Dolls and More Dolls

I was cleaning out some of my seldom-used craft supplies (buried deep in Jo's closet) when I came across a big tub of doll parts. Years ago I was working at Davis-Kidd Booksellers when this great book arrived. Anatomy of a Doll. A coworker bought it for me on the condition that I would make a doll for her. I did (and of course I didn't take a picture) and the next doll I made was for me. Here she is.



















I especially love her beaded hair. I made a bunch of dolls, including a few from Julie McCullough patterns, but I really wanted to make something that was looser, more poseable. This is what I came up with.



















My favorites are the androgynous puffy pants people with macrame hair, but I also made a few girl fairies




























and some sleepytime fairies.



















All of them are totally poseable, with wire arms and legs and bodies. They can even climb trees!





































I loved them and, for some reason, I made up a ton of parts and clothing pieces. Now that I've found said tub o' parts, this is how I spend my evenings while watching TV. Fun!

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The Dago

The Online Brooklyn Daily Eagle has proven an absolutely priceless resource in the writing of my forthcoming generational baseball novel, which I've chosen to set in Brooklyn. (Mostly.) Some terrific librarian (or team of librarians) at the Brooklyn Public Library has scanned and sub-divided and hotlinked hundreds of thousands of pages from 1841-1902, letting researchers search by date, keyword, and special subjects.

I was researching turn-of-the-century Brooklyn vaudeville theaters one day when I came across this gem:

BEDFORD AVENUE THEATER.

Humorous possibilities in our recently acquired brethren from Southern Europe are to be illustrated this week in a comedy styled "The Dago." The Carrolls, formerly well known in variety shows, will assume the leading characters and the minor ones will be intrusted to people who can brandish their legs in jigs, clogs, winz dances and the like and who can likewise sing in tune with the band. The Brooklyn bridge, a tenement attic, a fire scene and a blizzard are among the pleasant subjects of contemplation in this play.

The Online Brooklyn Daily Eagle is, astoundingly and commendably, a free public service.

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Sprinkles Under Construction

I love starting a new quilt. This one I'm calling Sprinkles because I think it looks like hot fudge with sprinkles on it. Jo calls it the donut quilt - for the same reason. She especially likes that the sprinkles are HUGE. I've got all my blocks pieced and ready to assemble - and I hope to have the whole thing finished by the end of next week. It's twin-sized, so I think I can do it.

I've learned one very important lesson already with this quilt - new rotary cutting blades are good! I don't think I've EVER (and I've been quilting for a few years now) put in a new blade. It gets dull so gradually that you don't really notice. Did I always have to push this hard to get a clean cut? It wasn't until I actually nicked the blade (and had to cut everything twice to catch the part that the nick missed) that I finally got a new one. What a difference!

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Lions at Lunchtime

Jo and I just finished this one. She LOVES the Magic Tree House books and we are slowly working our way through the series. I won't read them to her more than once (Mean Mommy) but she has the audios too so she can listen to them over and over again. In fact, it's shortly after we started getting her audiobooks (and she started listening to them for a couple of hours every night after she went to bed) that she started the odd practice of narrating herself. Sometimes it's simple, like her scooping chopped spinach into a pan and saying, "She carefully scraped the spinach into the pot." Sometimes it's a bit more odd - like saying something to me and then, as she turns away, murmuring, "She said to her mother. . ."
Anyway, Jo reports that Lions at Lunchtime is a good book and her favorite part is when Jack and Annie eat peanut butter and honey sandwiches with the Masai warrior. I wonder if that's because she likes peanut butter and honey sandwiches herself?

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Son of the Shadows

I just finished reading Son of the Shadows, the second book in The Sevenwaters Trilogy by Juliet Marillier, and I can't wait to get book three and read it too. I got started on Juliet Marillier when I read Wildwood Dancing for work. What a story! It's a little bit of Twelve Dancing Princesses mixed with The Frog Prince and set in a remote castle in a forest in Transylvania. Wow! I don't know what she did, but the author sucked me in right away. I sat down to read the book and after just a few pages I got interrupted by a phone call and I was really angry because I was already completely absorbed. Anyway, I liked that one so much I decided to go back and read her earlier novels written for adults. Did I mention that Wildwood Dancing is YA? I started with Daughter of the Forest and loved it - it retells the story of Sorcha - the sister who saved her brothers who were turned into swans. She really does a wonderful job retelling these old tales. Son of the Shadows picks up with Sorcha's daughter and tells a totally original story - or at least I wasn't familiar with the one she was riffing on. Liadan is strong and brave and a talented healer - and she falls in love with a REALLY intriguing man. I can't wait for book three. . .

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Niki in the Garden

Today Jo and I went to the Atlanta Botanical Garden to see the Niki in the Garden exhibit before it closes later this week. I've been eager to see it for months but, of course, didn't make time for it until the very last minute. I'm so glad we went. Jo put it best when she saw the very first exhibit - this lady in the fountain. "Wow."



















The artist is Niki de Saint Phalle and the sculptures are mostly huge and covered with mosaic. Lots of them are covered with mirrored bits, which are beautiful in person, but tough to photograph.



















One of my favorites was this giant sun/bird guy.



















He's almost all mirrors and Jo enjoyed looking at her many reflections.















I also loved this giant skull. The boldness of the design and the Day of the Dead-ishness made me think of some of Jane Sassaman's quilts.



















The outside is amazing, but so is the inside - all mirrored with a bench built into it.




















Jo's favorite was less fantastical - a giant cat suitable for climbing. . .




















And sitting inside on the bench built into it.

Wow! Great stuff.

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Ed Emberley on Solstice

Happy Solstice everyone!

We've turned the corner toward spring, (or toward fall, for those of you south of the equator) and to celebrate, we opened the presents under our solstice tree this morning. There was much good loot all 'round, which I may chronicle later, but one of Jo's gifts had all our attentions for a time -- Ed Emberley's Picture Pie, which is just about as rockin' an art book as I've seen in a long time. Ed Emberley's other books are awesome too, and we have a few of them. (See Wendi's old Hip to be Square post about using an Emberley design on a skirt.) But this one is all about cut paper designs, and it rules.

Check out our creations:

Jo was a little more interested in the new furniture and people for her doll house, but she stayed with us long enough to make an "Alien Bird" (you can tell it's an alien because of the multitude of eyes) and an "Ice Cream Bird" (which has something to do with the way it looks like ice cream on a cone upside down).


Wendi chose a couple of designs straight from the book . . .

As did I . . .
And then I created a few designs of my own. I'm particularly proud of the pelican--which is not in the Ed Emberley book! I'm sure the little bird is an Emberley creation--I was just filling in the white space with scraps.
Too fun!

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O Solstice Tree

Last year we put a small tree in Jo's room for the holidays and surrounded it with other little trees we had - a ceramic tree that belonged to my grandmother, a tree with lights that Alan made when he was a kid, and a few others. Jo loved it and we bought her a tin tree of her very own to add to the collection. This year she was very happy to assemble her forest again. When I saw Stephanie's button trees featured on Whip Up I knew I had to make one to add to Jo's forest. So cute! The velvet was NOT fun to sew, but I loved digging through all of my red buttons and I think it fits right in with the other trees.

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Welcome, Part 2

As Wendi has offered her welcome, I will too: Welcome to the new and improved Gratz blog, featuring not just the creative endeavors of one or the other of us, but the combined pursuits of our careers, hobbies, and lives.

This new Gratz Industries blog was born in part by my desire to move away from What's the Rumpus? which had essentially become a "flog," or a blog with little other purpose than to promote a product--in this case, my books. Gratz Industries will continue to flog my work, of course, and anyone who had been checking in with What's the Rumpus? for updates on my writing will continue to find that here.

What I also hope you'll find, over time, are entires about about such things as: building a new home in the North Carolina mountains; odd and interesting things found in my research; commentary on the writing life; reviews of books we're reading; attempts at making the perfect pizza; thoughts on television and movies; and giant robots. I do so hope there will be entries about giant robots.

So please add us to the feeds you read, and we'll do our best not just to flog ourselves, but to entertain and spur discussion as well.

Gratz Industries is now open for business!

And for those of you wishing to look in at the Gratz Industries prototypes, our former blogs are still available online here:

What's the Rumpus (Alan) | Hip to Be Square (Wendi)

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Welcome!

Welcome to Gratz Industries - combining Alan's writing blog with Wendi's quilting blog, and adding lots more stuff about the other creative things we do every day that don't fit under either of these categories. Expect lots more about our greatest creation - Jo.

Alan is creating a new website for me so I've been busy taking pictures. The weather has been gorgeous - in the low seventies every afternoon - and Jo has been helping me photograph my quilts, in between bouts of ball playing.















Inside we've been busy getting ready for the holidays. We got colored lights this year at Jo's request. Jo has also been helping knead pizza dough.

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About Us

 We are Gratz Industries, Inc.

Alan

Wendi

Jo

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More love from The Washington Post

That venerable bastion of journalism The Washington Post, home of Woodward and Bernstein (or Kornheiser and Wilbon, if you prefer) has just named Samurai Shortstop one of its 2006 Top Ten Novels for Children! Here's what reviewer Elizabeth Ward had to say:

Samurai Shortstop, by Alan Gratz (Dial, $15.99; ages 12-up). In an elite Tokyo boarding school at the turn of the 20th century, a samurai's son tries to square his father's warrior code with the brash new game of "beseboru." Sad, bloody, but funny, too.

Thanks Elizabeth, and thanks Washington Post! I think I need to get a subscription.

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