end up being quite good. Others have horrible cover/inside flap descriptions and you get enjoyment from reading them because they're so bad. 

This book from 1973 had a dated cover and a horrible description (the best part of the book, in my opinion), but fell far from being anything but badly written and not all that enjoyable. That being said I thought I would share both the cover and cover description.

I am particularly fond of the part that mentions the eggs being "reissued," which really had very little to do with the story.

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On a Fabric with Keys: A Photo Post

If one buys Cotton+Steel fabric with keys and keyholes, should one use it to make a dress with a keyhole neckline to continue the theme? 

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On "The Emerald Circus": A Book Review

Title: The Emerald Circus
Author: Jane Yolen
Genre: Fiction, Short Story, Fantasy

About the book...
A collection of 16 of Jane Yolen's short stories with fairy tale, folklore, and fantasy based poetry themes, including Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and Arthurian legends, encompassing stories first published in the 1980's up until present day. These stories also range in the age group they were written for with some being aimed at a younger audience and others at an adult audience.

What I think...
I want to like Yolen's stories, I really do, but despite how much I love her non-fiction book Touch Magic, enjoy watching/listening to videos of her talking about writing, and, in general, tend to agree with her views on writing and fairy tales, her fiction books (picture books excluded) just don't appeal to me as much in comparison to other writers.  Out of all the stories I only ended up liking "Andersen's Witch" and "A Knot of Toads". In the first one, Yolen takes the idea of Andersen struck a deal with the Snow Queen to be a famous writer, which I thought was a really cool idea (no pun intended). The other story, while slightly predicable in some ways had a nice build of suspense and made me think of M.R. James type stories (I don't have the book anymore, but she may have mentioned him as inspiration, though I read something else recently that made a comparison to him, so I could be wrong).

Given my feelings about her non-fiction works and her viewpoints on fairy tales and writing, it should come as no surprise that the other thing I really enjoyed about this book was that the end there was a "Story Notes and Poems" section that was very reminiscent of older fairy tale books, like those of Joseph Jacobs, that had a section that gave background for each of the tales included. While I didn't always care for the story, reading what inspired Yolen to write them and why she chose to go the direction she did with them, as well as finding out where they were originally published added an extra layer of depth to the stories.         

To sum it all up...
Not something that I would re-read, but if you're interested in re-tellings of classic tales or folklore it's worth at least looking into. ♥️ 

On Finishing Up New Curtains!

With only a brief period of free time remaining at the end of my summer I was excited to get to work on several clothing items I started making over the past few years, but never got around to finishing for various reasons. Instead I managed to get a cold, which curtailed my plans for a weekend fully devoted to sewing.

However, among the unfinished dresses, the bolero, and the vest/skirt set, I also had curtains, which I started two years ago and in my stuffy nosed state was the only thing in the unfinished bag that didn't require much effort, nor would a minor mistake lead to a complete disaster.

Now you might wonder why so simple an item has taken me so long to finish. In part it's because the print fabric I chose was too thin alone and rather see-through (defeating the purpose of having the curtains), so I needed to back it with something which then turned into the idea of having the thin top layer pull back from the bottom layer using ribbon, as well as trying to figure out how I wanted the top part the curtain rod slipped through to look. I just wasn't entirely sure how I wanted to do either. 

The other reason is that I really, truly, hate the process of hemming things. While I had the selvages and the bottom edge hemmed on the printed fabric from when I started the project that was where I decided I had had enough hemming, leaving the purple under layer unhemmed.

Moving back to this past weekend, I managed to get everything hemmed, decided on having the back layer come down over the top to create the casing, and created button holes to slip the side tying ribbon giving me the option to pull either both layers of curtains back or to pull back just the top layer! Now I have lovely new curtains that produce a marvelous purple glow and that I'm quite happy with!

Inside the curtain!

Outside the curtain! (Pulled forward for your viewing pleasure and because standing on the 60's children's rocking chair to take the photo did not seem intelligent.

Yes, I know it's dark! Just wanted to show what it looks like closed and no matter what time I took the picture or if the light was on there was some issue with the photo.

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