Introducing Fairyland

Hello! This is Lisette, and I’m here to show you (at last) one of my pictures. I did this one last weekend.

This is the princess Jane, who lives in Fairyland. I drew her in her favorite spot of the fairy castle—-the Secret Garden. She comes here to think and sing. The columns are made of rhubarb and inside everything is green and alive and flooded with light. There isn’t  any ceiling, so when it rains she doesn’t come here unless she wants to get very wet. But the plants love the rain. And anyway in this part of fairyland the rain is wonderful—-big drops that plop softly onto the ground.

Jane is going to have to cut the creeping vine. It’s getting far too big for its own good! And anyway it’s rather ugly. (I put it in with gouache after I’d done all the watercolor, and the colors are quite garish! On the other hand, it is quite lovely to have it going all the way up the column…so maybe it can stay.) I’ll have to use a different color for it next time.

Oh dear me, look at the time! I have to go. I hope you liked this first excursion into Fairyland. Next time I’m going to paint the throne room and the King and Queen, and I’ll tell you a little bit more about Jane, and Fairyland, and how the whole thing works.

Love, Lisette

The Spring Line Launch

After much thought and preparation, we’ve finally picked a launch date for the spring line:

——————————–Friday, March 27th.————————————

I know it sounds like a long time to wait, but the time will certainly fly for us! We’re still sewing dresses furiously. And next week we’re going to the Sewing Expo in Puyallup to do a little more fabric-hunting. Melinda is being very picky about which fabric to use for one of the dresses–she still hasn’t found just the right kind, but as SewExpo (www.sewexpo.com) is the largest sewing show in the nation, I for one think we can find it there.

And then, after we’ve finished all the dresses, we’re going to have a bunch of photoshoots (that’s my favorite part! I get to hang out in beautiful new dresses and get photographed, and the photos are always gorgeous!) We’re currently scheming about where to do it, too. Since March should have some beautiful days, Samantha and I are dreaming about going somewhere outside with lots of cool scenery. There’s this park we know of that has wonderful trees and gravel paths and grass–and on top of that, it has a whole network of fountains and canals! Lisette thinks the water would be especially cool and keeps hoping we’ll go sometime soon to check it out. She loves water.

Oh, and we’re going to have a visitor in March, which will add to the general festivities and fun. My cousin Kirsten is coming to stay for a couple of weeks and I keep hoping we can convince her to move in with us for good! It would be wonderful to have another pair of hands to help out, and anyway, the more the merrier!

Well, that’s the update from around here. I’ll keep you updated as the month progresses—-but mark your calendars, because March 27th is the day!

Love,
Melody

From Us to You

Thank you all for being such wonderful customers and blog-readers! We hope you have a delightful Feb. 14th, overflowing with love and laughter and sweet fellowship.

Love,

Melody, Samatha, Melinda and Lisette

The Lady of Shallot

Here is the Lady herself, as depicted by John William Waterhouse.

The idea to make a Lady of Shallot dress hit me this morning. I’m still not sure where it came from, but there it was! I had to drop what I was doing and search for the poem. Before long I’d found it, and sat down to read eagerly. After all, she must have been something magnificent to have become famous!

But after reading the poem my enthusiasm had cooled. All she did was sing, weave, and wait for a mysterious curse to fall upon her. When it did come (apparently Sir Lancelot had something to do with it, because she looked at him and said “Well, here it comes!”, only in a more sophisticated and nineteenth-century-rhythmic-imitation-of-medieval-speech way) she left her room, went and laid down in a boat, set herself free along the river, and sang until she died.
I just didn’t get it. Of course, this is the twenty-first century, so my way of thinking about life is, quite probably, not at all the way Tennyson thought. And very likely if I studied Tennyson and romantic thought, I would understand it. All the same, her death struck me as tragically unnecessary. Why did she just give up like that? I suppose Tennyson and the Romantics were going for the tragic bit…maybe the unnecessary was part of making it tragic?

The long and short of it is, no Lady of Shallot dress!

But a medieval princess dress would be wonderful (I’ve heard tell of a beautiful and good empress, a real one, who lived in the 1100s). And my excursion into Tennyson made me think of poetry more broadly. There are a lot of great poems out there, plenty to inspire a whole line. And there’s lots of wonderful art, too (anybody interested in a Mona Lisa dress?)

Until the next idea hits,

Melinda