How William Shakespeare Changed the Way you Talk

Shakespeare changed the way we speak. But do we know the origin of the phrases that have become household words?

It was with great excitement that I opened Jane Sutcliffe's book Will's Words about the phrases and sayings inherited from William Shakespeare. It is beautifully illustrated by John Shelley.

As I was reading the book written for Third and Fourth Grades I was wishing I could have read it to my son when he was that age. He would have loved the detailed illustrations showing London teeming with houses and people, the views of the Thames and London Bridge with boats of all sizes carrying people across the river, the aerial views of the city and The Globe, the crowds with their ruffed neckwear and doublets. There is a great cutaway of the Globe showing all the actors and stage hands putting on A Midsummer's Night's Dream, using trap doors and dangling a fairy over the stage.

And while my son studied the detailed illustrations I would have taught him about the importance of Shakespeare, an introduction to the Bard.

The book opens in 1606, a time when people sought an escape from their daily lives and the theaters offered plays six days a week. Except during an outbreak of the plague when they were shut down. We read about the theater goers, what the experience was like, and about the actors and the stories they told. We learn that Will wrote comedies that made the audience laugh themselves into stitches and tragedies about foul play that made their hair stand on end.

It ends with the publication of the 1616 first Folio, without which Shakespeare's words would have been lost.

Included is an author's note of how she came to write the book, a bibliography and a time line of Shakespeare's life.

The long and the short of it is that you'll get your money's worth out of this book!

NOTE: BOLD print words are included in the book Will's Words.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Will's Words How William Shakespeare Changed the Way You Talk
Jane Sutcliffe
Charlesbridge
Hardcover: 987-1-58089-638-2
E-book ISBN:
978-1-60734-855-9 EPUB
978-1-60734-856-6 PDF
Publication Date: March 22, 2016

Pat Sloan Visits Town

I went to the Great Lakes Heritage Quilters meeting this past week to see Pat Sloan. She gave a lecture on her quilting life. Pat has been seriously quilting since 1992 and in 2000 left her job to make her hobby full time. Pat has authored 30 books and designs fabric.

 I get her newsletter and have seen her patterns and books. It was great seeing her quilts up close and personal.

Pat learned hand piecing with cardboard templates making traditional quilts. Inspired by antique quilts and folk art she developed her own style. She combines piecing and easy fused appliqué.

Pat is one of 83 designers offering 100 free blocks in their Splendid Sampler. Some of the guild members are participating and displayed their blocks. Learn more here.

The Civil Wars of Julia Ward Howe

Growing up in the Dark Ages of the 1950s I had to search hard to find female role models. Not that my teachers were not great; I admired them immensely. I longed for women who were heroic and brave--and not fictional. In junior high I read began reading biographies: Jane Addams, Clara Barton, Florence Nightingale, Joan of Arc. And I have been reading biographies of women ever since.

The Civil Wars of Julia Ward Howe by Elaine Showalter is a biography that, unlike the biographies of my childhood reading, portrays a woman both driven and intelligent and flawed and human. I liked it immensely.

Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) is remembered today for writing The Battle Hymn of the Republic, a rousing anthem with powerful, Biblical inspired words. Otherwise most know little about her. Her poetry, plays, and failed opera did not pass the critical eye or become timeless. Her activism as an abolitionist and suffragette now is forgotten. She worked for abolition of the death penalty and prison reform, education reform, immigrant rights, Indian affairs, worker's rights, and was instrumental in the creation of Mother's Day and the Association of American Women. In her youth she was called the 'Diva' for her sparkling wit, beauty, and intelligence; in maturity she was the 'Mother Superior' of Boston philanthropy and 'the grand old lady of America'.

Julia was born to wealth and had a top-notch education. She studied French six hours a day. Her vocal teacher was from the Italian opera company. Her father had commissioned Thomas Cole for The Voyage of Life , a series of four allegorical paintings depicting the stages of life. Julia met the greats of her time including Longfellow, Dickens, Margaret Fuller, and Charles Sumner. Still, her father kept a strong hold on Julia and she felt bored and yearned for a fuller, freer life. She became a vegetarian, secretly read George Sand, and spent her nights writing. Julia's life altered with her father's death; she adopted his strict Calvinism and was depressed for two years. Finally her friend brought her to Unitarianism and freed from guilt she bloomed. At twenty-two she was a beautiful 'bluestocking', a Diva, an heiress. And unmarried, both longing for love and fearful of childbirth with it's threat of death and the chains that came with childrearing.

Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe came, literally, into her life 'a noble rider on a noble steed'. He was devastatingly handsome, a 'manly man', commanding and stern. He was eighteen years her senior, like Lord Byron was a hero in the Greek Revolution, had pioneered work in education of the blind, and was admired as a philanthropist. Samuel and Julia were both intelligent, passionate, idealistic--they should have been a perfect match. But the honeymoon ended on the honeymoon. Sam could never get past his image of woman as help-meet, mother, the angel in the house who should want for nothing more than house and home. And Julia chaffed against his tight hold, fighting for the right to a voice, artistic expression, and equality in every form. Their marriage was a failure.

Julia was an anomaly: her husband entertained John Brown in his home and she supported abolition, but also felt that slaves needed to be 'raised up' by European culture into civilization and wrote disparagingly of Southern slaves. During the Civil War she was part of a group that had gone to see the troops outside of Washington, D.C. On the long ride home she sang to entertain the men and her companions. A friend suggested she write new words to the song John Brown's Body, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Showalter's book was engrossing and fast reading; I devoured it in two days. Julia was a complex woman, the best kind to read about. I enjoyed learning how critics reviewed Howe's literary works during her life, then tracing changing views of her work across time. I was fascinated by Howe's secret manuscript about a hermaphrodite's life, now perceived as an expression of the angst and struggle that Howe and other Victorian age women endured.

I received a free ARC from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Read Howe's works on the electronic archives at http://www.juliawardhowe.org/writings.htm

The Civil Wars of Julia Ward Howe: A Biography
by Elaine Showalter
Simon & Schuster
$28.00 hard cover
Publication March 8, 2016
ISBN:9781451645903

Marooned in the Arctic: Ada Blackjack's Extraordinary Life

In 1921 a top secret expedition of four Canadian men and one Inuit woman set out to occupy Wrangle Island in Siberia to claim it for Britain. Several Inuit families who were to go were no shows, but Ada Blackjack desperately needed the $50 a month salary and decided to go alone. Her son had tuberculosis and as a single mother Ada needed to find money for his medical treatment.

Ada was born in 1898 near Solomon, Alaska. Her father died when she was eight and her mother sent her to a Methodist mission in Nome. She was taught English, basic reading and writing skills, and the Christian religion. Ada never learned traditional Inuit skills, except for having a skill of turning animal skins into clothing. That was her purpose on the expedition.

At sixteen Ada married  Jack Blackjack and they moved to the Seward Peninsula. Ada suffered six years of abuse and starvation from Jack. Two of their children died, Bennett developed tuberculosis, and Jack deserted the family. Ada divorced Jack and took Bennett to Nome where she cleaned houses and sewed to support them. Bennett needed medical care which Ada could not afford and she took him to the Methodist orphanage for care.

Ada heard that the explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson was organizing an expedition. He had hired Errol Lorne Knight, Frederick W. Maurer, Milton Galle, and Allan R. Crawford to carry out the secret mission. Stefansson told the men that the Arctic land could support a comfortable life, that game was abundant, and settlement by Europeans the goal.

Marooned in the Arctic by Peggy Caravantes tells the story of  the doomed expedition. All four men perished, and Ada had to survive alone until she was rescued two years after her arrival. Caravantes points that the men were totally unprepared and overly optimistic. They failed to provide adequate food for the long winters. They had forgone buying the boat needed to reach the ice floes where their prey could be found. As the men fell ill with scurvy and starvation, Ada learned to set trap lines and shot a rifle, chop the wood, and nurse the men--all while suffering loneliness, cultural isolation, fear of polar bears, homesickness for her son, and scurvy.

After Ada's rescue she faced pubic notoriety and the pressure to provide answers to the men's fate. She was lionized and dehumanized, had another son, fell ill with tuberculosis, and died in poverty in 1983.

Ada's story has all the elements of a great story. Adventure, pathos, racism, strength, maternal love, cultural imperialism, and Arctic exploration. Caravantes has done her research. But this book meant for ages 12+ lacks emotional connection, vitality, and excitement. It reads like an encyclopedia article with too much telling. The characters don't live. For instance, we are told that the ill and dying Knight wrote a melancholy letter but we don't know what he said.

The book has sparked an interest and I want to know more about Ada.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The True Story of Ada Backjack, the "Female Robinson Crusoe"
by Peggy Caravantes
Women of Action
Chicago Review Press
$19.95 hard cover
Publication March 2016
ISBN: 9781613730980

Help! & Tidbits & News & Old & New

Help! I bought these handkerchiefs on eBay a few years ago and have been trying to find out WHO these kids are! Jennie, Mortimer, and Jerry. Ring any bells? I was sure I would find they were movie or radio characters.

A friend found this in her mother's sewing room. She wondered what it was. 

 It is marked "Pat. May 22 1900".

I Goggled it and found one that sold on Etsy. The seller had attached information from the patent. It was a seam ripper! Read an article about the inventor and how it was used at American Scissor Stories. Now I want one.

Sunetra from my weekly quilt group made Woven Rust from The Fiona Quilt Block book. She loves it and wants to make another.

I bought two handkerchiefs from eBay, both mint with tags and minor age stains.

Pine Woods Press is writing a book about Lake Superior light saving stations and found my post The Shipwreck Coast, Girl, and a Lamp. My husband's grandmother spent time at Crisp's Point and Vermillion Lighthouse when a teenager. She helped with the children. She received a post card of Capt. James Scott, the Crisp's Point life saving station keeper, and it will appear in the upcoming book! Meantime they are sending me their first publication Storms and Sand about Big Sable Point shipwrecks.

Capt James Scott, dated Sept. 1911

My Shiba Inus both are getting older. They have heart murmurs and now Suki is showing elevated levels for borderline kidney troubles. Poor dears. Suki is about 14, and Kamikaze about 11. Both spent their early years as breeders in puppy mills before being rescued and adopted by us.

Suki

Kamikaze

March has brought snow....the snow we were supposed to get in January. Sigh. 

Meanwhile I finished a quilt started in 1996. I made the Biblical Block Sampler  by Rosemary Makham before I had the skill set for it. It didn't fit together. Several years ago I took it apart and turned it into two smaller pieces. This part was the central Pine Tree.

Multiple Listings by Tracy McMillian

Life is good for Nicki. She has an incredible job in real estate that supports her and her son Cody in a solid upper-middle class lifestyle. Her boyfriend Jake is young, handsome, daring, and attentive. She and Jake have started building a restaurant and have put money down on a beautiful new house.

Then Nicki's life unravels. It starts with her father Ronnie showing up at her door, newly released from prison and in need of a place to stay.

Ronnie and Nicki speak in alternate chapters, allowing the reader deep insight into their perceptions and emotional life. Ronnie must come to terms with his past and how it has affected his relationships. He really wants to be a better man. But it's hard when you know just how to read and manipulate people--especially women who find him irresistible. Nicki has her own baggage with a dad in prison and a disconnected mother turning tricks for drug money. She chooses the wrong men and does not understand her teenage son. What she has to learn is that Ronnie is just what she needs in her life.

Multiple Listings is relationship author and screenwriter Tracy McMillan's first novel. The characterization is great and the plot moves along quickly. Early on I thought I knew how it would end, and it did end that way, but there were interesting twists to keep up my interest. It can get preachy, especially with Ronnie wanting to use his hard-earned wisdom to save the world. But I bet a lot of women will find the lessons valuable and affirming. We want Ronnie to make it outside of prison and for Nicki to allow herself to trust again. Cody is pivotal, for he badly needs a man to understand him and Ronnie knows what he is thinking even before Cody knows what he is thinking.

How long before this book becomes a movie? I wouldn't be surprised.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

"Inspired by the author's life and imbued with wit and profound insight into relationships, Multiple Listings speaks poignantly--and often hilariously--about the ties that bind families of all types together."

Multiple Listings
by Tracy McMillan
Gallery Books
Publication March 8, 2016
$26.00 hard cover
ISBN: 9781476785523

Quilt Display, Gifted New Handkerchiefs, 1857 Update

My quilt guild has a display at the Royal Oak Public Library. This was my library when I was a girl & teenager, so it is so special to share some of my quilts there! I helped set up the display last night during a snow storm.

I brought my quilt based on the Morning Glory fairy in A Year With the Fairies by Anna O. Scott. It is mixed media using crayon tinting, embroidery, appliquéd silk flowers, beading, and a sheer net overlay. The pink fabric is silk.

 My handkerchief border quilt includes embroidery based on a 1930s greeting card vintage buttons.

A part of my Redwork based on illustrations from Reggie's Christmas can be seen on the shelf below. The book was read by my mother-in-law who got it from her uncle James O'Dell.

The left quilt below is a folded bow-tie. The doggies are wool appliqué on cotton.

 So many cute things were offered for the display, small quilts and pot holders.

 Scott T. Dog uses reproduction 1930s fabrics.

Yesterday morning at my weekly quilt gathering's show and tell I saw a quilt based on The Fiona Quilt Block by Carolyn Perry Goins. I will have a photo later. And a lady gave me some handerchiefs from her collection.

AND, between my morning group and the late afternoon gathering I met with a lady to guide her in making her first handkerchief collage! She had a wonderful heirloom collection of laces, trims, and dress pieces from her mother and grandmother. I want to go back and get photos!

I finished six blocks of the 1857 Album from Sentimental Stitches. 

Little Hazel from Esther Aliu has been showing up on her Facebook page in extraordinary manifestations! The interpretations are remarkable! I eagerly await the next part to be released!