Austen Family Album Progressing

This weekend I needed to verify which Austen Family Album blocks I had completed, going through Barbara Brackman's blog posts and pulling out my blocks. I became quite confused, so I started to write names on the backs of the blocks...then it hit me. Why not embroider the names on the blocks? Album quilts often were signed by the block makers, so names on sampler quilt blocks is quite traditional. So I have begun the process of embroidering names.

I also decided to make a Jane Austen Silhouette block. I don't need large bed quilts, and Brackman's suggested settings would be too big. I need to set the blocks side by side, which looks very busy. I thought...a few interspersed blocks with more negative space would give the eye a place to rest.

Here is Jane's before block. It was awfully dull and I decided to add her book titles to the background.

I wanted to imitate Jane's handwriting in the embroidery. I did for the Charles Dickens quilt (which will be layered this weekend for quilting, finally) I went online to research examples. I found a type font based on Jane's handwriting that can be downloaded for free! It is available from several sources.

Here is my Harris Biggs-Wither block. He proposed to Jane, who accepted his offer but after sleeping (or not sleeping) on it she rescinded.

Last night I discovered that Barbara Brackman's January 11, 2015 post on the Austen Family Album blog featured MY QUILTS!!! My Pride and Prejudice storybook patterns and several of my Austen Family Album blocks are featured! I could hardly get to sleep! Thank you, Barbara!

Men. Women. Love. "Amherst" by William Nicholson

I did not like Emily Dickinson's poetry as represented in the school text books until I saw an episode of Meeting of Minds by Steve Allen, his 1977 talk show where historical figures met and discussed ideas. Emily Dickinson read poetry to Attila the Hun-- poetry I would have never associated with Dickinson.

Wild Nights --Wild Nights!

Were I with thee

Wild nights should be

our luxury!

Futile-the winds--

To a Heart in port--

Done with the Compass--

Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden--

Ah--the Sea!

Might I but moor--tonight--

In thee!

I bought the complete poems and discovered a whole new Dickinson.

When I saw Amherst by William Nicholson on NetGalley with a ghostly Emily Dickinson hovering over her home on the cover, I requested it.

The novel is about Emily's brother Austin Dickinson and his fifteen-year relationship with Mabel Loomis Todd. They were both married. I was quite ignorant about Austin and Mabel...but Emily was on the cover! She had to figure into the novel somewhere.

I was uncomfortable with the kinky aspect of Mabel and Austin's affair conducted with the consent of Mabel's husband David. I really didn't want to go into it. Why did I request this book? It was creepy.

Nicholson puts forward that Mabel and her husband David advocated an open marriage because people can love more than one person and it won't affect a marriage where there is love and affection. I am no spring chicken, I remember the open marriage, free sex 1960s-70s. Today's young people 'hook up', sex without strings. But I really didn't want to know the details disclosed in Mabel's diary concerning how she merged two lovers into her life. Even if she was responsible for getting Emily's poems into print. I wanted to like Alice, but ended up ambiguous about her. And Nick was such a handsome hunk of loser.

In contemporary times Alice Dickinson struggles with how those 19th c lovers sustained a passion for fifteen years. They believed their love was pure, justified, and consecrated, that they were ordained for each other. Alice and her lover Nick debate the issue, bringing their own experiences and failures, into the discussion. Alice wants to believe in true love, kindred spirits, and a perfect match made in heaven. Nick is a pessimist who lives in the moment and conducts short term affairs.

Did Austin and Mabel sustain their affair for so long because they were true soulmates, or was it the danger and sneaking around that made it so exciting? Do we delude ourselves into false beliefs to justify what we want? Does requited love resolve loneliness? Does gratification result in boredom or completion? Is the chase what is exciting? Do we have only one chance of getting it right? Do we only want what others want?

And what do we want? It seems that we want Darcy. Jane Austen heroes and heroines have become cultural icons. Lizzy and Darcy are to swoon for. Like Alice, we still want the fairy tale princes. Experience be damned. Hope springs eternal.

My thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing the ebook for a fair and unbiased review.

Amherst: A Novel
by William Nicholson
Simon & Schuster
Publication February 10, 2015
$26 hardbound
ISBN: 9781476740409

I cannot live with You – 

It would be Life – 
And Life is over there – 
Behind the Shelf

The Sexton keeps the Key to – 
Putting up
Our Life – His Porcelain – 
Like a Cup – 

Discarded of the Housewife – 
Quaint – or Broke – 
A newer Sevres pleases – 
Old Ones crack – 

I could not die – with You – 
For One must wait
To shut the Other’s Gaze down – 
You – could not – 

And I – could I stand by
And see You – freeze – 
Without my Right of Frost – 
Death’s privilege?

Nor could I rise – with You – 
Because Your Face
Would put out Jesus’ – 
That New Grace

Glow plain – and foreign
On my homesick Eye – 
Except that You than He
Shone closer by – 

They’d judge Us – How – 
For You – served Heaven – You know,
Or sought to – 
I could not – 

Because You saturated Sight – 
And I had no more Eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise

And were You lost, I would be – 
Though My Name
Rang loudest
On the Heavenly fame – 

And were You – saved – 
And I – condemned to be
Where You were not – 
That self – were Hell to Me – 

So We must meet apart – 
You there – I – here – 
With just the Door ajar
That Oceans are – and Prayer – 
And that White Sustenance – 
Despair – 

by Emily Dickinson

Coconut Dishes Everybody Loves: 1931 Recipes from Baker's Coconut

"Like the fragrant palm groves and sunny tropic lands where it grows, Baker's Coconut has a rare sweetness, an inviting, delicious glamor, to add to every dish."

This sweet booklet with its pastel pics is full of lovely recipes for Baker's Coconut, Southern Style "fresh-grated coconut, slightly sweetened and packed, without coconut milk, in air-tight tin" and for Baker's Coconut, Premium Shred, "sugar cured-finely shredded coconut, put up in a triple-sealed, moisture-proof package that keeps it fresh."

Some have many steps and use old fashioned kitchen tools, like hand rotary egg beaters. I have a hand rotary beater in my kitchen that Mom used in the early 1960s.

Coconut Fudge Cake
2 cups sifted Swans Down Cake Flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter or other shortening
1 cup coconut
2 squares Baker's Unsweetened Chocolate, melted
1 egg, well beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup milk

Sift flour once, measure, add baking powder and salt, and sift together three times. Cream butter thoroughly, add sugar gradually, and cream together until light and fluffy. Add chocolate, blend; then add egg and vanilla. Add flour, alternately with milk, a small amount at a time. Beat after each addition until smooth. Bake in greased pan, 8 x 8 x 2 inches, in moderate oven (325 degrees F) 1 hour. Spread with Coconut Marshmallow Frosting.

Coconut Marshmallow Frosting
Add 1 cup marshmallows, quartered, to Seven Minute Frosting. Spread on cake. Sprinkle 1 can Baker's Coconut, Southern Style, over cake while frosting is still soft. Makes enough frosting to cover tops and sides of two 9-inch layers.

Seven Minute Frosting
2 egg whites, unbeaten
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons cold water
1 1/2 teaspoons light corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla

Put egg whites, sugar, water and corn syrup in upper part of double boiler. Beat with rotary egg beater until thoroughly mixed. Place over rapidly boiling water, beat constantly with rotary egg beater, and cook and beat until thick enough to spread. Makes enough frosting to cover tops and sides of two 9-inch layers.

Here is an easy recipe to try!

Coconut Salad Delicious

2 cups cabbage, finely shredded

1 cup grated pineapple, drained

1 cup Baker's Coconut, Premium Shred

3/4 cup Hellmann's Mayonnaise

dash of salt

Crisp cabbage by allowing it to stand in ice water. Drain and dry thoroughly. Toss lightly together with remaining ingredients. Serve on crisp lettuce. Garnish with strips of pimento and chopped chives. Serves 6

 Imperial Tutti-frutti Cake

2 2/3 cups sifted Swan's Down Cake Flour
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup butter or other shortening
2/3 cup milk
1/3 cup water
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 egg whites

Sift flour once, measure, add baking powder, and sift together three times. Cream butter thoroughly, add sugar gradually and cream together until light and fluffy. Combine milk, water, and flavoring. Add flour to creamed mixture, alternately with liquid, a small amount at a time, and mix after each addition until smooth. Add salt to egg whites and beat until stiff, but not dry. Fold gently into cake mixture. Bake in two greased 9-inch layer pans in slow oven (300 degrees F) for 10 minutes; then increase heat to moderate (374 degrees F) and bake 15 minutes longer. Put layers together and cover top and sides of cake with California Tutti-frutti Frosting and Filing or frost with Coconut Seven Minute Frosting.

California Tutti-frutti Frosting
2 egg whites, unbeaten
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons lemon juice
dash of salt
grated rind of 1/2 lemon
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
3/4 cup walnut meats, toasted and coarsely broken
1/2 cup currants
8 maraschino cherries, finely cut
1 can Baker's Coconut, Southern Style

Put egg whites, sugar, water, lemon juice, and salt in upper part of double boiler. Beat with rotary egg beater until thoroughly mixed. Place over rapidly boiling water, beat constantly with rotary egg beater, and cook 7 minutes or until frosting will stand in peaks. Remove from fire, add lemon rind and almond extract. To 1/3 mixture, add nuts, currants, and cherries. Spread between layers of cake. Cover top and sides with remaining frosting and sprinkle thickly with coconut. Makes enough frosting and filing for tops and sides of two 9-inch layers.

Coconut Brambles

2 cups sifted Swan's Down Cake Flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar

1 cup cream

2 tablespoons milk

2 teaspoons baking powder

4 egg whites

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup blackberry jelly

Baker's Coconut, Southern Style

Sift flour once measure, add salt and 1/2 cup sugar, and sift again. Add cream, milk, and baking powder to egg whites, and beat with rotary egg mixer until mixture thickens; then add flavoring and remaining sugar. Fold in flour gently. Bake in two greased pans, 8 x 8 x 2 inches, in moderate oven (325 degrees F) 25 minutes or until done. Cook. Put layers together with blackberry jelly. Cut into 2-inch squares or diamond-shaped pieces, cover with Seven Minute Frosting and sprinkle with coconut. Makes 25.

Stuffed Prune Salad

2 packages cream cheese

1/2 can Baker's Coconut, Southern Style

2 tablespoons Hellmann's Mayonnaise

24 cooked prunes, seeded

Blend cheese, coconut and mayonnaise. Stuff prunes with mixture. Serve on crisp lettuce. Garnish with additional mayonnaise. Serves 8.

Yum!

Here is a history of Baker's Coconut founded in 1894 in Philadelphia by Franklin Baker:
http://www.franklinbaker.com/about-us/history.html

Here's a nice blog post on the history of the rotary beater at Cake, Oil and the Kitchen.

Black River by S. M. Hulse: Faith Quakes in the High Plains

A wife's dying request is to hear her husband bow, one more time, his tune Black River, the one he had been perfecting for years. Wes holds the violin, unable to play; his shattered, disfigured fingers long ago forgot how to find those sweet notes. The music which had saved him had been taken from him. Has Claire forgotten?

I want to go to Black River, she had asked. Belatedly Wes takes her ashes and goes back to Montana, to the place where they fell in love, the place of the 1992 prison riot that changed his life, to Claire's son who they had left behind at age 16. Where the mountains seemed like the hands of God.

With memory comes fear.

Thirty nine hours held hostage by a sociopath has haunted Wes his entire life and his torturer Williams is up for parole. Williams claims to have found faith and become a different man.

Can people change? Does 'bad blood' go from father to son? Is it enough to be right? Do we 'deserve' God? How do we find faith? Do we deserve forgiveness? What does justice have to do with forgiveness?

Hulse's first novel is a marvel, tackling existential questions through characters so richly imagined and rooted in life it is hard to believe a young woman spun them out of her imagination. The back stories are revealed in their time, woven into the story line and adding to the drama. The final meeting between Wes and Williams includes a surprise twist. The questions raised in the novel will engage you long after you close the book.

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

To learn more about the author visit: http://www.smhulse.com/

Black River by S. M. Hulse
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication January 20, 2015
ISBN:9780544309876
$ 24.00
$3.99 Kindle

+++++

To Wes, the violin sang like the human voice. It had been his voice and it brought him as close to God as anything else in his life. He had a gift with the fiddle and had played with a bluegrass  band for nineteen years. His father had loved classical music; his favorite work was the Chaconne from Bach's Partita No. 2 in D Minor and he started each day with listening to it the way some men read the Bible or a devotional. He made Wes his violin in 1966. 

Claire, the agnostic, loved old hymns. She loved her husband's tune which she had named Black River.

Wes tried to bond with his stepson Dennis by teaching him the violin, and later he teaches troubled teen, and natural musician, Scott. 

Music plays a role in the lives of most of the main characters. 

Hulse learned to play as part of her research for the novel as well as studying and listening to the music Wes loved. I can imagine the book made into a movie where music pervades every scene.

Tunes mentioned in the novel (with audio links) include:

Salt Creek (Also known as Salt River)

Devil's Dream

Mary Morgan

Angelina Baker

Cripple Creek

Hop High Ladies (perhaps same as Hop Light Ladies?)

Old Joe Clark

Blackberry Blossom

++++

Addendum Jan 11: Hulse has shared an interview about music related to her book found on Largegearted Boy: Book Notes: 

http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/archive/2015/01/book_notes_s_m.html

+++++

An quilt made by Claire is on Dennis's childhood bed where Wes sleeps after his return. Claire had made it from red and blue scraps, finishing it when Dennis turned 12. Wes thinks that touching the soft quilt is like touching Claire, the stitches like writing, or scars. She was nimble with the needle, Wes remembers. After the riot Claire quilted only when Wes was away, embarrassed by her deft fingers and knowing what Wes had lost. 

 .

Grand Central Terminal Centennial Quilt Challenge Finalist

January 5 at the Blair Library in Clawson quilter and writer Theresa Nielsen gave a talk on her art. Nielsen's quilt was a finalist in the Grand Central Terminal Centennial Quilt Challenge sponsored by the City Quilter quilt shop in New York.

The quilt incorporated fabrics designed for the Centennial, including fabric representing the constellation ceiling of the terminal and a picture postcard print with images of Grand Central. The fabrics are still available at The City Quilter's website and store in aqua and ivory colorways.

Constellation fabric represents the ceiling of Grand Central

Grand Central

See more about the challenge at:
The City Quilter: http://www.cityquilter.com/Grand-Central-Centennial-Quilts.html
The Wall Street Journal:
http://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304914904579439090413753278?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304914904579439090413753278.html
All People Quilt:
http://www.allpeoplequilt.com/magazines-more/american-patchwork-quilting/grand-central-winners

Theresa Nielsen quilt photograph from All People Quilt

Nielsen's embellishments includes beading and watch parts. Her quilting group friends helped her to collect the embellishments.

Nielsen has had other quilts in challenge shows, including the National Quilt Association's Sew Batik. Her books include stories based on her family life and her many pets, including birds, dogs, and cats.

Nielson had a Redwork quilt on display as well--with presidents and political motifs.

 The library (and city hall!) have quilts on display year round. Some at the library now:

Drugs, Booze and Women. Fitzgerald in Hollywood.

Cokes and chocolate candy during the day. Chloral hydrate and Nembutal before bed. Benzedrine to get going in the morning. Booze whenever it got too bad.

Zelda was under medical care; Scottie in private school; both were back East. Nineteen years of marriage, half with Zelda's demons keeping them apart, now he sees her on rare holidays when he can get away. Intimate relations ended a long time ago.

In 1937 F. Scott Fitzgerald was in Hollywood, struggling to get jobs and pay the bills. A has-been trying to write a novel about Hollywood, hired to write scripts but tossed from film to film with no billing, nothing to show for it. His royalty check from Scribners amounted to $1.43.

Like his character Stahr in his manuscript that became the incomplete novel The Last Tycoon, Fitzgerald sees a woman who reminds him of his wife. They fall in love. Sheilah Graham was thirty to his forty, a tough, smart, self-made gal. And Scott was grasping at the last golden ring of happiness, in spite of TB and heart disease: the luxury of love.

West of Sunset by Stewart O'Nan is Biographical Fiction based on Scott's last years. Told in the third person limited, we come to know Scott by his actions, and from the narrator's knowledge of  his thoughts.

I could not stop reading. And the day after I felt such sorrow.

Plenty of Hollywood denizens show up in the story, like Bogie and Mayo who mostly drink and romp around the pool. Dottie Parker and her husband Alan Campbell; Dottie who knew him back in the old days. Names are dropped, Scott is snubbed by some of the most famous.

Ernest Hemingway appears on crutches after a botched operation on his leg. His breath stinks, he is unwashed. He has 'sold out' Scott thinks, a wasted talent. It was Hemingway who told Max Perkins that Scott sold out after Tender Is The Night appeared, who told Scott that Zelda was no good for him.

Scott hears that Tom Wolfe, the Thomas Wolfe of  Look Homeward, Angel, has died. Scott admired Wolfe's work, his ecstasy and gargantuan vitality. Wolfe was 36 years old. Scott had chosen the sanitarium near Asheville for Zelda because it was Tom's hometown, the city Wolfe could not "go home" to.

The whole glorious Lost Generation writers, all edited by Max Perkins, are old and dying and already passé, so yesterday. Scott's daughter Scottie gives him an essay she wrote for Mademoiselle about how his generation was as fashioned and outmoded as the Charleston.

What Scottie did not know yet, thinks Scott, was how war changes everything. It is 1939. She will soon see for herself.

I had found a copy of The Last Tycoon while vacationing Up North and read it for the first time since I was a teenager. It is told in the first person, by the daughter of the main character Stahr. Wonderful name for a Hollywood "tycoon.".Stahr has achieved a legendary status, the Boy Wonder who knows how to fix everything, wielding his power for the greater vision in his head. His beloved wife has died, and has only his work to keep him going. Until he sees Kathleen, who looks like his wife. He searches for her, they meet, they fall in love.

The Tycoon Stahr meets a tragic end in a plane crash. Scott died at age 44 of a heart attack at Sheliah's place, where he was working with a secretary on Tycoon.

O'Tan's novel ends with letters exchanged between Scottie and Zelda after Scott's death. "Only in love are we redeemed," writes Zelda. "God answers all prayers."

How ironic.

To learn more visit
http://www.scottandzelda.com/
http://www.fscottfitzgeraldsociety.org/biography/index.html

The First New Woman Was A Flapper

Jazz, cigarettes, alcohol. The corsets came off--so did the hair. Women wanted equality of choice, equality in marriage relationships, freedom over their bodies, the opportunity to do something of their own. Their Victorian parents were in despair. The New Woman, called Flappers, had arrived.

Women had been imprisoned in a gilded cage, from the restricted clothing to perpetual pregnancy. The Flappers pushed the envelope: swearing like a sailor, engaging in "petting", dancing in provocative ways, and jumping on the latest wild fashion style. One 14 year old  girl committed suicide when her mother prevented her from rolling her stockings and bobbing her hair.

Innovative and original fashion designers like Coco Chanel liberated women with her clothing. Marketing to the young set created Madison Avenue as we know it. Credit ended the need to save for purchases. Instant gratification! And Hollywood actresses Clara Bow, Louise Brooks, and Colleen Moore set role models. F. Scott Fitzgerald was there to record it in literature, his wife Zelda the Original Flapper.

"I sometimes wonder whether the flapper made me or I made her." F. Scott Fitzgerald

This was the generation that invented 'dating' and 'treating' where men asked a girl out and paid her way, leaving the girl to decide how to 'repay' him.  Premarital sex, typically with a finance, jumped from 14% of women born before 1900 to 39% of women who came of age in the first decades of the 20th c.

By 1929 over a quarter of all women had jobs, and half of single women worked. Young people lived at home longer. They came from smaller families with siblings born closer together. Social circles became generational. Radio and the movies created an information revolution, while the telephone allowed 'instant messaging'. Leisure pursuits and having fun became more important that work.

Instead of trying to reach 150 pounds, women were dieting and losing weight to wear those skimpy dresses. The 'womanly' figure was out.

Arrow shirt ad

Fundamentalism was born, a backlash against the breakdown of morality and the prevailing secular thought. The arch-conservative American Legion was formed. The Women's Voters and social feminists tried to keep alive the ideal of motherhood as the civilizing force in society.


Flapper by Joshua Zeitz is an interesting and lively social history. In the last year I had read Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History by Rhoda Garlick and lots of Fitzgerald books.  I appreciated reading about lesser known characters of the time. Artists John Held and Gordon Conway gave "visual expression to the social revolution sweeping the United States", and Lois Long AKA Lipstick who wrote a social column for The New Yorker about the Flapper social set. Actresses Clara Bow, Colleen Moore and Louise Brooks reigned the silver screen but I had known little about them.


Flapper: A Modern Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern
by Joshua Zeitz
Broadway Books
2006