Family Circle August 1958: When Turquoise Was Vogue

Turquoise was the first decorator color I remember. The August 1958 issue of Family Circle may have influenced Mom's choice in buying a turquoise couch in 1959. 

In this magazine variations of turquoise appears in decor, background color in ads and illustrative art, and in clothing.

 Tommy Sands likes the Halo girl. The backdrop color is, of course, turquoise.

 The Parkay package is a light blue, bordering on turquoise.

 Yep. Turquoise towels.

What great paper plate patterns! Several in turquoise.

This issue had three short stories. Note "the girl" looks awfully womanly.

It is no wonder I associate the color turquoise with my childhood! Mom painted the wainscoting in our house turquoise and the color showed up in lamp trims and doilies (which she pinned to a board, starched, to keep that shape)

In 1959 Mom bought her first new furniture, including the maple hutch I still own, a brown chair, a brown on ivory Colonial print chair, and a turquoise couch. Here is my brother in 1962 sitting on that couch. It had a tough nylon upholstery that never wore out, but was scratchy against the skin. Wasn't he cute?

In 1963 we moved to a 1920s house in Michigan. Mom painted the wall turquoise to match that couch. Here I am Christmas 1963 or 1964 sitting on that couch.

In a few years Mom redecorated. The walls became yellow. It was the beginning of a new era in decorating: Harvest Gold and Avocado. The couch was replaced. She kept the brown chair and in 1972 when I married she gave it to us. That upholstery just never wore out. We discarded it in 1976.

Sheet Music Covers

My mother and grandmother made sure I took piano lessons starting at eight years old. I liked playing but not necessarily practicing. Then my folks moved and the piano did not move with us. I found myself in a strange school far from my friends and cousins I missed my piano exceedingly.

In Sixth Grade music classes I wanted to touch the piano, but was too shy to ask. Then m my grandmother bought me a used upright piano, painted white. Mom painted it a light green, a trendy color in 1964. I resumed lessons. In 1966 I had six months of guitar lessons, then dropped lessons all together. But I continued to play, teaching myself.


I have an antique quarter sawn oak, planck front music cabinet full of sheet music. The oldest pieces were given to me when I was a girl: Deep Purple and Symphony. In the early 1970s in Philadelphia we came across a collectibles shop that sold sheet music and I started collecting it. I do play the music. But sometimes I buy it just for the cover art.

Exotic women abound

 Fashion trends

War and music seemed to hand-in-hand in the last century. That kind of musical patriotism has vanished.

 

 Couples are a perennial theme.

 What great art

 I even love the fonts used on the old music, like Dromedary

More girls

If a famous singer performed the song it is likely they appeared on the sheet music.

Sometimes the gal became famous later.

Jane Austen Family Album Update

I am just about caught up with the Jane Austen Family Album weekly blocks. I did Lucky Pieces for Jane's Aunt Leigh-Perrot.

I laid the finished blocks on a bed to see how they look. I can't wait to get a design wall up! I have really missed one. 

The colors really are not showing up very well. The fabrics are French General, mostly Panier de Fleurs fat quarters I picked up a year or so ago. I added the red stripe and several greens and a cream background fabric from my stash. The gray background of the prints show up greenish in the lighting.

Hopefully before the week is over I will do block 17 and be up-to-date. There will be 36 blocks in all. Of course I have no idea yet what I will do with them! But I am having great fun working on a sampler quilt.

Work is nearly over with carpet tiling the finished basement, and the IKEA Hemnes bookcases are all up. Another week and that room should be settled. THEN we can work on the unfinished side, which now is piles of boxes all over. And when we dig out the corner with the fuse box we can call in the electrician. We have taken five more trips to the thrift shop with things to donate. 

Retirement so far seems to be  hard work! 

Quilts of Love, a Series of Christian Romance Novels from Abington Press

I read Grand Design by Amber Stockton and Masterpiece Marriage by Gina Wellborn, my first foray into Christian romances or fiction.

Grand Design is set on Mackinaw Island at the Grand Hotel, which the author makes sure the reader knows was the setting for the cult classic film Somewhere in Time staring the late great Christopher Reeves and Jane Seymour. Alyssa wins a honeymoon prize for two weeks at the Grand Hotel. She is single and pretty much afraid of men so she takes her best friend. Turns out she spent her childhood summers on the island with her grandmother who still lives there. But it has been 15 years since the 29 year old Alyssa has been back. Of course she meets the perfect guy (Scott) before she sets foot on the island. Both are shy, reluctant to try their hand at love again, and share mutual values. They have a definite physical attraction.

Quilting has little to do with the main story line and could have been left out without changing the book. Alyssa collects quilt blocks from Grandma's old quilt group and the blocks turn into a quilt. All this in two weeks.

I found the book lacking in suspense and formulaic. The main character's crisis could have been suspenseful with better handling. I had real problems with the love interest using violence to save Alyssa from a masher. There is no repercussion for his actions. And when Alyssa and Scott are accused of theft, their word alone is all it takes for the police to go after the man they accuse of the set up.

Religion has little active role other than the aunt takes the young folk to church. A young man realizes that church was not so bad. Mostly, the conservative attitude towards courtship is shown, not told, as Alyssa's love interest shows great restraint and respect towards her. For me, this book is for a young reader or an older person who dislikes to be ruffled.

Disappointed, but curious, I turned to the second novel.


Masterpiece Marriage is set in Philadelphia in 1871. Zenus is a textile mill owner who needs to save his business. He travels to his Virginia aunt to beg one of her quilt designs so he can manufacture quilt kits. The aunt has just arranged to help Mary, who is an aspiring botanist under a deadline to prepare her research on tomato plants for publication. Zenus and Mary both need auntie's help and want to get the other out of the way. Sparks fly. The sparks become attraction.

The aunt is a famous quilter and during the story women work on an embroidered crazy quilt. Again, quilting does not figure predominately in the story, but is a plot devise to get Zenus and Mary together.

They struggle with serendipitous events, wondering if coincidence or providence is behind life's happenings. Does God arrange specific events for specific people? But then life's pain would be God's handiwork, too, and a loving God would not do that. The balance falls in favor of divine providence.

I enjoyed the Philly references. Textile mills thrived across the city, including in Kensington, once home to thriving factories like Stetson Hat and Quaker Lace. We lived for a time not far from the empty Stetson Hat factory.Kensington was where America's first textile printing factory was built by John Hewitt. Read about him here and on Barbara Brackman's blog post here. Early American quilts used his textiles for Broderie perse quilts. Read about Kensington and Fishtown's mills here.

One of the empty factories in our neighborhood in 1979/80. 

http://hope4kensington.blogspot.com. Nothing much has changed since we lived in Kensington.

Zenus does show a rare concern for keeping his women mill workers employed so the children did not starve. Very commendable and Christian. he and Mary even think about some kind of support to help them, one indication that their marriage will be based on more than sex appeal.

Textile mills were horrible places. (http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/mono-regsafepart01.htm)
The noise of the machines, the heat and humidity, the lint in the air, the long hours (up to 14 hours a day), the monotonous work and limited breaks lead to accidents, disease and poor health. Children workers equaled the number of adult workers, and women predominated the workforce. Children under 12 were limited to 10 hours days in 1849; those over age 12 could work 12 hours a day or more. Pennsylvania tried to limit or end child labor, but it was not successfully banned until 1913. The state's first factory safety act was passed in 1889.

Mt Pisgha Church was off the main roads, amid rowhouses

In 1980 we knew an 99 year old Kensington lady who told of her mill working days. Her husband died when they were young and she went to work at a lace mill, which my husband recalls was near Erie Avenue. She arose before dawn to walk to the mill, put in a long day, walked home in the dark, had a dinner of cold potatoes, and went to bed.

She lived in a Father, Son and Holy Ghost house  consisting of three rooms on three levels. About 14 feet wide, with hardly 100 square feet a story they were built to cram as much living space in the city as possible for the vast number of workers needed for industry.

The Quilts of Love Series has many titles with diverse plots, from the Underground Railway to crime mysteries. These books were definitely romances in the secular sense, with physical attraction the basis of "love". I would like to see Christian romance give more attention to a deeper base for marriage, where values, empathy, and faith figure more predominately in the attraction.

Grand Design
Abingdon Press
Amber Stockton
Publication August 19, 2014
$13.99
ISBN:9781426773471

Masterpiece Marriage
Abingdon Press
Gina Wellborn
Publication December 16, 2014
ISBN:9781426773631