Posts Tagged ‘book’
today’s bookpile book comes from the incredible collection of ms peta pledger. i couldn’t believe this book when i saw it its just so wholesome and sweet! its a lutheran-based ‘life education’ book. so if you’re still wondering where you came from or why you’re having these strange new feelings, read on! firstly, you should be a natty teen – i’m pretty sure if these preppy kids stripped down they’d be strategically covered by fig leaves.
wonderfully made, by ruth s hummel & w.j. fields
published by concordia publishing house, 1967
purchase a copy from amazon
recipe: take one man (preferably in a suit, shade of lime green not important) and one lady (must have petite waist and be partially transparent when standing by her man).
love brought you to life! also: ovaries. aren’t they neat and tidy looking? i hope mine have a groovy lettered sign like that.
this is where a baby lives. please note more fabulous typography. type like that makes the miracle of birth way better.
as a parent, i must point out that kids don’t produce giant purple, fun, lettering. its mostly shouting which is undetected by the eye, but doubly detected by your rapidly diminishing sense of hearing.
i’m captioning this illustration ‘valley of the doll: the joy of being a mother (or just the joy of those awesome sedatives everyone took in the 60s)’
i have a feeling this poor teen has been put in a coma by that wallpaper. so many roses! as you can see he tried to cover it a bit, but the pennants! they do nothing!
just one more bit of fabulous typography! can you imagine how this book would go down with the ‘youth’ today? i think their irony-meters would fall off!
how we go: lesley anne ivory
today’s vintage children’s book is another early reader. i love how charming the illustrations are. look closely and you’ll notice a subtle texture to the illustrations that reminds me a bit of a subtle version of eric carle’s pictures.
they’re very sweet aren’t they? i love the astronaut! and the picture of the children pretending to fly made me giggle, looks like they’re doing jazz-hands rather than actually trying to fly. and the cowboy appears to be getting about on tippy toes!
TGIF? or maybe its just TGIThursday where you are. either way kick back and take a peek at my week. it was a week spent moving piles of stuff from one room to another. you know when you decided to shift a few things around and then all of a sudden every surface in the house is covered in stuff? thats what my week has been like. and to be honest, its still not all put back. its like a big game of chess, with three rooms getting reorganized at once. i’ve enjoyed unearthing a few forgotten treasures, and in breaks from shifting and sifting i’ve done some baking, and some hardcore ‘sitting down’ too.
i’m really enjoying this month’s page of my charley harper calendar. the colors are so crisp and mid-century! that turquoise and olive green might just be my new favorite color combination and i’ll be sad to turn the page in a couple of weeks. maybe it can go in a frame on may 1st.
speaking of good design, my current read, ‘design as art’ by bruno munari
is really interesting and i highly recommend any designers reading pick up a copy. its thought provoking and inspiring without being overly dry and academic.
is really interesting and i highly recommend any designers reading pick up a copy. its thought provoking and inspiring without being overly dry and academic. 
in amongst the tidying i found these scented pens. i bought them from the sanrio store in melbourne mainly for their packaging, but as soon as i sniffed them i remembered being so excited about ‘smelly pens” in grade 1. smelly pens and stickers were like the currency of the classroom back then! oh and little bitty bins… anyone else remember the small plastic trash-bin-shaped containers? i remember being crushed with disappointment when my dad picked me up from school and told me he had a surprise for me. i was convinced i was getting a bitty bin and immediately worked myself into a frenzy of excitement, but it turned out he’d bought a new car. i was unimpressed! sure it was a surprise, but it was the bad kind (the kind thats not a bitty bin!) man, was i ever a spoiled brat!
another bit of cute i found were these hysterical meat-cut stickers. they’re by ‘mindwave’ a japanese kawaii brand. i don’t know if its a cultural thing, but are kids into meat cuts?! i must be getting old. anyway i thought they were so fabulously bizarre i had to have them, hidden away in a drawer, only to be discovered and amuse me aaaaall over again!
so as i mentioned the cleaning frenzy has been interspersed with some domestic activities such as baking. saturday was just me and the kid home so i thought we’d kill time and some over ripe bananas. this cake turned out sooo good. sometimes banana cake is heavy and stodgy but this one turned out really fluffy. i credit any success to the kitchenaid mixer!!
and while the oven was going we got to work preparing some roasted tomato soup. these babies got quartered, then bathed in olive oil and balsamic vinegar and studded with garlic cloves and left to slow roast. mmm! they made the house smell so good. i pureed them and mixed in some fried onion, herbs, bacon and stock and have enjoyed soup all week. i forget how rewarding a little bit of effort can be. remind me of that next time i’m skipping proper lunch in favor of a creme egg…
finally, check out this awesome cubist dog picture by my son. i love a dog with angles! its definitely a dog though i’m not sure what breed, i was informed by the artist himself (he’s 3 and a half) that it has an ear, an eye and a nose, so bidding starts at $500. can someone get me the phone number for MOMA?
i hope you have a great weekend wherever you are! anyone got any grand adventures planned? take care and i hope you’ll swing by on monday to check out next week’s vintage etsy finds!
this vintage children’s book comes from my lovely friend peta pledger who was kind enough to share her amazing stash of vintage treasures with me. over the next few months i’ll be showing you some of the gems from her collections, and of course continuing sharing my own favorites.
having a little kid of my own has honed my appreciation for counting and alphabet books. previously i thought they were a bit meh, but now i adore the simplicity of a good ABC or 123 book. i’m a connoisseur of pre-school readers!
what immediately attracted me to this very simple book is the great type and colors. its all so bold and bright, and the icing on the cake is the fact that every page is slightly off-register, meaning the pages moved about during printing so the cyan, magenta, yellow and black don’t line up and you get that trippy kind of 3D effect.
dig the groovy chairs and bells. yeah, so there is no story, and obviously i have a lot less to tell you about this book, so feel free to skim my inane chattering!
how many dollies can you see? and how many dollies come alive at night and eat your precious eye jellies? that’s right! five!
i want all of those mugs. all of them. come into my kitchen, mugs, and i will look after you.
these houses are so cute! if only my neighborhood was filled with houses this colorful. we rent, but i don’t think our owner would mind if we decided to paint the exterior vivid lilac, hot pink and lime green, do you think?
i just love these big chunky numbers! there was a house in our street that had a big number seven in this ‘playbill’ kind of style, and i kept forgetting to take a photo of it until last month… but they’ve replaced the fence and the number is gone!! so let that be a lesson to ye. fascinating story, non?
today’s book pile book is slightly out of style with my regular crazy psychedelic features, but i wanted to share this with you because its fascinating and beautiful in such a different way. this book belonged to my grandmother, who recently gave it to me to share with my son seeing as i enjoyed it so much, growing up.
the grateful crane
direction by kozo shimizu
text by ann herring
published by gakken, 1972
the story is the traditional japanese tale of the grateful crane, or the crane wife as its sometimes known. the illustrations are created with specifically constructed dolls in collage that give the story literal depth as well as creating an aesthetic link to the heritage of the tale. the textures of the rice paper, wood and woven fabric all evoke a very beautiful, very japanese story.
an old man finds a crane caught in a trap. he frees the crane and it flies off joyously beating its wings. later that night the old man and his wife take in a beautiful young lady who claims to have lost her way in the snow. the beautiful girl stays with them and becomes their adopted daughter, whom they call o-tsuru “miss crane” as she’s tall and graceful.
she offers to weave the old couple some fabric, however she insists she must be left alone in the weaving loft. for three days she works tirelessly, and the couple begin to worry for her health. at last she emerges with a bolt of finished brocade. couple are astonished at the fine quality of fabric she’s created. she tells the old couple to sell the cloth.
a merchant comes to see the cloth and tells the couple its the finest cloth he’s ever seen. he pays them in gold, and they are amazed at all the riches they’ve earned.
the village children love o-tsuru, and her kind and cheerful nature have warmed the once lonely house. again she asks to use the loom to weave another bolt of cloth. she reminds the couple not to look, but the old lady’s curiosity gets the better of her, she can’t understand how such beautiful fabric can come from the old loom. she looks in on o-tsuru and finds a crane plucking its feathers and weaving them into the cloth.
suddenly the crane disappears and o-tsuru tells the old couple that she is the crane the old man saved. she thanks them for their care and tells them she must go. she changes back into a crane and flies off into the mountains.
its exciting to think its nearly been a year since i learned to crochet. i never really considered it something i could do, i learned to knit in grade five and promptly forgot everything about it. my most experience with a ball of wool was making a pompom, and crochet just seemed so hard: there were foreign looking hooks and all those fancy lacy stitches that broke my brain. but after picking up pip lincolne’s meet me at mike’s book i felt like maybe i could try it. for once i didn’t have any fear about what the consequences might be, no one need know if i turned out to be the world’s worst ‘hooker’! you don’t have to be a perfect crocheter, in fact a bit of naivete is charming in a wonky handmade afghan granny rug! so i sequestered myself in the corner of the couch, and for one swearing-filled weekend i chained, and i unwound, and i chained again and unwound again. but by sunday night i’d made a little circle that looked like a blind-pull. shelley, the crochet genius at little sparrow helped me past the hurdle of working out how to properly hold my hook, and not even a week after i started learning i’d mastered a basic granny square.
the fruits of my labour: my bedroom throw-rug-in-progress
learning how to make a ‘granny square’ was like the rosetta stone of crochet for me. everything since then has been a variable on those basic stitches that make up the square. i can’t claim to be the world’s best crocheter, but i’m just happy to do it. i have a big problem with trying to attain perfection in just about everything i do and its very liberating to just sit down and muck about with wool. i’ve made a few hats, and a couple of soft toys but my major project is a sort of sampler throw rug for my bed. i’ve mastered a couple of patterns for squares and so now i’m trying out circles, and stars and triangles. i want my rug to look like the crochet equivalent of a patchwork crazy quilt. i love the idea of uneven edges, and each square being a different pattern and texture. what do you think?
keep trying, it will all fit together sooner or later
of course expert advice given in person is invaluable, but not all of us have the luxury of a crochet expert grandma, mother or even a patient craft store owner! so let me share some of the books i’ve used to help me through, and those that are inspiring me to gradually work more difficult patterns.
the book that started it all: meet me at mike’s by pip lincolne
meet me at mike’s: 26 crafty projects
pip lincolne
meet me at mike’s is really your value for money learner crochet book: if you suck at crochet there are a 25 other things to try your hand at! how’s that for self esteem boosting? and if the sewing doesn’t work out, make some pink lamingtons and buck yourself up with a sugar high. pip’s instructions are clear and easy to follow and those photographs of colorful afghans will whet your creative appetite and drive you to master a square so you can make a hundred more in varying colors!
got crochet questions? this book answers them and won’t tell anyone that you didn’t know
the crochet answer book
edie eckman
this would be your one stop shop for crochet trouble shooting and general education on wool etc. it promises “solutions to every problem you’ll ever face and answers to every question you’ll ever ask”. most crochet patterns i’ve seen generally explain what their abbreviations mean, but sometimes our feeble human brains fail and we forget what a half-double-crochet-ending-in-a-pike-followed-by-a-perfect-dismount actually entails. a discreet peek into this book will tell you. it will also explain why your circle is curling up into a yarmulke and how you can fix it, working with ‘challenging yarn’ (the crochet equivalent of having creative differences with your movie director) and many many more questions.
creative blocks banished with mix and matchability!
200 crochet blocks for blankets, throws & afghans
jan eaton
now you’ve mastered the basics and have a strong foundation in granny square 101, i bet you want to try something more don’t you? well as huey lewis told us, its hip to be square and i’ve never doubted the truth in mr lewis‘ theory. so try your hand at the squares in this book and i doubt you’ll end up with a ‘square’ or boring rug design. there’s texture, and interesting design a plenty and if you’re still stuck for ideas this book offers color and layout ideas too. no excuse for not making a rug after seeing this book!
it’s even hipper to move beyond the square. take that, squares!
beyond the square: crochet motifs
edie eckman
and here is the beauty i’m currently working through! if only there was a song about being hip to be things other than squares… but the shapes in this book are so good they don’t need a song. they have moved beyond the square and they speak for themselves. the color/shape coded layouts are very pretty and inspiring, and some of the patterns are mind blowing! if mandelbrot or snowflake patterns interest you, then have a look in this book and imagine the delicate scarves, or embellishments you could create. just thinking about them is making my crochetin‘ hands itch!
are you thinking of learning to crochet or just starting out? if you’re starting and finding it hard i really urge you to keep it up. who knows when that door will unlock and it will all make sense to you and then you can revel in that feeling of cruising through a granny square. to me, crocheting now feels like swimming. its graceful and meditative and of course that insufferable feeling of self satisfaction is pretty unbeatable!
alligator pie,
poems by dennis lee
pictures by frank newfeld
macmillan, 1974
isn’t it fantastic when you find a friend who just gets your taste? it makes this cold and lonely world just that little bit smaller when you find a kindred spirit like that, and i’m lucky to have a few friends who get me. thats how i came to own a copy of ‘alligator pie’. the most definitely awesome peta pledger came to visit bearing thrifted gifts of amazing vintage children’s books and i knew i just had to share them with you.
detail from the title page
i had never heard of ‘alligator pie’, but its apparently big in japan canada and for all i know it could be the national anthem (hello canadian readers, i like your turtle chocolates. feel free to send me many and in exchange i’ll learn your national anthem and more about your culture – but mostly about other chocolates i can get there).
illustration accompanying ‘bouncing song’
most of all i was taken by the fantastic illustrations by frank newfeld. as you’ll see from the pictures, his style is just so much fun and paired with the nonsense poems it all makes perfect (non)sense!
illustration accompanying ‘in kamloops’
a poem thats mostly just threats at cannibalism. but y’know, rhyming. hence all the body parts in that very attractive neoclassical cabinet.
illustration accompanying ‘billy batter’
pictured we see the authors father being taken away by a dragon. unfortunately in the second verse his mother is taken away by a monster as well, so really no happy endings here.
illustration accompanying ‘like a giant in a towel’
an ode to that delicious bed warmth…
and when the giants realizethat no one’s scared of their disguise,they go to bed and close their eyes-they’re glad their beds are warm;they’re glad their beds are warm.
illustration accompanying ‘i found a silver dollar’
isn’t the lettering for ‘zoo’ just fantastic? it may not surprise you that frank newfeld is the co founder and president of the society of graphic designers of canada. yesiree, it takes a society founder to wield a type that fancy!
i hope you’ve enjoyed the peek into this amusing book. if you’re interested in getting a copy for yourself click this link
. i would have adored this book as a kid. so much color and type, and the poems are so fun, but its pretty enjoyable as an adult too and that has to be the secret to an enduring kid’s book!
. i would have adored this book as a kid. so much color and type, and the poems are so fun, but its pretty enjoyable as an adult too and that has to be the secret to an enduring kid’s book!
