Cinderella's Blue Sky Sewing

If I were Cinderella....
I'd be sewing this

I'm still spending  my allotted sewing time on my French Pattern Drafting Class tasks, but I got a little distracted going to see the new Disney Cinderella (twice now, and I'm tempted to go again soon).

This Luggage Tag prints up great
on postcard stock
I'll use it for my next
dress pattern tracing

Of course my favorite scene is the one when Ella sits down to stitch, converting her mother's old dress into her own ball gown. It inspired me to do a little blue sky sewing/virtual stitch up of my own, creating my own vision of Ella and her dress. I'm sharing the results here. You can print the luggage tag version (it works great on postcard stock) to use for your own labeling purposes. I'm planning to use it to tag the next dress pattern I trace. 

Blue Sky day dream sewing is pretty satisfying. Don't you wonder if I'll ever actually make a dress along these lines? 

Oh yes, in addition to the sewing scene, I love the Cinderella music (which comes mostly during the credits). Lily James sings the classic, "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes..." with very resonating soprano sound. She has a gorgeous lyrical voice. And, Helena Bonham Careter is a scream in "Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo". Oh look, we can buy the Cinderella: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack !

  Not only did I love the costumes, the great British actors, and the highly fairy-taleish scene in this movie, I also thought the theme was fantastic - "Be kind and have courage". Doesn't that just say it all?

Good job to the Disney story tellers on reworking the Charles Perrault fairytale for this generation. Have you read his book The Glass Slipper? I bet your pubic library has it. Mine does. I always liked the way the animated movie focused on having faith and believing in your dreams - that Cinderella was very much of her times, a late 1950's girl. She believed in her fate coming along, sweeping her up, and carrying her along to a better life. Today's Cinders is more in charge of her own future- a good modern redo. She choses to stay in the house and deal with her stinky mother-in-law. And she's realistic about her other career options in her fairy tale world - non existent! Both ladies mirror fantasy romance novel heroines from the two different eras nicely. 

I can imagine people looking back on both young women in a distant future. I wonder how Ella will be reinvented then. Don't you?

Cliff House - Primed for Time Travel Perfection (San Francisco Field Trip)

The Neo-Classical, Greek Revival Art in
the Cliff House is a strong clue to any regular historic traveller, that
there's at least one time travel portal nearby!

I'm pretty sure there's a time portal in or around San Francisco's Cliff House. Perhaps my difficulty in finding the entrance to a trip back in time, is the number of eras this quintessential bay area locale evokes.

The Sutro Baths finally closed down in the 1960's.
The ghosts remain.

There are a limited number of public buildings in the area that survived the 1906 earthquake. This restaurant, with it's beach front location and view of the one time Sutro Baths public bathhouse, is one that did. And it's also one of my favorite places to return again and again. Locals, in and near San Francisco, have been traveling to the Cliff House for a special supper in a prime ocean location since 1863. The baths and associated marine recreation activities opened to the public in 1894. 

Upstairs at the Cliff is a little more casual, but the views are still there.

This week we went up for a birthday supper, we'd put off a month back. I'm glad we waited until it was just the right night. We chose to eat upstairs. It's less expensive than the reservation-only downstairs, though definitely not a budget meal! The scenery and setting made our tasty, simple prix fixe suppers stellar. We thoroughly enjoyed our supper at the Cliff House, followed by a walk along the promenade, with a view of the historic Sutro Baths, and ended with by walking back along Ocean Beach. 

I didn't manage to find my way back in time to take in the sights of 1920's swimmers cavorting in the classic Grecian entryway of Adolph Sutro's baths, or catch a glimpse of late nineteenth century railroad baron  university founder Leland Stanford or famed newspaper owner William Randolph Hearst chatting over a racing form and cocktails.

But, then again, maybe my own time's the best for travelin' to.

~ ~ ~

Web Resources

Download a free copy of the music for the golden age tune, "Moonlight at the Cliff" from http://www.sanfranciscomemories.com/cliff/souvenirs.html

History of the Cliff House http://www.cliffhouse.com/history/

The Sutro Baths http://www.nps.gov/goga/historyculture/sutro-baths.htm

But... What Would Beethoven Print? (3D Printing)

You just know the kind of organ
Beethoven would have chosen to print

There's been quite a lot in the media about wonderful advances in 3D printing in the medical field. No doubt about it, these are indeed noble uses for technology. Imagine being able to just pop that new appendix, still warm from the printer, into the fella on the table before you. Sure applications like print-on-demand bodily organs allows for great advances in medical science. But what really strikes my fancy, when it comes to 3D printing, is the creation of our own musical instruments. I'm not so much interested in the bodily organ as I am in the pipe organ.

The idea of a musician being able to design and create that pipe organ is what really intrigues me. Thinking about pipe organs  naturally leads to thoughts of  Beethoven. I'm guessing Beethoven would also have been more interested in printing a pipe organ than a fresh new lung or kidney.

Freude, schöner Götterfunken

Tochter aus Elysium!

(Joy, beautiful spark of the divinity,

Daughter from Elysium!)

These lyrics, from Beethoven's famed 9'th symphony, enhance one of the most beloved classical music pieces in the western world*.  Beloved by people, that is, who have access to classical music training. Outside of choral singing, for those who come equipped with the right sort of vocal chords, that training requires access to a musical instrument. 

Though this symphony has words, the emotions that stir in the hearts of the performers as they come together to make this music happen, can't be accurately described. In fact, it spoils the experience if you try.

Yes indeed, there are musical folks working on rolling their own instruments. Check out the beautiful creations on Six 3D-Printed Musical Instruments, and what 3D Printing Could Do for Musicians. Sure 3D print-your-own-instrument technology isn't yet exactly at the affordable-for-the-masses stage, but neither were cell phones just a few years back. Maybe it won't be too long before that day, a few autumns from now, when the kids line up to pick up this years social studies text, the math workbook, and their sixth grade instrument. There just waiting for Mrs. O'Houlihan to come back from the staff room with that replacement box of liquid brass for the classroom 3D printer.

Any parent who has ever ponied up for an organ, clarinet, french horn, string bass, or flute knows that a child's access to an instrument of her own can make all the difference, when it comes to  being exposed to the wordless and wonderful joys of making her own music. Will many kids give up before the age of 10? You bet. Is there any guarantee that an individual will make it to even third chair violin in a small local symphony? Nope. 

But I know that if, at the age of 8, more kids are given the opportunity to play a hundred renditions of Frère Jacque on that french horn they printed at home, then one day the freude! of Beethoven's 9'th symphony is going to be waiting out there for one more kid looking for a little wordless wonder. 

And one more kid is going to get a chance to be a part of a wordless spark of divinity, at one with the daughter from Elysium.

* Classic western music is extremely popular in Asia as well.

~ ~ ~

Web Resources

3D Printing Organs, Other Medical Applications http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/12/opinion/lungs-chip-3d-print-organs/

Wikipedia: 3D Printing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing

Six 3D - Printed Musical Instruments and what 3D Printing Could Do for Musicians  http://createdigitalmusic.com/2012/10/six-3d-printed-musical-instruments-and-what-3d-printing-could-do-for-musicians/

Beethoven's 9'th Symphony Rules Supreme, as far as I'm concerned. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._9_(Beethoven)

Neighborhood Life on the Fourth

It's still the glorious Fourth in my neighborhood.

We start out singing a patriotic song (only a couple of us knew the words to "God Bless America"), then we pledged to the flag, followed by a loop-around the block parade on bike, skateboard or foot. Then there's food (we all brought something), and games for the kids.

All the friendly dogs came.

Mine stayed home - she's not unfriendly, just poorly sighted so she doesn't know what's going on around her, and that scares her. I took her out on her familiar route when the party was over.

What's do you do on July 4'th where you live?

Sitting on the Dock of the Bay, Wasting Time Soulfully (Field Trip)

Click on the illustration above, for a mighty fine view

Spent a nice bit of time this afternoon on a bench behind the
San Francisco Ferry Building wasting a little time of my own

Sittin' in the mornin' sun,


I'll be sittin' when the evenin' come
s,

Watching the ships roll in,




And then I watch 'em roll away again,

Yeah

 I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
,

Watching the tide roll away
,

Ooo, I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay


Wastin' time

.

 Thanks Otis, you said it all for me.

Rehearsal at The Bing

A Musical Evening at Christmas Cottage

I was off rehearsing with  the rest of Stanford Symphonic Chorus this evening, for the new year opening weekend performance at Stanford's spectacular new Bing Concert Hall (they call it "The Bing"). So I had no idea what had been happening elsewhere. 

Turns out that 'whilst I was inhaling the fumes of fresh resins and the crystal tones of the instrumentalists, a fine time was also being had by all  back in Christmas Cottage.

Fa la la la.

(co-published with A California Christmas Cottage)

Vests: Another Piece of My Heart

At this point I had basted the reverse side
of a piece of brocade onto the corduroy vest front
I had just over 17" of cord for the front, leftover
from sewing pants, not enough for even one front length.

Take another little piece of 

my heart now, baby,  

Break another little bit of my heart now, darling.  

Have another little piece of my heart now, baby.

You know you got it, if it makes you feel good, Oh yes indeed.

* * *

Piece of My Heart  was first sung by Aretha Franklin's older sister, Emma 

Did you know that?

Like most people, I associate it with Janis Joplin

*    *    *

I'm just coming down off a piecing project, feeling a little bit like what Janis was singing about in this performance of  "Piece of My Heart".

Piecing always sounds so straightforward. I take two or more remnants of material, and combine them to make one. It always takes an awful lot more time to create, than I expect. My goal is to make it look arty, not like something I did because I ran short of fabric.

Well.... in truth I was short of fabric. I think I got the last three yards of this corduroy from my local Joannes. Apparently I wasn't the only sewer who found this print irresistible. Even the online Joannes  had only one yard of the fabric. OK, I admit that I put that last yard in my cart, just in case I wasn't happy with my vest. Or maybe I bought that final piece just because I love this material so much. Those long ago French textile merchants didn't name it cord  du roy - fabric of kings- for nothing!  

In fact, a shortage of goods inspires me to piece. It's a bit of time travel back to our past-times sewist ancestors. Scissors in hand, I'm spinning through the closest appropriate time portal to Depression times flour sack shirts,  late nights in the slave cabins stitching together scraps and ends from the big house, or needling together worn bits from different family members clothes - an art form that will one day be known as Sashiko,  after a hard day in the rice paddies.

Piecing lets me pay tribute to lessons learned from the folk who created more than utility garments, with very little on hand. It reminds me that clothing, even clothing with limited resources, can be  art. 

And maybe that's the most important time and place to be making art.

You know you got it, when it makes you feel good!

Here's what I had left from the corduroy
I made the decision not to cut any off below the pieced brocade band
because I thought the weight would be better if I kept as much as I had
At this point I had backed the front band with a long remnant of
silk organza (tough yet light), then stitched the corduroy to the organza-backed brocade

The back of the vest was what remained after a pair of linen pants
I made at the same time I sewed the cords.
I couldn't quite eek out enough for the linen back,
though I had more of it than I did the corduroy. But by this point
I wanted the brocade piece to wrap around from front to back anyway.

Coming Soon To This Blog!  A view of the whole vest (Yes, I finished it early this morning). I'm looking forward to doing a photo shoot of my entire Sewn With a Plan (SWAP) four garment mini-wardrobe, created for my Fashion 110 Introduction to Sewing Class at Cañada.

* I take sewing classes in the Cañada College Fashion Department, Redwood City, California

Spring in my Driveway: Days of Bees and Wisteria

Please click on the illustration above 

to fully enjoy the bee bounty

The bees that patrol the wisteria in my driveway, are actually bumble bees. But those girls zip back and forth too quickly for my camera to catch. I wonder what bumble bees do with the pollen if they don't make honey. And do they help pollinate they way their apian buddies do? I'm sure there's an answer out on the web if I wanted to google all day. 

That sounds like a song doesn't it? 

Google in the mornnin'

Google in the evenin'

Google at suppertime.

Cuz of my bumble bee darlings I'm googlin' all the time.

The bees I included here (much-altered from the original) originate from an obliging honeybee I found in the park near my house.

Hail to Jennie and Forgotten Fairytales

Cradle Songs and Distant Melodies, the Simple Romantic's April Episode of Unpolished Performances,  has been published in the iTunes store.  

Click on download the show from the iTunes store or just search on the phrase 'unpolished performances' if you already have iTunes up.

Click on the illustration above to be fully immersed

In a journey to fairytale land

I'm working on learning to play the first of the four pieces that make up Edward MacDowell's "Forgotten Fairytales". My current practice sessions involve the  two page piece called "Sung Outside the Prince's Door".

At this point, I'm working on developing some comfort with the first four measures. Sung Outside the Prince's Door is a lovely tune. I have no idea when I'll be able to play through even the first page, but it's a nice relaxing thing to do after a day of thinking about Objective-C's classes and objects.

I learned to play MacDowell's To a Wild Rose a couple of years ago. In fact it's the lead in piece I play for my iTunes store podcast, Unpolished Performances. I know I play it more slowly than it's usually performed. Still, I feel elegant and very turn-of-the-twentieth-century parcticing MacDowell on Jennie Strong's (my grandmother-in-law's) 1903 Chickering parlor grand piano. That lady died in the 1930's and her piano was a little lonely until we inherited it a couple of years ago. 

We have a lovely larger-than-lifesized photo of Jennie up in the dining room, on the other side of the wall from her piano. I hope that she enjoys listening to me working on MacDowell.  Very likely she played To a Wild Rose, as it was one of the most popular pieces in the country at the turn of that century. From all the heavily annotated music that turned up in her piano bench, it's clear she was a very regular piano practicer.

Thanks for a turn at your piano Jennie.

......

Cradle Songs and Distant Melodies, the Simple Romantic's April Episode of Unpolished Performances has been published in the iTunes store.  Click on download the show from the iTunes store or just search on the phrase 'unpolished performances' if you already have iTunes up.

Part 4: Cradle Songs and Distant Melodies,Whiskey in the Jar

Cradle Songs and Distant Melodies

Part 4: Whiskey in the Jar

Any customer of Period Pilots (serving the needs of the Time Travel Community since A.D. 476) knows that the best way to help answer the commonly-asked question, “Where do you come from?”,  is to step a little farther back in time.

As I’ve said previously, in this journal, my background isn’t only dependent on my bloodline. It’s a collage of experiences from all the people who have influenced me and mine. Some of those folk came from within the family circle and others, just as importantly if not more so, stood outside of it. Because of this, my cultural background includes Henry and Stan in the 1980’s. It includes a Midwestern librarian and farm folk in the 1930’s. And today, with a little help from an old song, I learned a little more about where I'm from.

* * *

I was singing a tune I’d thought was from times long gone, when I was reminded that some times have never truly vanished. There’s more than one way to be carried along back through time, and there’s nothing like a song sung in the right mood to take you there. This one carried me along to one more of the places it appears I’m from.

As I was going over the far flung Kerry mountains


I met with Captain Farrell

And his money he was countin’.

I first produced me pistol,

And I then produced my rapier.


Sayin’ stand and deliver…..

I was humming the old melody to “Whiskey in the Jar” as I trotted along a little hiking path through Edgewood Park. The original song, celebrating the prediciment of the ‘oft times admired highwayman, was widely sung in the Ireland of past times, and continues, I’ve been told, to be a pub favorite today.

If you give me the once over you’ll be pretty sure that many of my ancestors must have graced those emerald shores. The land of Éire didn’t provide enough in the way of sustenance however, so they lit out for Ameriky as soon as they could find the passage money. For all I know, they may have collected the guineas and shillings they needed for that, from the pockets of the passengers they stopped when they held up coaches on the toby roads of the Emerald Isle.

When the path headed downhill into a heavily forested hollow in the terrain, I began to sing that song, I’d learned a long time back. I learned it so long ago that, in fact, I don’t remember having been taught to sing it. Perhaps it was just born in me, that song.

Maybe it was the intense grassy greenness of the little dell I was passing through at the moment, or perhaps it was that the frolicsome water in the creek below, bubbled up and joined me in the refrain.

Musha ring dumma do damma da 


Whack for the daddy 'ol


Whack for the daddy 'ol


There's whiskey in the jar.

Time travel on a song turns out to be one of the more pleasant methods of transport I’ve found to date. It has a way of pulling you straight into the melody. Before I knew it, I was part of the story of that old ballad. But it was a song somewhat different from the one I’d sung so many times before.

One thing I knew for sure. I wasn’t in Edgewood Park anymore.

…..Next Time: The Highwayman’s daughter


Listen to this entire story in the April Edition of "Unpolished Performances", a free podcast in the iTunes Store. Download it by clicking on this link.

'Tis a Gift To Be Simple: A Valentine

The Simple Romantic, thinks that nothing could be more simple or romantic, than these butterflies working steadily away to earn their living the old fashioned way. Location: Conservatory of Flowers at Golden Gate Park, San Francisco California

Time Travel Trip Planning: Russia Bound (part 1)

Please, click on the picture to fully enjoy it's Russianesque roots

Judy Дорогая моя,

I found my old spiral notebook from Russian class when I was cleaning out my closet today. Gospadee Boza Moi! Isn’t that what we used to say? It’s been over thirty years and I’ve forgotten so much of what I learned. That notebook had a Peter Max design on the cover. I’d forgotten how much I loved him when we were in college. Remember the poster of his we put up when we were freshmen, and what that gross boy down on the second floor wrote on it? I’m so sure he’s either incarcerated or else working for the prison system now.

Of course these days, nobody even thinks twice when somebody says something like that.

I loved our Russian teacher, Anya. Do you remember how much fun she was? And her little girl, Annychka? Holy Moses, Annychka must be almost 40 now! She used to have so much fun drawing all over the back of my old greenbar printouts. Do you remember when I took her down to the computer lab and showed her how to use the keypunch machine? She loved those IBM punch cards! I bet she’s working at Facebook or Sun now.

Bernadette, she was so awful, always made fun of Anya’s clothes and hair style. I don’t think there was anybody else at the university who dyed their hair in those days, and Anya’s was that brilliant, shiny coppery-red that just glittered in the sun.

It’s so funny to think now, how we were all into those seventies ultra-natural styles, and there was Anya, freshly arrived from the Soviet Union and feeling fine with herself. All the women students were wearing earth shoes (remember those God-awful things?), earth colors, and those boring skirts that hung down almost to our ankles and were shaped like feed sacks. Next to us, Anya, in her sixties era neon polka-dotted mini dresses, with her hair shingled like Mary Quant, looked like a psychedelic flower.

Secretly,I loved her clothes because they were straight out of a Peter Max graphic. But I never had the nerve to stand up to Bernadette and tell her so. At the time, I thought that maybe Anya hadn’t had access to modern clothes in the Soviet Union during the actual sixties, and that she was determined to make up for it when she managed to get out and come to the U.S. Now I think she just liked her pretty, brightly colored clothes. Being a little older myself these days, I wear what I like now. And no, I don’t have any earth shoes or feed-sack skirts in my closet.

I wonder what Bernadette is doing now? She was always telling me to eat my alfalfa sprouts, because they were full of protein. I still hear her voice in my head when I tell the guy at the sandwich shop to leave the hay off my turkey and rye. What do bossy people like that end up doing? I suppose they develop nuclear power plant security systems, teach or get m.b.a.’s Remember that really, really rude phrase that the gross boy on the second floor made up to fit the m.b.a. acronym? OK, that really was funny.

The other person that my notebook reminded me of was Piotr. He wasn’t that good at learning the Cyrillic alphabet but he was a hot musician. He was such a nut with that balalika at the Russian store in San Francisco, when we went up there on that fieldtrip to the orthodox church, the one with the gold onion dome. I wish I had a recording of him playing it with me when I sang Katyusha for our Modern Languages-Department End of Term Talent Show. Расцветали яблони и груши!

I certainly hope Piotr didn’t end up developing nuclear power plant security systems. I bet he’s a crocodile wrangler or maybe a rodeo clown.

Anyway…. What I really wrote to tell you about was that my parents gave me a gift card for Period Pilots! I’ve been saving it for a really special trip. When I found that notebook I was thinking about dropping back in on Russian class, just to say privet to Anya. But then I remembered Bernadette. Still, that book’s got me in a Russian mood, so I’m thinking I’ll be heading off in the general direction of Krashnaya Ploshitts.

I’ll write again soon and let you know how that trip turns out. Желаю всего хорошего!

Larisa