FROM A CHILD’S POINT OF VIEW

Hello, Music Lover!

Fly Me to the Moon: this Frank Sinatra love song gets the child-like treatment. On first look, it doesn’t look age-appropriate, but alternatively nothing else makes much sense either. There are some very fanciful lines in this song: “play among the stars and see what spring is like on a Jupiter or Mars - in other words, hold my hand”! 

Design, assembly and hand stitching by Kathy Houston, who cleverly figured out how to use both of our anniversary colours. Painting, machine stitching and finishing was by yours truly. 

Animal Crackers in my Soup was written for 6-year old Shirley Temple and the film “Curly Top”. The child star has learned her alphabet so now she gets animal crackers in her soup. I was amazed to learn not only that the film was released in 1935, but that Stauffer’s original animal crackers are still available!

Thanks, Kathy, for a great square and a yummy choice of fabric for the table cloth!

I first heard Noce Villageoise, 1880, by Benjamin Godard, on the radio. It’s a short piece for violin and orchestra subtitled “Impressions of the Country” and it definitely has a rural French character to it.  On first hearing, I was immediately drawn to the playfulness of it, and it made me think of a circus, not a village wedding. The tempo changes in the solo violin melodies tease you into holding your breath while the next trick is being set up. So even when I found out the title of the piece, I had to keep the clowns. I learned afterwards that it was played on the Titanic on its fateful voyage, and I am glad I didn’t know that when I designed the piece.

For those fibre artists among our readers, there isn’t much stitching in this square, only a small amount of painting, and no assembly. It’s printed on a Jacquard cotton ink jet ready cotton, and you might think there isn’t much work in it. But not so. Thanks to Renate Georgeff of the Needle Gnome in Acton, Ontario (www.needlegnome.com) and a workshop she gave at the Canadian Embroiderers’ Guild in Guelph, I am now fairly competent at Photoshop! The two sides of the square come from two different French villages; the sky is Canadian; the clown on the left is from a circus photograph; the one on the right is taken from a vintage Barnum and Bailey poster; and the dogs come from two different agility trials. I still had to do some brush and ink work but overall I was pleased with the result. I’d like to have been a guest at the wedding!

Talk to you later,

Susan