by Roseanna White | Aug 28, 2017 | Word of the Week
So this has been a debate in my house in recent weeks.
Xoe will say something about being/looking up pictures of/something geared at a tween. Rowyn will reply with, “I hate that word. It’s not even a thing. I’m not a tween and I’ll never be a tween.”
To which Xoe will retort, “It is so a thing!”
Cue the “Mooooom!” shouts from both of them. I’ve already been called upon to referee this particular argument no fewer than 3 times, which neither ever being satisfied, LOL.
So, tween.
It’s been a shortened form of between since around 1300, which is obviously not the way it’s being use in the debate above. 😉 No, we’re talking about “a child nearing puberty, between the ages of 9 and 12.” Not quite a teen, but not always wanting to be grouped with the little kids. Well, this use can be traced to 1988, apparently–just a couple years before I would have been termed one, though I don’t recall ever hearing the word until I was in my 20s. It’s thought that this use is mostly linked to its nearness to the spelling of “teen,” but it may also have been influenced by J. R. R. Tolkein using tween in The Lord of the Rings to refer to a period of irresponsible behavior in the Hobbit life-cycle.
Interestingly, before tween was used for this age group, there was apparently the word subteen used for the same, in the 1950s.
In earlier days, the word tween or tweenie was also used for a maid who served two others.
by Roseanna White | Aug 25, 2017 | Sales
With this being our first week of homeschool–and the third book in the Shadows Over England Series being due next week–I know I’ve been neglecting things here on the old blog.
But I’ve been cooking up a treat, anyway! (No, not brownies. Okay, so we made brownies last Friday. But I’m talking about something for you guys, LOL.)
How about a back to school sale on everything in my shop?!
From now until the day after Labor Day, you can get 25% off your entire purchase using coupon code BACK2SCHOOL.
That means 25% off signed copies of the new book. 25% off the fabulous library card tote bags. 25% off everything. Because fall is for reading. Right? (Of course, so is summer…and spring…and nothing beats a book and a hot cup of something while it’s cold outside…)
So hie thee over to www.RoseannaMWhite.com/shop and see what must-haves are calling to you. I, meanwhile, will be plowing through the second half of the edits on An Hour Unspent so it’s nice and shiny for my editor, and teaching my kiddos all about Elizabethan England.
Happy weekend!
by Roseanna White | Aug 21, 2017 | Word of the Week
Figured I’d jump on the eclipse bandwagon today and talk about a part of it I haven’t seen anyone else mention–the word itself! 😉
Eclipse has been in English since around 1300 (since, you know, there was English), taken from French, which was taken from Latin, which is taken from Greek, all sounding like the original ekleipsis. But what did that original word assigned to the phenomena mean?
Quite literally, it means “an abandonment, a failing, a forsaking.” Ek is “out” and leipein is “to leave.” So when something abandoned its spot and went out, much like the sun and moon sometimes appear to do . . . there you go!
Are you planning on (safely) viewing the eclipse today? It’s our first day of school, and we figured that was a pretty sweet science lesson for day 1. =) We bought eclipse glasses for the family last year when we were studying our astronomy unit and will be breaking those out today for sure!
by Roseanna White | Aug 16, 2017 | 17th-19th Centuries, Remember When Wednesdays
So after spending much of my birthday on Monday studying and getting the swing of making corn husk dolls, I figured I’d share my research and methods. =) I watched several tutorials on YouTube after first just looking at drawings on websites (so didn’t help me, LOL), and just kinda picked my favorite methods from a bunch of them.
You can use fresh or dried husks for these, store bought or straight from the cob. I husked 5 ears yesterday and was using those. I just cut the stalk ends off the cobs and then peeled the layers of husk away, and the silk. Most of them I used on Monday, but then I put the remainder under a bookend overnight to keep them from curling up. If you’re using dried husks, either steam-iron them flat (my mother-in-law’s favorite method) or soak them in water for 10-15 minutes to make them pliable again (drying them off before use, of course).
So begin by assembling your supplies. You’ll need the husks from 1 ear of corn (I didn’t use all of it, but that gives you a good selection of thicknesses and widths), some twine or thread (Native Americans traditionally used sinew), whatever you want to use for hair (the silk from the corn or yarn), and a pair of scissors.
I personally think the hair is an important part of a doll, so I chose the method that incorporated it directly into the construction of the head and didn’t require gluing it on separately. LOVE this! You can use the silk of the corn, and I did on one of the dolls, but I opted for yarn on this one–the plus of yarn being, of course, that you can choose whatever color you’d like. I’ve done blonde, brown, red, and black at this point. =) In this one, I chose black.
So you start by cutting your yarn. Keeping in mind that about two inches of it will be inside the doll, just measure it out as long as you’d like it to be, and as thick. I did this totally by sight. Once you’ve cut your yarn, tuck it inside 4 or 6 husks, with the ends up toward the pointy ends. Make sure you have an even number of husks.
Once you’ve got them hugging your hair, cut off a length of twine (I usually cut about 6 inches) and wrap it about an inch from the pointed ends of the husks.
Wrap it around and around until you’ve used most of the thread, pulling it as tight as you can. This will ensure your hair stays put!
Once you’ve done that, then start folding the husks down over the knot you just tied. This is creating the head, so shape it as desired–in this one I even balled up some bits of husks to round out the head a little more.
Then tie this off with another length of twine–good and tight again. This is forming the neck.
You now have a head and body. The next step is arms. Choose a husk and fold the tip inside it until it’s the length you want, and then roll up the husk into a slender cylinder.
Tie each end with twine to form hands. Once you have that cylinder tied at both ends, it’s time to insert it into the doll.
Divide the husks of the body evenly and just slide those arms right between them, positing it under the head, centered. Try to get it as far up the body as you can, as close to the head. Once you’ve got it where you want it, tie it into place.
So now you have a basic body, and if you like how it looks, you could pretty much stop there.
The next step, though, is to add shoulders and a bit of a bodice. For this, I chose thin, supple husks and split them to the width I wanted–about the width of my thumb. Position the square end at the waist (you can just trim off any hard pieces) and wrap it diagonally up the doll, over the opposite shoulder. Bring it around and take it over the end to hold it down. Make sure you leave enough of the wispy end to tie. Do the same thing on the opposite side, creating an X over the bodice of the doll. Tie this down with twine.
I very nearly stopped there, because I really liked how she looked. =) But since this was for instruction… Next step is the legs. If you’re making a male doll or just want your girl to have legs, you can either divide or cut the husks below the waist into two groups.
I really liked the way that top husk was sitting, so I opted to fold it out of the way and preserve it for the skirt and just cut the husks into equal parts to form the legs. You could also just gather them into two sections. Tie at the ends for the ankles, and you can tie another spot halfway up for the knees if you want (which I meant to do but forgot). And voila! Legs!
If you want a nice full skirt, select some wider husks. I was running out of wide ones at this point (these were my leftover husks from Monday, remember), so mine aren’t all that wide. You are working this step upside down and inside out, so it will look a bit strange.
But position the husks around her waist so that the side you want to show is against her body and the tip is pointing toward her feet. You might have to push her arms up out of the way, but layer them all the way around her. Once she’s surrounded, tie the tips tightly around her waist. Then fold them down to form the skirt.
There you go! She’s pretty much finished. Just trim the bottom of the dress to make it even.
Now, if you don’t want the arms standing straight out, just get a bit of twine or yarn or ribbon and tie them down at the sides. Once the doll is dried out, the arms will retrain that shape.
To get fuller hair, I separated the strands of yarn, which makes it nice and curly and full.
Decorate however you wish! You can leave them natural or use fabric to dress them. On this one, I just added a ribbon to her hair thus far.
On Monday, Xoe and I had a blast playing fashion designer. We just used scraps and bits from our craft basket, some fabric glue, and a few dabs of hot glue here and there. I personally love how a simple circle skirt looks on them. I measured it with one of my small plates, cut a small hole in the center, and then tied it in place with another strip of cloth. A simple triangle of cloth can serve as a shawl, and voila! You have a simply dressed but lovely doll! (Or get fancy and make a bride. You know. Whatever.)
I think I’m ready to teach my homeschool class the art now! And have a new past time for evenings after we’ve had some fresh corn from my family’s farm. =)
*Special thanks to the awesome Xoë, who not only manned the camera for me, but who donned my new super-high-heel shoes to give herself a better perspective. 😉
by Roseanna White | Aug 14, 2017 | Holidays, Word of the Week
Not exactly a word of the week, I know. 😉 I’m giving myself permission to be lazy, since it’s my birthday. But my “lazy” just means working on projects that are just fun, not technically work. Which today means corn husk dolls.
I just looked up how to make them yesterday, in preparation for a Little House in the Big Woods class that I’ll be helping teach with our homeschool group this fall. Xoë and I had fun putting one together, but it doesn’t seem exactly sturdy. (The image above is NOT ours, LOL. Ours looks more like this….)
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| Attempt #1. Falling apart, LOL. |
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| Attempt #2, after watching YouTube videos. Muuuuuuch better! |
I suspect that some of my readers have made their fair share of these fun little dolls, so I wanted to ask you guys if you have any tips or tricks for making them (using fresh [or dried] husks from corn on the cob, not store-bought husks). Is there a good way to keep them together? Any tricks for putting on hair? I’d love to have the kids make some to sell at our family farm’s Fall Festival, so any tips are appreciated!
[Update: I found some awesome YouTube videos on this, and discovered a couple different styles to try out! Great fun! The second photo above uses this technique. I also want to try out the “sleeves” from this one.]
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. Having successfully launched two homeschool grads, she now spends her time writing fiction, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years, as well as a fantasy series and contemporary mysteries and romances. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.