Super simple purple sleeveless

Two down and a few more to go. I made this super simple purple sleeveless dress tonight while Mark was stewing chili. Esme had said she liked this dress at Niddle Noddle quite a bit, so we found a fabric similar to it when we were in town today. I omitted the sleeves of her regular pattern and made it a single button overlap closure instead of a zipper, to keep it cool. She says it fits well.

I think I have a few other things to plan - a pair of pants from the brown/blue flower fabric she chose and she has asked me for a cat doll with green eyes - which I have stalled on in favor of getting real clothes made. I like the fact that I was able to make good use of the machine these past two days - sitting down and actually DOING the job is only about an hour or two, but getting myself up to the task of sitting down and devoting that hour or so, that is usually the hard part. There are so many other things clamoring for attention, but the sewing is very rewarding.

A new-to-me blog I like : Bliss by mrs. french I have already gleaned some beautiful ideas from her inspirational pictures.

I discovered an early 1900s artist Virginia Frances Sterrett, who created beautiful art nouveau (almost Japanesque) woodblocks and paintings for several fairy tale/mythology books in the early 1920s. I read the tale of Blondine at archive.org while Esme was napping yesterday and loved it, although it is simple it would still be just a bit much for her, mostly length. Several of the Sterrett artworks look much like things I have drawn in the past - her turtle especially, and the gorgeous dropback of Prosperine's choice whether to eat the pomegranate or not in Tanglewood Tales. They have been reprinted into paperbacks on Amazon, along with Arabian Nights, also illustrated by her. I should probably put those on our list for Christmas if they are still available.

---ramble----

I did buy a few books recently - a crop science book is coming in the mail, as well as a grisly but beautifully illustrated version of Grimms Fairy Tales from the 1940s. I looked it up on Abebooks expecting it to be outrageous and found a copy that said 'good' and listed all the right info for surprisingly cheap - I will see if I am astounded or disappointed in about a week. I went seeking a specific type of copy because, in my above-mentioned reading and Mark's trying to remember specifics of Hansel and Gretel, I realized our collection contained a nice volume of Hans Christen Anderson and a 1950s text-only Arabian Nights but not any Grimm at all! I thought: Esme's education will be lacking! *sarcasm* but honestly, there is a bit of truth in that. In three years when she is wanting something to pore over, we will have some things with beautiful pictures and stories that have historically enchanted generations.

This one, if it proves to be what it claims to be, will be the non-politically correct Grimms which we will have quite a bit more to talk about on as parents but are the copies we remember reading before they were 'cleaned up for the public' sometime after that. As I've said before, it feels like I was raised in another era compared to nearly everyone else 'my age'. The world I grew up in was nothing-new and passed-me-down so the 1920-1940 books and comics I was reading in the 1970s were not 'special' at the time, they were what we had and if you didn't rip the pages you could read them and not have to stare out the window because the library was far away and new books were few and far between. We also had a wood burning potbelly stove we hung mittens up on to dry in the winter, candle light when (often) the electricity went out and a pumphandle in the bathroom for the water there but running water in the kitchen. It was an interesting place to grow up in at the time, and doing so helped foster so many things I find interesting now. I also notice, at times, that the older language in the books I read at the time still follows me now in later life.


Dora Deane 1915 book at Gutenberg
I had a copy of this at the age of eleven or so, and I remember it made an impression on me similar to Oliver Twist or The Secret Garden or Cast Upon the Breakers did as well at the time.