onsdag 31 mars 2010

Reading today

'The Eternal Problem of Youth and Pedantry',
Front Cover illustration for 'The Yellow Book', 1894-95
Aubrey Beardsley

tisdag 30 mars 2010

Happy Birthday Vincent!

Still Life with Copper Coffeepot and Two White Bowls
Vincent van Gogh
30 March 1853-29 July 1890

Reading today

The Reading Corner, 1999
Carolyn Hubbard-Ford

måndag 29 mars 2010

Reading today

An Artist's Son
Charles James Adams
1859-1931

söndag 28 mars 2010

Reading today

Portrait of a Family, 1800-01
Joseph Marcellin Combette
1770-1840

lördag 27 mars 2010

Reading today

Meditation, or Madame Monet on the Sofa, c.1871
Claude Monet

fredag 26 mars 2010

Reading today

The Reader, 1861
1836-1904

torsdag 25 mars 2010

Reading today

Lady Maxwell
Adolphe William Bouguereau
1825-1905

onsdag 24 mars 2010

Reading today

Summer Day
Charles Baugniet
1814-1886

tisdag 23 mars 2010

Reading today

The Reader
Juan Gris
1887-1927

måndag 22 mars 2010

Reading today

A Pensive Moment
Alfred Thompson Bricher
1837-1908

söndag 21 mars 2010

lördag 20 mars 2010

Saturday with Gutenberg

HAND-LOOM WEAVING
A Manual for School and Home
By
Mattie Phipps Todd
Of the Motley School, Minneapolis, Minn.
With an Introduction by
Alice W. Cooley
Formerly Supervisor of Primary Schools, Minneapolis, Minn.
With Fifty-seven Illustrations
1902

Weaving on a Hand Loom
Showing the necessary positions. The rug the little girl is weaving is made of heavy carpet wool. The body of the rug is golden brown, with stripes of deep blue and green, separated by narrow stripes of white


A woven mat of raffia, from a kindergarten pattern
in green and the natural color of the raffia .

And look, I used the same pattern (basket weave) for towels, many years ago!

Bed shoes of all sizes are easily woven, and make a useful holiday gift. They are made without soles and are intended to be drawn up around the ankle like a high moccasin. Use the soft double Germantown wool. White, fastened together with pink or blue, or white striped with a color, may be used, and are attractive. The socks in the illustration are of white wool with a pink seam up the instep and pink scallops around the top. One sock is shown on a last, and the other as it appears off the foot. The stripes in the knitting can be shown in the weaving by using a color. The full size of the loom makes a shoe of medium size. String a close warp with white wool. If the shoe is to be all white, weave with the same, leaving the color for the finishing. If it is to be striped, weave perhaps eight or ten times across with color and then with white; when the weaving is finished you will have a mat 9 × 12 inches. Double one of the short edges and sew over and over on the wrong side with white wool. This is the toe. The two long edges now lie together. They may be crocheted, or knitted, with colored wool by holding them close and fulling in, or by puckering a little. If this is done in color, it makes a pretty seam on the top of the foot and front of the ankle. The top may be finished by crocheting a beading and scallops of the colored wool. Run a ribbon or worsted cord through the beading. If desired, the long edges may be laced together with ribbon one-half inch wide. Baby shoes are made in the same way. To ascertain what length to adjust the loom, measure the sole, then up, back of the heel, to a point above the ankle. For the width, measure around the foot. Finish the cord with tassels or balls.

This was one of today's find at Gutenberg. It also have suggestions for songs and games.

The following weaving song in the Walker and Jenks book can be sung during the weaving. To be sure it is not really "over and under" when you think of them as children. Remember that they represent a mat, and they are for the time the strips and border.

(Sung to the tune of "Nellie Bly.") Anybody knows this tune?

Over one, under one,
Over one again.
Under one, over one,
Then we do the same.
Hi, weavers! Ho, weavers!
Come and weave with me!
You'll rarely find, go where you will,
A happier band than we!

Kate Douglas Wiggin (Mrs. Riggs) in her "Republic of Childhood" describes the game in this way:
Explanation of the game
"First choose a row of children for threads of the warp, standing at such a distance from each other that a child may pass easily between them. Second, choose a child, or children, for thread of woof. After passing through the warp, each child takes his place at the end and other children are chosen." In this way more children can take part than if a tape were used. Some teachers play it in a different way, using the desks with the seats turned up for the warp and the whole number of children for the woof, winding in and out all over the room. This is very delightful, indeed, if there is enough space for the children to pass easily without tripping on the iron supports of the desks. This is a good game for a rainy day, when there is no outdoor recess.

If you want to see how far spring has advanced around my house, head over to my Swedish blog.

Reading today

A Cosey Corner
Francis David Millet
1846-1912

fredag 19 mars 2010

Spring?

I think we finally can discern Spring.

My darling has started to so spend some time outside.
It is raining.

Our driveway will soon become too soft to drive on.


The river looks rotten.

Reading today

Convent Thoughts
Charles Allstone Collins
1828-1873

torsdag 18 mars 2010

Reading today

Portrait Of A Lady

onsdag 17 mars 2010

Reading today

Portrait of a Girl Reading, 1842
Thomas Sully, 1783-1872

tisdag 16 mars 2010

Reading today

Pasha with red book, 1909
Petrovic Konchalovsky
1876-1956

måndag 15 mars 2010

Reading today

Portrait of a Man Reading or
John Farr Reading Horace's Odes
Francois Vispre, 1730-1794

söndag 14 mars 2010

Reading today

Portrait of Thomas Cranmer
Gerlach Flicke, active 1545-1558

lördag 13 mars 2010

Reading today

Heraclitus
Donato Bramante
1444-1514

fredag 12 mars 2010

Reading today

The Bookstall On Church Street, Liverpool, 1863
John Watson Lee

torsdag 11 mars 2010

Reading today

A boy with a book, c. 1740
Jean-Babtiste Perroneau
French, 1715-1783

onsdag 10 mars 2010

Reading today

Virgin and Child with a book
Jan van Eyck
before c. 1395-1441

tisdag 9 mars 2010

Reading today

The Nun in the Cloister Garden, 1869
Gabriel Max, 1840-1915

måndag 8 mars 2010

Women can



The twentieth century is the age of Woman; some day, it may be that it will be looked back upon as the golden age, the dawn, some say, of feminine civili-sation. We cannot estimate as yet; and no man can tell what forces these new conditions may not release in the soul of woman. The modern change is that the will of woman is asserting itself. Women are looking for a satisfactory life, which is to be determined from within themselves, not from without by others. The result is a discontent that may well prove to be the seed or spring of further changes in a society which has yet to find its normal organi-sation. Yes, women are finding themselves, and men are discovering what women mean.
From "The Position of Woman in Primitive Society, A Study of the Matriarchy", 1914, by C. Gasquoine Hartley, Alias: Mrs. Walter M. Gallichan, 1867-1928. She wrote books with titles like "The Truth About Woman", 1914 and "Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards",1920


Last week Gutenberg posted four books with "women related" titles. I don't know if it was a coincident — but I thought today is a good day to present them.

This little book is an attempt to establish the position of the mother in the family. It sets out to investigate those early states of society, when, through the widespread prevalence of descent through the mother, the survival of the family clan and, in some cases, the property rights were dependent on women and not on men. I start from the belief that the mother was at one period the dominant partner in the sexual relationships. This does not, however, at all necessarily involve “rule by women.” We must be very clear here. What I claim is this. The system by which the family was built up and grouped around the mother conferred special rights on women. The form of marriage favourable to this influence was that by which the husband entered the wife’s family and clan, and lived there as a “consort-guest.” The wife and mother was director in the home, the owner of the meagre property, the distributor of food, and the controller of the children. Hence arises what is known as mother-right.
From "The Position of Woman in Primitive Society, A Study of the Matriarchy", 1914, by C. Gasquoine Hartley.

Fredrika Bremer .

"Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century", 1903 by W. H. Davenport Adams tells the story of 21 women who traveled the world. Some of them more interesting than others — and some of them well-known, as Ida Pfeiffer, Mrs. Trollope and Fredrika Bremer. Only five of the women in this book seem to have been unmarried and traveling alone. There are several ladies, madams and one princess, I haven't read the whole book yet but I think at least some of the women traveled with their husbands.

Ida Pfeiffer

Hester Stanhope

.
I'm sure "A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718" by Wallace Notestein from 1909 is worth reading — but it is still on my list for books to read.


"A Little Question in Ladies' Rights" from 1911 by Parker Fillmore is a book for children, and I'm not quite sure of its feminist qualities — I've just read parts of the book.

Only a few minutes ago I found another book that might be interesting to read: "Modern marriage and how to bear it" by Maud Churton Braby — the book was published in 1911, and seems to be interesting.

Reading today

Off to School
Thomas Musgrave Joy
British, 1812-1866

söndag 7 mars 2010

Reading today

A German Reading Room, Dresden, 1840
Heinrich Lukas Arnold, 1815-?


lördag 6 mars 2010

Reading today

The Reading Lesson
Evert Pieters, 1856-1932

fredag 5 mars 2010

Reading today

Lady in White Reading
Emilie Caroline Mundt
Danish, 1842-1922

torsdag 4 mars 2010

Reading today

Girl Reading
Eugen Spiro
1874-1972

onsdag 3 mars 2010

Reading today

Reading the Breviary, The Evening
Karl Spitzweg, 1808-1885

tisdag 2 mars 2010

Reading today

Woman Reading

måndag 1 mars 2010

Reading today

Tea in the Garden, 1917
Fernands Blondin