Showing posts sorted by date for query violets. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query violets. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Monday, May 1, 2017

To Violets

To Violets
by Robbert Herrick

Welcome, maids of honor,
You do bring
In the Spring,
And wait upon her.

She has virgins many.
Fresh and fair ;
Yet you are
More sweet than any.

Y' are the Maiden Posies,
And so graced.
To be placed,
'Fore damask roses.

Yet though thus respected.
By and by
Ye do lie,
Poor girls, neglected.

Friday, April 3, 2015

"The Rejected Christ" by Goetze

For further inquiries about the original work, go to the Stranraer Museum.
At the exhibition of the Royal Academy, in London, the great canvas by Sigismund Goetze, entitled “Despised and Rejected of Men,” (right) has created an artistic sensation. It is declared to be a “powerful and terribly realistic presentment of Christ.” in a modern setting, and is described by a writer in The Christian Commonwealth (London), as follows: 

In the center of the canvas is the Christ, standing on a pedestal, bound with ropes, while on either side passes the heedless crowd. A prominent figure is a richly vested priest, proudly conscious of the perfection of the ritual with which he is starving his higher life. Over the shoulder of the priest looks a stern-faced divine of a very different type. Bible in hand, he turns to look at the gospel has missed its spirit,and is as far astray as the priest whose ceremonial is to him anathema. The startled look on the face of the hospital nurse in the foreground is very realistic; so is the absorption of the man of science, so intent on the contents of his test-tube that he had not a glance for the Christ at his side. One of the most striking figures is that of the thoughtless beauty hurring from one scene of pleasure to another; and spurning the sweet-faced little ragged child who is offering a bunch of violets. In rejecting the plea of the child who knows that the proud woman is rejecting the Christ who has identified himself forever with the least of these little ones. The only person in the whole picture who has found time to pause is the mother seated on the steps of the pedestal with her baby in her arms, and we can not but feel that when she has ministered to the wants of her child she will spare a moment for the lover of little children who is so close to her. In the background stands an angel with bowed head, holding the cup which the world He loved to the death is still compelling the Christ to drink, while a cloud of angel faces look down upon the scene with wonder. As the visitor turns away he is haunted with the music of Stainer’s “Crucifixion,” “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?”

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Wednesday, February 26, 2014

"The Third Nest"

The Third Nest: A Easter Story
      It was a late Easter and an early spring. The combination had brought the festival of the resurrection into the heart of the bloom and blossom of the season, instead of the bluster and the blow. The shadows were already heavy beneath the trees, though the tints of the leaves were still delicate. Long blooms hung from the horse chestnuts.
Kirche St. Martin in Zillis,
Kanton Graubünden.
      Out at the water works grounds, beds of flaming tulips broke the level green' Persian lilacs flung out the sweetness of their pinkish sprays, and the snow ball bushes were masses of cream-white. From neighboring grounds came the heavy odor of myriads of apple and peach blossoms, the apple trees almost purple with the density of their branches and blooms, the peach trees slender spears of pink. And, as a background, the glitter of Lake St. Clair, through the branches, until far off it melted into the sky.
      A boy with a dark, foreign face, delicate and refined in spite of his evident neglect and the associations of the street which the violin under his arm suggested--picturesque in the contrast-sat on a seat near a tulip bed. He was looking dreamily at the flowers. He loved them, and it was their attraction that held him there when he ought to have been playing his violin and earning something.
      The flowers made him think of the old cemetery behind St. Martin's church in Zuchvill, in Switzerland. There were so many flowers there that the tourists came from afar to visit it. All the headstones in that cemetery were alike-that was the village law-except one, a plain granite shaft, beneath which was buried the heart of Kosciusko. How often his father had taken him there and told him the story of Kosciusko. He looked at the glimmering strip of lake which he could see and tried to imagine that it was the Aare river, the beautiful Aare which flows through the valley north of Zuchvill.
      But the illusion was not good. Down on the bank of the Aare the violets grew thickly, and he knew there were none on the lake shore, for he had just looked to see; beyond the gleaming river there was the Weissenstein jutting out from the Jura mountains, stretching along the north, blue almost as the sky itself. There was no stretch of pine forest to the left either, and behind him no village nor beechwood-the beechwood where he and Marie used to gather beechnuts. Around him it was beautiful, but it was not the Zuchvill meadow. Oh, that meadow--there was something about the day that him feel like crying, and he had a queer, dizzy sense in his head. It could not be that he was hungry. A boy who has a good breakfast ought to have enough until supper time. He put his hand in his pocket and took out some change, only $1.22. His lodging, together with breakfast and supper, was $1.50. and today was Saturday. It must be that it was only thirst, so he went and got another drink. Then he resolutely drew his bow across the strings. Perhaps the policeman would let him play here a little while. There were a few visitors, he might make a few cents without leaving the dear flowers. Under the spell of the violin the illusions he had sought became clearer, the surroundings became more and more like Zuchvill.
      He remembered one never-to-be-forgotten time, when his father took him out for a little walk, his father, who lived in his memory as a great, big man, with a very black beard, and a voice like no other, so kind and so caressing.
      As they walked along, his father told him stories of Poland, beautiful, suffering Poland, from which he was exiled. Some day it should be free-then he would take his little son up in his arms and kiss him, telling him to try to be a great and good man some day, so he could help to free it. And they two had walked along the Zuchvill meadow together--it was in the spring of the year, when the little flowers bloomed everywhere and he had let go his father's hand to gather flowers. When he came back his father was lying on the ground, he thought asleep, so he lay beside him and slept, too. But there was a difference in their sleep.
      He had not forgotten a detail, for over and over his baby lips had to tell to his mother the last words of his father, and she in turn had told him the reason of the tragedy.
      They were trying new guns at Solothurn, the city of which Zuchvill was really a suburb. His father, who had been away for a few weeks, had not heard of the proposed experiment, and did not notice the signs marking danger line. Daily his mother reproached herself for not warning him, and daily, also, she told her boy of his father until the memory of him became an ideal than which there could be none better.
      After his father's death his mother and he had gone to live at the inn, "Die Schnepfe." She was his teacher in all things and his companion. She loved the violin and she taught him to love it. The little Marie, the child of the innkeeper, was his playmate and fellow student. His mother left, just enough, by saving, to send him to school so that he might become a great man, as his father had wished.
      They lived there a long, long time, and it all was a long time ago. So it seemed to him, yet he was but twelve; and they might have lived on there forever, he and his good mamma, if it had not been for her brother. Here the boy gave his bow a vicious jerk. His mamma had been rich, but her brother had done something with her money, and even after that he would send her letters that made her cry. Here brother was in America, and one day she said they must go to him. When they came to New York her brother was in the hospital, his mother said, and cried. After a while he died. He knew now that it had been the prison hospital. When he wanted to go back his mother said she had no money. Then she had tried to get work to do, and they had lived in a little room in a big building, on a dirty street, nothing like the beautiful Zuchvill, yet it was good enough, so long as his mother lived.
       But she became ill and he sold papers and between times played his violin on the streets. His mother had said that it was begging, but when your mother is ill, what will you do? So he went on playing and did not tell her.
      When she was dying she had told him to remember his father's example and to be true to his faith and his country. She told him it would be better to leave the great wicked city, now that he was alone, and go to Detroit. She had heard that there were many Poles there. Besides, she wanted her boy to grown up where he could sometimes see trees and grass and sky.
      So he played his way to Detroit. It was only six weeks since his mother's death, but it seemed very long since then.
      He played on, Polish airs and Swiss melodies. He knew little American music. The Americans have no songs, he thought they do not need them. Only those who have no country and no father and no mother, who are hungry and homeless, can sing; or, if they have beautiful hills and mountains, as in Switzerland, to echo back the yodels, they might sing for joy.
      Out of the corner of his eyes he saw a little shadow edging steadily nearer. The shadow had curls, a broad hat and skirts, and then another smaller shadow in knickerbockers crept near it. The boy turned his head a little. It might have been Marie of 'Die Schnepfe," at whom he was looking, for just so he remembered her as she was when he and his mother came to America. He had been playing life into his memories, and the fancy seized him to make believe that this little girl was his old playmate. He smiled a little to reassure her for his sudden turn, and she, on her part, came a little nearer and leaned comfortably against a tree opposite him.
      Then he began playing a little song which he and Marie used to sing. It was in the Swiss dialect and composed by a friend of his mother's. It belonged to Zuchvill, and to no other place as much as did the meadow and the beechwood and the view of the Weissenstein.
      The girl's little brother toddled in between them, his brow in a puzzled pucker as he looked at the violin from different points. But Brunislav looked at her eyes across the little fellow's head and played and sang with all his soul. At the end of the stanza he broke out into a joyous yodel, and the girl yodelt too, high and clear. He was making believe that she was Marie and he feared to break the spell if he asked her questions, so he sang the next stanza--this time she sang it all with him.
      There was a bond between them now, and he laid down his violin and asked in the Swiss dialect:
      "Where did you learn that?"
      "From father," she answered.
      "Does he come from Zuchvill?"
      The little girl nodded.
      "Were you ever there?"
      She shook her head. Her mother's injunction against speaking to strangers was severe, and she was shy. It puzzled her to decide whether this boy who sang her father's song was a stranger or not. She hesitated, with the usually fatal results. The lonely and homesick Brunislav kept on talking and she answered less timidly each time.
      "Did your father ever tell you about Kosciusco's heart?"
      She shook her head.
      Brunislav looked incredulous. She seemed far less like Marie than a few minutes ago.
      "Did he ever tell you about the Weissenstein?"
      She nodded. That was better, he thought.
      "Did he ever tell you about the convent down by Solothurn, where the children used to find the Easter eggs in the nests on Easter Sunday morning, and where they used to give us Easter cakes baked like little lambs?"
      She shook her head. "But," she said, "Franzi," pointing to her brother, "and I build nests and mother bakes the Easter lamb cakes for us. Does your mother bake any for you?"
      "I have no mother?"
      "Oh," said the girl, and thought awile.
      Bruinslav started the conversation again by asking, "And do you go out early Easter morning to whistle for the hare that lays the Easter eggs?"
      "No, we wake up too late; father whistles instead."
      Brunislav smiled a superior smile. He was twelve and she was eight, and he had a better idea who put the Easter eggs into the nests than she had.
      She went on: "Franzi and I came over here to see if we could find some nice, green moss for our nests."
      "I'll help you," said Brunislav.
      "Do you build nests, too?"
      "No."
      "Why not?"
      Brunislav tried to think of an answer that would not reveal his lack of faith in the mythical hare.
      "I have no place," he said, at last.
      " I will let you make a nest in our yard," said the girl. "Maybe the hare will find it there, if you put your name in it."
      He did not know what to say, so he was silent.
      "Don't you want to?" she asked, aggrieved.
      "I will if you want me to," he answered, gallantly. By the time they had found the mosses and returned to their home Franzi was hungry, so the girl took him into the house for a lunch. A few minutes later she came back with him, a cookie in each of his hands. Brunislav was still telling himself that he was thirsty, but it was very hard to do so and watch Franzi eating. Women are quick, even in miniature. The little girl ran back into the house and returned with several cookies and divided with him.
      The extra number of cookies consumed made her scrupulous again as to what her mother would say if she knew, and she wanted to hurry her guest.
      "I'll build your nest," she said. From the depths of her pocket she produced a stubby pencil and a bit of druggist's blue wrapping paper. "Write your name on this, she said, as if conferring a special honor in the color, "and I'll put it in the nest for you. When you come tomorrow morning sing "Am Morga Frueh.' Father likes that," she added, with feminine finesse.
      "Is you name Marie?" he asked.
      "Yes," she said.
      Some latent instinct of chivalry made the boy take her little hand and kiss it. Then he went away.
*   *   *   *   *   *   *
      On Easter morning John Kulle, Marie's father, with a basket of bright-colored eggs on his arm, was looking for the nests constructed by Marie and Franzi.
      He found each with a label in Marie's very primitive handwriting. But close by there was a third. Strange, of what were the children thinking? He picked up the bit of blue paper, and the name on it gave him a creepy sensation.
      Brunislav Bernaski!"
      He had a European respect for the nobility, and Brunislav Bernascki, though that of a landless and exiled man, was a great name in Zuchvill fifteen years before. Moreover, he had heard of the accident and death.
      He went into the front yard and nervously investigated the lilac bushes, until such time when Marie should get up and he could watch developments.
      Presently there rang out, high and jubilant, "Am Morga Frueh," with its joyous yodel. Surely this was supernatural.
      Later, when Marie got up, she found her friend of yesterday talking earnestly to her father. He staid to breakfast and came back after mass, and staid to dinner and to supper, and the next day he went to work for her father, who owned a flourishing bakery, and stayed at their house for good, to Marie's delight.
      The teachings of his father and mother had been too stern to turn him only to music, and Brunislav is studying law. If he cannot free Poland, he can be the friend of his people in this country. Will he marry Marie? Probably. for The Saint Paul Daily Globe by Eugene Uhlrich, 1896

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Graphics of Easter Chicks With Hats

3 chicks, violets and a green hat graphic
Description of Illustration: old straw hats, violets, lavender scarfs, small yellow chicks, forget-me-nots and roses, green ribbons, rose colored scarf

two chicks, pink roses, blue ribbon and a hat graphic

three chicks, forget-me-nots, green ribbon, straw hat graphic

three chicks, pink roses, pink ribbon, white lawn hat graphic
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Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Egg Hunt at The Church Graphics


Description of Illustration: three versions, vintage Victorian scraps, text "Egg Hunt at The Church" and "Egg Hunt at The Church" including a bird, "New Life In Christ", all have violets and purple ribbon



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Tuesday, November 19, 2013

A basket of violets


Description of Illustration: Victorian die cut, scrap, basket, handle, violets

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Thursday, March 21, 2013

Velveteen Violets on A Vintage Easter Egg


      This little violet dyed, Easter egg is perhaps the oldest egg I hang on my Easter tree. It was made sometime in the 1940s or 30s. My mother-in-law hung it on her childhood Easter tree. I think the lavender food dye has lasted far longer than anyone could ever had anticipated. The violets are made from molded velveteen.

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Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Needlepoint a Basket of Violets

      "This little bag for holding money or jewels is most useful to any woman blessed with such desirable possessions, and one as pretty as this would appeal to any woman of fastidious tastes as the daintiest and most useful of all simple presents to be made by the clever fingers of an artistic friend." 
      This antique needlepoint pattern appeared in the Washington Times, Sunday, April 17, 1904.

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Sunday, March 10, 2013

The Children's Easter Party

How To Arrange A Children's Easter Monday Party by Louise E. Dew, 1904

      From the beginning to the end, the children's Easter party must be as unique and attractive as time and ingenuity can make it. All the details are to be planned with care, not excluding the sending out of the invitations. Invitations are to be written with violet ink on pure white note paper, at the top of which is a hand-painted little yellow chic holding a single violet in its beak. The point on the envelope flap should also have a chick painted on it, with a violet in its beak and one below the flap.
Don't forget to teach the children how to paint Easter eggs!
      As the little guests arrive the young hostess should present them with boutonnieres of pansies with which the basket which she carries on her arm is filled. Violet colored ones should be given to the little girls and yellow ones to the little boys.
      The dining room decorations should be entirely in yellow and violet pansies and smilax. A window box should be filled with these dainty blossoms, and they are to be massed in crystal bowls on the sideboard.
      Whenever an egg is used for a week before Easter, and end should be chipped off and the contents removed. The shell should then be rinsed with water, and when the shells have generously accumulated they should be dyed violet and yellow along with the regular Easter eggs. A pretty arrangement for the shells is to fasten a knotted end of violet and yellow ribbon to each one with a drop of glue, covering the broken end with a circle of gold paper. These ribbons should be of unequal lengths and suspended in a mass close to the chandelier for a decorative effect.
      Underneath the egg shells a large white crepe paper egg should be suspended by violet and yellow ribbons. The heads of tiny yellow chickens, should be peeping out of the egg, as if they were just breaking the shell. Attached to the necks of the chicks should be violet and yellow ribbon leaders, arranged alternately, and passed to the place cards of each small guest. The cards will consist of diminutive oblongs on which tiny yellow chicks and violets are painted, with a quotation about flowers and Easter. 
      The paper egg center piece will contain dainty souvenirs of the occasion, which may be pulled out during the interim between the luncheon and dessert or after all the food has been served.
      In the center of the table make a nest of smilax and fill it with pansies and saucy little egg-shell faces, painted or sketched in India ink. Their faces may represent demure little maidens, popular cartoons or little creatures from the woodlands. These odd little egg people, peering from the smilax nest, will furnish the children with a great deal of amusement while they are eating, and will afterward make appropriate souvenirs.
      The menu card at each place will be in the shape of a snow-white swan, cut of deckled paper. The head and wings are cut in one piece, and the tail in another. After printing the menu in violet ink on the tail, the bits of yellow and violet baby ribbon attached to it should be passed around the neck of the swan, which will hold the head in position with that proud curve for which the swan is noted.
      These menu cards may be purchased if one is not handy with scissors and pen. The list should read:
Menu
Chicken Sandwiches
Apple Salad
Cream Cheese Eggs
Olives
Egg Punch
Easter Eggs
Angel Sugar Nests
Ice Cream
Assorted Nuts
Candy
Fruit Phosphate
Cake
      Cut the sandwiches in egg-shapes before serving them. Individual salad made of apples should be served with them in white paper cases tinted yellow and violet and imbedded in leaves of parsley.  Roll the olives in powdered sugar, to resemble eggs. Cream cheese, eggs can be made out of cottage cheese, mixed with cream and rolled into the shape of eggs additionally. Each one should have a large walnut meat pressed firmly into the side of the "egg." Serve on crisp curled lettuce made into a nest. The punch will be simple egg-nogg, of which most children are fond, with nutmeg, vanilla and fruit syrup flavoring. 
      Easter eggs make an appropriate dessert, wholesome enough to satisfy the heart of a hygienist, and yet delightful to all children. They are made of velvety blanc mange or sparkling translucent jelly. Serve these either piled in a nest of stifly whipped cream or accompanied by a boat of sauce. The prettiest way is to serve an old-fashioned bird's nest in jelly.
      To make, empty the contents of egg shell through a fair sized hole in the large end. Rinse the shells and set upright in a pan of flour or cracked ice, if gelatine is used. Fill with the jelly or blanc mange, and when cold and firm peel the egg shell from around it. A pint of jelly will usually fill six, if colored eggs are preferred, use the color paste which is sold by grocers, and which is perfectly harmless. Harlequin eggs may be made by using remnants of different colors, letting each one harden, then adding another color, until the shell is filled. Bewitching rainbow effects will be the result.
      To make the nest, use a mould of jelly partly full. When hardened, pile gelatine eggs on top. Arrange over and about them a suitable quantity of "straw" yellow sponge sugar, which any confectioner can supply, or orange peel cut in tiny shreds. Angel sugar nests may be made out of angel food, cut round, and with a depression in the center. This cake should be piled high with candy eggs in all colors. The ice cream may be served an egg mould. A simple and harless phosphate may be home-made, and should in the shape of eggs, with the aid of consist of the juices of oranges, lemons and pineapple, with sugar water and cracked ice added.
      Make the cake in the shape of a big egg and frost it yellow. Surmount the cake with tiny yellow and violet candles to light as the cake is being presented and after the first course of sandwiches, salad and relishes clear the table for the chick centerpiece. This impressive "chicken pie," made of yellow and violet crepe paper and covered with artificial chicks is set in the center of a hay or straw arrangement quickly assembled in the center of the table. Violet and yellow ribbon leaders should be placed within reach of each guest around the table. These leaders are tied to the souvenir egg cups, sprayed with hand-painted pansies. Each child's place setting should consist of a gilded egg with corresponding initials of the guest along with a diminutive nest of green moss on top of a plate, piled high with candy eggs off to one side of the dessert plates. Serve the cake and ice cream and wait for the children to finish before encouraging them to pull their ribbon leaders at your signal, whereupon they will be rewarded with amusing little snapping bon-bons.
      After luncheon, organize an egg contest as a surprise event. Present a large hen's egg and ask the children to guess how large the circumference of the egg is. Give everyone time to answer and then reward the closest guess with a prize in the shape of a papier mache chick or something similar.
      A ping pong or small billard table will make an excellent "lawn" on which to roll the colored Easter eggs, which will be provided by the "host child." A game may be made of the egg-rolling and prizes offered. (edited version)

A contemporary presentation of a children's Easter party table.

Additional suggestions for Children's Easter parties:

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Swan Centerpieces or China Doves for The Easter Table

Easter Table Decorations, 1901 from the New York Daily Tribune.

      For table decorations at an Easter luncheon the favored combination is green and white, and originality of design and arrangement is not inexhaustible by any means.
      The china doves, which are pictured, are one of the novelties of this season, and the many ways of utilizing them in table decoration are particularly effective. One modes is to arrange green satin ribbon across the table, from corner to corner, in the centre of which is a large nest filled with ferns and Easter eggs. The doves, holding lilies of the valley and greenery, are grouped about as one's fancy may dictate, and to add to the effect flights of doves, also filled with the flowers, may be attached to the chandelier or ceiling, each flight being connected by narrow green and white ribbons tied around their necks.
Original photo of china doves filled with ferns
and lilies of the valley that accompanied this article.
      If a brighter effect is desired the gay toned spring flowers should be used-jonquils, tulips, daffodils, crocuses, primroses, hyancinths or cyclamens--arranged in simple but artistic fashion.
      An ingenious hostess of this city is planning to give an Easter Monday luncheon to six of her women friends. An ornamental box will be presented to each guest when she enters the dining room. Every box will contain a leghorn hat, which the recipient is requested to wear throughout the luncheon. The hats are to be trimmed with natural flowers (no two alike), with ribbon garnitures in corresponding colors. One hat will show bunches of violets, with green foliage and violet ribbon: another will have trimmings of lilies of the valley, mignoette and green ribbon: a third, La France roses and pink ribbon: and the remaining hats will have garnitures fo daffodils and yellow ribbon for one, moss rosebuds for the second, and red carnations intermingled with black velvet for the third.

This elegantly carved wooden swan is by Jack Hughs, JRH, 1985.
A view from the top of the swan; its simplicity is lovely.
This swan may appear as an interesting center piece for
my Easter dinner table this year.
My mother-in-law acquired it on one of her many
antique hunting trips. Although it is not an antique,
it will certainly be worthy of becoming one
someday. I love antiques, but, I appreciate beautiful
artworks even more.
She looks as though she wishes to tell us a secret, doesn't she?

How to make a 3-D origami swan center piece for your Easter table: start this project early, folks.

View more bird center pieces for the table:

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Bunny Delivers Easter Basket


Description of Illustration: a bunny carries an Easter basket between his teeth, violets, graphic comes in multiple colors: blue, apricot, grey, green, pink, purple, brown and yellow








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Chick Balancing Act

This little Easter chic balances himself on top of an egg with the use of his beak and a ribbon.
Description of Illustration: ribbon harness, tiny chick, vintage scrap, pussy willow, big egg, violets

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Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Easter Bonnet Types

Children's Easter Bonnet Fashions
 from Paris in 1913.
       An Easter Bonnet represents the tail-end of a tradition of wearing new clothes at Easter, in harmony with the renewal of the year and the promise of spiritual renewal and redemption. Today the Easter bonnet is a type of hat that women and girls wear to Easter services, and in the Easter parade following it. Ladies purchased new and elaborate designs for particular church services, and in the case of Easter, taking the opportunity of the end of Lent to buy luxury items. Now, in a more casual society, Easter Bonnets are becoming harder to find, as fewer and fewer women bother with the tradition.
       Modern Easter bonnets for children are usually white wide-brimmed hats with a pastel colored satin ribbon around it and tied in a bow. It may also have flowers or other springtime motifs on top, and may match a special dress picked out for the occasion.
      Children in the United States often craft Easter bonnets for plays, parades and parties during spring festivities. 

The following articles are from the Washington Herald's Woman's Section, April 16, 1911.

Smart Hats For Easter 
by Marjorie
      Will the Easter hat be a small, chic affair or a large shape with sinuously curled brim? I queried a buyer for a large department store the other day.
      "Only a courageous prophet would hazard a guess," he cautiously replied. "We must wait until the fateful day and see what the majority of womankind are wearing to know definitely which way the millinery weathervane is pointing. And even then, directly as one shape has obtained too well, the more exclusive of our patrons drop it and designers turn their attention to creating something distinctive." 
      All of which makes the choice of an Easter hat as much of a riddle as the charming wearer herself. On can only give broad suggestions as to shape, colors and garnitures, for every woman must be her own best judge and choose a hat because it suits her face and style individually.
      "The Time, the Place and the Woman" should be her slogan.

Hat Shapes Are Legion.

Hats of all shapes and sizes from 1911.
      Hat shapes show the greatest diversity in outline.
      Brims roll, turn, twist and flare at all sorts of angles, meeting the requirements of so many faces. Crowns are both tall and broad. As a rule, the smaller the hat the larger the crown. Although the large shapes for dress wear have crowns which harmonize with the general contour, very tall crowns resembling inverted flower pots are shown on hats with scarcely any brim, except to one side the roll may be small or high.
      The new envelope hat is very largely represented. 
      The sides turn back abruptly extending several inches higher then the crown. As a rule the hat rests across the face, having the flare front and back. It is also poised so as to have the point come coquettishly to one side. Another edition of the envelope hat has the tall flare only on the left side. This shape is very becoming to women who can carry chic style becomingly.

La Petite Chapeau.
      The helmet hat is another style that is distinctively in the foreground of smart shapes, but it is admittedly very trying. There is a strong tendency to prevent this odd little shape from becoming "common," for the prices have remained high. The same quality straws used for cheaper hats are used for the helmet, but one pays for the shape, not the straw.
      For example, in a rough straw quite the same grade as employed for a $1.25 was $4.50. The trimming is so placed to reveal the shape, again to conceal it.
These San Francisco "ladies" (cough) were
photographed in their Easter hats, 1899.
      The poke bonnet, dainty and demure-looking appears in its old-fashioned garb, with quaint ribbon streamers, a bit of lace, a few exquisite posies, framing young faces most becomingly. However, this is but one edition and there are numerous ways of treating this picturesque headpiece.
      High bandeaus of natural ostrich feathers are laid around with a single lovely plume rising to considerable height in front, at the side or in back. A charming poke in Neapolitan straw was trimmed in this manner with ceil blue ostrich. At the base of the tall feather, standing erect like a sentinel, was a tightly folded rose in two shades of dull pink crepe de chine.
      Then there are lovely close-fitting little tonques, turbans and pinched-up shapes of pliable straw, very Frenchy and chic-looking, with big, dashing bows of corded silk ribbon placed on the side or near the back, rising to a conspicuous height. A lovely one was shown in a rough coral straw with self-matching bengaline ribbon.
      I note with pleasure that many of the unusual natives of Nature's garden appear on a number of the best hats. Very smart are the many dainty, fairy-like posies, including Japanese primrose, lilies-of-the-valley, Ageratum, violets, white, yellow, English daises, mignonette, forget-me-nots, primroses and honeysuckle. These complete the smaller and more dainty varieties, blended with feathery ferns and mosses.
      Flowers are massed flat, again carelessly grouped, unconventionally falling in uneven lengths over the crown. Another becoming arrangement is to cluster flowers with tall steps to one side. Lilacs, carnations, roses, tiger lilies, orchids, popies, daisies, buttercups, dwarf sunflower, columbines and pansies are very effective for this purpose. The more usual in outline and coloring the more lavish the praise. Many of the small shapes are massed tightly with flowers and foliage. Crowns are mostly treated in this manner on the large hats, and the leaves laid down flat against the brim, slightly overlapping each other.
Poor Old World. "How she does long for
the new Easter bonnet." Minneapolis
 Journal, 1905
      Flower fantasies were never more fascinating, and there is so much originality in their arrangement and in the very unusual coloring. Two-toned chiffons and satins are employed for the flowers and foliage. The lining of the leaves is often of a contrasting shade. The rich, but soft, old colorings in tapestries are beautifully reproduced in flowers, especially in roses, blue merging into dull pink, tan, green and lavender, and are especially rich.
      Clusters of little roses and berries in bright hues are novel and very dainty features. Fine grasses dyed in fashionable hues appear with flowers in harmonious contrast.
      The three shapes on this page have been copied from the latest models made up for smart spring wear. (upper, left)
      The center model is a dress hat of black erin in a picture shape with helmet crown massed in white and black malines. The crin brim is faced with black satin. Three chiffon and satin roses are effectively arranged in the malines. The satin serves as a lining for the chiffon.
      Model to the left, an envelope in blue milan, massed with aigrettes.
      Model to the right, a French shape in satin finished coral straw with new wide flare. Panache of aigrettes, self-toned, rising from the center under and cabochon of corals and cut steel beads.

Monday, January 28, 2013

How The Rabbit Brought The Easter Eggs

(Translated from the German)

      Once upon a time, many years ago, Spring had come back to the earth, and after a long, hard fight with sturdy, old Winter, had succeeded in driving him up into the mountains with his ice and snow.
      Then Spring walked through the bare woods, and under his feet little blades of green grass spring up, violets and anemones opened their dainty flowers, and out of the ground crept thousands of insects, rubbing their eyes after their long winter's sleep.
      Spring touched the trees, and at once the buds burst open and tender little leaves and blossoms peeped out of their warm winter covering. Soon large flocks of birds returned from the south, joyously greeted their old friends who had stayed at home and braved the cold winter. 
      Spring smiled as he looked around in his happy little world. Then he said to himself:
      "Everything is ready for the great reception, but where are the people? They do not seem to know that I have chased the cold Winter away. Probably they are still sitting around their stoves waiting for him to go. I must send word and invite them to come out."
      He called a little bird who was hopping near him with a bit of wood in his beak and said to him:
      "Birdie, I want you to be my messenger. Fly to the city and tell the people that we are waiting for them to go out into the wood and have a happy day with us."
      But the little bird said:
      "Dear Spring, I thank you very much for the honor, and should be only too happy to carry your message, but my little wife and I have just commenced to build my nest, and if I leave it now the wind will blow it all to pieces, for my wife is not strong enough to go building it alone."
      "Well, go and finish your nest," said Spring, kindly, and called another bird who had, he knew, finished his nest, and told him of the message he wanted him to carry.
      "Will you not excuse me, kind Spring?" asked the little bird. "We have seven beautiful eggs in our nest, and my wife is hatching them. If I go away she would starve to death, for she wouldn't leave eggs a minute to get something to eat."
      Spring spoke to two or three other birds, but he found it was the same with all of them. They were all busy with their own affairs, and he was too kind to send them away when they were so much needed in their homes. He looked around for another messenger when a rabbit ran across his path. 
      "Stop, little fellow," he cried. "Come here; I want you." He explained to him on what errand he wanted him to go. If you have ever seen a rabbit in the open field you know that he is the most timid fellow that ever was. At the least noise he starts off on a run and never stops until he reaches his home.
      He trembled all over when Spring spoke to him, and his voice shook as he said:
      "Oh, please, dear Spring, do not send me to the city. You know how many of my friends people kill every year with their terrible guns. I know some one will shoot me before I have even had time to deliver your message, and then what good will it do you?"
      "What a little coward you are!" laughed Spring. "But you need not talk to the big people at all; you can tell the dear little children. You are not afraid of them, are you?"
      "Oh, yes," sobbed the poor little rabbit. "They will throw stones at me and hurt me. I'm so afraid, please don't make me go!"
      "No, no, dear little Bunny; I cannot excuse you. But I won't let anybody hurt you. I have and idea! Come along with me and I will tell you."
      And they walked down to the brook, the rabbit trotting by his side, still trembling. He cut tender little twigs from the willow trees, wove a pretty little basket, and lined it with soft moss. Then he went back into the woods and looked into the all the bird's nests, and when he found one full of eggs he took one little egg out and laid it carefully in the basket.
      There were white eggs, there were brown ones, and there were eggs of sky blue. The robin gave one of her five blue eggs; the sparrow one of her brown speckled eggs; the woodpecker one of her white eggs, and the catbird a greenish blue one. Then Spring cut some pussy willow branches, placed them on top of the eggs, and tied the basket on the back of the rabbit, who had been looking on wonderingly.
      "Now, my little Bunny, we are ready to send our message. When night comes you run down to the city. Everybody will be asleep, so no one will see you. If you hurry, you can get back her before morning. You will not have to say a word; but on the doorstep of each house lay down one of these twigs of pussy willow and a little egg, and I'm sure all the people will understand what we wish to tell them."
      The rabbit nodded. He was not afraid to do that. He did as Spring told him.
      Next morning there was great joy in the city.
      "Papa, mamma, see what we have found." the happy children shouted. "The pussy willows are out; the birds have come back. Spring must be here. "Oh, let's go out to the woods."
      Everybody went, and such a happy time they had, gathering flowers and listening to the birds. This was Easter time. (The Washington Times, Sunday, April 23, 1905 - transcribed by Kathy Grimm)

Friday, January 4, 2013

Pastel Bunny Graphics

Description of Illustration: rabbits, violets monochromatic clip art for Easter



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The Egg Painter


Description of Illustration: white Easter bunny paints an egg, text reads "Easter Greetings", violets, palette and paint and paint brush, yellow daffodils 

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