Playing with Pansies

I do love to 'play' in the sewing room. I used another linen from my great bargain bash, added embroidered pansies cut from something, and culled out some pansy handkerchiefs to make this wall quilt hanging.

The pansy embroidery was centered in a lace edged doily which was centered on a handkerchief with an embroidered pansy.

 Everything is applied to a fat quarter of a yellow floral print.

 I cut the handkerchief corners and layered them from the quilt edge with points towards the center.

 I like to use sheer cotton or nylon handkerchiefs in this manner. I like how the underlying fabric shows through for added texture and interest.

I have a lot pulled out for future play!

Remember This? March 1959 Family Circle

The March 1959 issue of  Everywoman's Family Circle is full of nostalgic photos and ads.

We are in the time period when turquoise was popular. RIT Dye's ad showed how last year's Mamie Pink coat could be dyed a great deep royal blue with the dress going from light to lovely seascape turquoise and greens.

Remember going to Grandmother's house for Easter dressed new fashions? Dark blue suit for Dad. Hat and heels for Mom. Suits for the kids. Pink and blue paint for Grandma's house?

Will ya' look at that diamond! Someone is getting married! 

All the girls in the office are wearing checks. Reminds me of someone. Peggy? That you?

Home sewers could make this orange three piece suit.

I wanted to be a cowgirl in '59. But I was years away from being a teen like these gals.

 Instead I was wearing roller skates like the ones below...and had  perpetually scabbed knees .

Everyone smoked. It was considered glamorous. Cough cough.

Kent Cigarettes sponsored one of my favorite TV shows. I figured its the brand I'd smoke when I grew up.

Hair styles from 1959:

What a hat!

 No bad breath with Ipana. You'll wonder where the yellow went. too.

Housewives LOVED their soft towels. So indicative of their contribution to society.

 A state-of-the-art laundry room was required to produce those soft towels.

Cleaning products

















Recipes dominate the magazine.

 Do I see....turquoise?

 Fast and easy was in. Thanks to JELL-O.

 Mustard on a pizza. No way.

 Remember Mr. Peanut? Before he did break-dancing and hip-hop?

International cooking was discovered. 

And if you ate too much there was 'diet food'.

Needlecraft and sewing was enjoyed.

Crayolas...my favorite childhood activity was coloring.

 During coffee break a gal could read a short story.

Parakeets were found in many homes. My grandmother had one.

 You could order a pink flamingo for your yard.

Here are some Lenten recipes from the magazine:

Tuna Tamale Pie

bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

1 1/2 c water

1/2 c yellow corn meal

1/2 cup cold water

1 can flaked tuna drained

1 can whole kernel corn drained

1 can tomato soup

1 cup diced celery

1 cup graded Cheddar cheese

1 small onion chopped

2-3 teaspoons chili powder

1. Heat 1 1/2 cups water to boiling; mix corn meal, salt and 1/2 cup cold water in cup; stir into boiling water; cook, stirring constantly, until thickened; cover; continue to cook over low heat for 10 minutes.
2. Mix tuna, corn, tomato soup, celery, 3/4 cup of the grated cheese, onion, and chili powder in medium-sized bowl.
3. Spread half of  the cooked corn meal in an 8-cup baking dish; pour in mixture; top with remaining corn meal; sprinkle remaining 1/4 cup cheese on top.
4. Bake in a moderate oven (350 degrees) for 1 hour, or until heated through and bubbly on top.

Tuna Burgers
Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes. Serves 4.
1 can tuna, drained and flaked
1 cup cubed Swiss cheese
1/2 cup cooked potatoes
1/3 cup chopped celery
2 radishes thinly sliced
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1 teaspoon grated onion
1/8 teaspoon curry powder
1/3 cup mayonnaise
4 round rolls, split and buttered
1. Combine tuna, Swiss cheese, potatoes, celery, radishes, parsley, onion, curry powder, and mayonnaise in bowl. Stir lightly until well mixed; divide evenly among buttered rolls; wrap each in aluminium foil.
2. Bake in 400 degree oven for 15 minutes or until heated through.

OverDrive's Big Library Read; What I Am Working On

I am reading OverDrive's Big Library Read, the 'first ever global eBook club". OverDrive is the service that allows me to borrow eBooks from my local library.

The book is Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years in Solitary With the Bard by Laura Bates. Bates is a Shakespeare professor who went into Chicago's maximum security prisons to teach prisoners in solitary confinement. The book chronicles the journey of one prisoner and how Shakespeare changed his life.

To join in and get the eBook visit http://biglibraryread.com/
Read about the book on Huffington Post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/23/shakespeare-saved-my-life-excerpt-_n_3133831.html?

The Decorative Painting group I joined met yesterday and I came home with a metal planter with a bird's nest on it. I feel pretty good since I have not painted for several years. They are a nice group.

I finished one more border on Love Entwined-- I have to do another just like it still.

The Dream Lover by Elizabeth Berg: Imagining George Sand

George Sand narrates her life story in two time lines in The Dream Lover by Elizabeth Berg; one story line starts at the beginning of her life; the other starts when she leaves her husband for Paris where she reinvents herself.

The novel feels 19th c. in language--a time I feel quite at home in. George dominates the book, of course, as does her sensibility, and the reader will feel a knowledge of George. There are many pithy epigrams on life and love.

Berg allows other's viewpoints of George to play out in dialogue. When Franz and Arabella Liszt and George and her children are living together, Frantz warns George of her self-destructive proclivity to chose the wrong men, men who need her maternal care. George confuses being needed and being loved.

The real George Sand has been lost in the many tales and rumors that surround her. Did she have a sexual relationship with her friend the actress Maria Dorval? Berg offers us one liaison between them. Was she a good mother? Was her tough love regarding her daughter Solange justified? Were George's attitudes about sex and love philosophical, an emotional crutch, or a compulsion of need?

George Sand was born Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin in 1804. Her father married his mistress against his mother's will, but after her son's death she took her granddaughter under her care. She married badly, and left her family to live in Paris. She wore men's clothing to allow freedom to attend the theater for her reviews and smoked a cigar. To be judged equally to male writers she took the pen name of George Sand; George to sound more English and Sand for her lovers last name.
George was notorious for flaunting convention and living a Bohemian life. She wanted equality and freedom, the end of double standards. She had a romantic sensibility and wherever she found a kindred spirit she would fall in love. She was connected romantically with a series of (usually younger) writers, poets, and musicians including Frederick Chopin. At the same time George was very maternal and domestic, educating her children and making jam and needlework.

Balzac, Flaubert, and Victor Hugo were among her friends and literary admirers. Sand wrote several books a year, as well as plays, keeping to a strict writing regime. She was hugely successful in reputation and financially. Yet today we mostly think of her as a cross-dressing iconoclast who went through a lot of lovers.

The Dream Lover will appeal to readers interested in historical fiction, romance novels, and even to those of a literary bent--like myself--who want an introduction to a writer much neglected in our English speaking culture. I have obtained a Guttenberg copy of Indiana to learn more about George as a writer. I have not got far yet, but the novel starts with an charged scene between an emotionally frail wife and her tyrannical brute of a husband who goes out to shot a trespasser. There was a reason why George was an immediate success!

To put George into perspective, 1832 saw the publication of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Roger Malvern's Funeral, Washington Irving's Tales of the Alhambra,and Tennyson's Lady of Shalott. Honore Balzac published four novels to George Sands' (and Walter Scott's) two, but Edward Bulwar-Lytton, Benjamin Disraeli, Alexander Pushkin published only one novel. Not bad for a single mother of two!

In 1832 Charles Darwin was voyaging on the HMS Beagle; Henry Schoolcraft found the source of the Mississippi River; Andrew Jackson became President; Sir Walter Scott died; and Louisa May Alcott and Lewis Carroll were born.

George has been called the first professional female writer. Not everyone will feel comfortable with her, but one has to be impressed with her achievements.

I requested this book because I had read Elizabeth Berg's early novels and recalled liking them. I received the free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.


The Dream Lover
Elizabeth Berg
Random House
Publication Date: March 31, 2015
$28.00 hardbbound
ISBN:9780812993158

Advance praise for The Dream Lover
“Elizabeth Berg is both tender and unflinching as she explores the heart of the enigmatic writer George Sand. Her lyrical prose caused me to pause and savor the words. With an eloquence of the heart worthy of her subject, Elizabeth Berg gives us a very human portrait of a nineteenth-century legend who dared to live and speak freely.”—Nancy Horan