Christmas Window Tour 2017

The weather of freezing rain and dropping temperatures was not an auspicious beginning to our tour of decorations on Christmas Eve, but we took a chance and ventured out.  Our first stop was Barney's, which didn't disappoint with it's unusual windows designed by the Haas brothers to show positivity and inclusivity.

This window was labeled Primordial.

Utopia

Millenium

Mushroom Singularity

Then it was on to Bergdorf-Goodman's.

My favorite of the objects in the box.

This was an interesting window above the door.

Crystal encrusted dress among crystal-incrusted dinosaur bones.  What else?

This purse just caught my eye.

Not all of the windows were black and white.  The New York Botanic Garden window had lots of green, of course.

Then we walked past Harry Winston with its traditional decorations. 

Harry Winston.

The Peninsula Hotel always looks so festive but it is hard to get a good shot of the bounding stags flanked by pine trees.

Tommy Hilfiger decorated with lots of lights.

The Rolex watches got their own little man to decorate their space at Wempe Jewelers.

Victoria's Secret decorated their windows with costumes from the big show.

I did like their trees by the door that were decorated with miniature packages.

Passing by Ferragamo's and Catier's.  You can only see the tail of one of the leopards on top of the Cartier building.

Then we got into the madness of St. Patricks's, Rockefeller Center, and Saks.

St. Pat's.

We stopped at a little plaza to look at one of these traditional figures.

Rockefeller Center and the tree.  See all of those dark shapes at the bottom of the photo?  Those are people.

Like this: wall-to-wall people.

Then it was across the street to Saks to see their windows celebrating the 80th anniversary of Snow White; I am only sharing some of them.  The number of police vehicles give you an idea of how many of New York's finest were there to protect us.

The witch was hard to photograph because she was changing into this...

This year's popular souvenir was a plastic globe with LED lights that lit up as strips of stars.  The souvenir sellers were all over the place, along with many food carts.

As we escaped the madness of the crowds, we passed the H&M store, which was not necessarily decorated for Christmas but had some fun figures.

I called this one Grumpy Bunny.

Mushrooms were popular this year.

A view of the Empire State building lit up for Christmas.  It was to far away and too dark to get a clear shot.

Then past Patience and Fortitude with their wreaths outside the New York Public Library.  I don't know which one we have included.

We stopped at Bryant Park behind the main library to see its tree.

This was one of the high-rise buildings near Bryant Park.  Again my little camera was not up to the challenge of dark and distance.

Then it was time for Lord and Taylor, who partnered with the Hallmark Channel to present a valentine to New York.  Yeah, I didn't get it, either.

A close-up of part of the previous window because, well: bunnies.  Rabbits were popular this year.

This was a small window, but a fun scene.

Close-up of the clock area.

The best part of L and T's display was the columns of greenery with frolicking squirrels.

Our last stop was Macy's windows, with a theme of "The Perfect Gift Brings People Together." 

One of my favorite windows at Macy's: a pigeon's view of a rotating winter landscape.

My favorite part of this New York scene was the subway at the bottom.  Detail shots are next.

This window showed the outside of Macy's opening to a festive store inside.

Ta da!

That was the last window on the tour.  Despite slightly wet weather, dropping temperatures, and equipment failure in the form of a depleted phone battery and a camera's full memory card that required deleting photos on the fly, our Christmas tour turned out to be fun.  I hope you enjoyed it.

Wire Skeltons

I designed these skeleton earrings for a demonstration that I was doing for my friends at Parawire during one of the bead shows.  They amused people so much that I have made the tutorial available in my Etsy shop Reckless Beading.  The skeletons measure a little under 3 inches; I love long earrings but they would also make a fun pendant.

Suffragette Jewelry and Pink Pussy Hats

Mini Bead Crochet Pussy Hat Pattern

Whatever you think of them, the pink pussy hats made and worn by women as they march to uphold their rights quickly became a recognizable political symbol.  When a few of my friends joked about the fact that knitted hats are uncomfortable to wear during the summer, I got the idea of a miniature beaded pussy hat that you could wear as a pin or display on a key chain.

As I played with a way to incorporate the hat into a pin, I was struck by the fact that 100 years ago, women wore their political views on their bodies in the form of clothing and jewelry to support the movement to extend the right to vote to women.  

For those who don't know much about the struggle to vote, the idea of giving women the vote was discussed as early as 1860 in England, but there was no  real organized effort until 1897 when supporting groups were brought together in the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS).  The group's genteel approach to the issue resulted in little progress, so Sylvia Pankhurst broke away in 1903 and founded the Women's Political and Social Union with her 3 daughters.  Their motto was "Deeds Not Words" and, starting in 1905, they followed through with violent actions as well as marches.  WPSU members committed acts of arson and vandalism; when imprisoned, women went on hunger strikes.  One member, Emily Davison, died after she jumped in front of  King George V's racehorse during the running of the Epsom Derby in 1913.  These are the badass women that come to mind when we think of the Suffragette movement that eventually resulted in our right to vote.

The WPSU adopted the colors of purple (dignity), white (purity), and green (hope) in 1908 and supporters wearing those colors would march behind banners with the same trio of colors as they protested their lack of voting power.  Medals incorporating the groups colors were also presented in August of 1909 to the women who had gone on a hunger strike while serving a prison sentence for acts supporting women's suffrage.  

  While other suffrage organizations in England and America adopted variations of those colors, it is the purple, white, and green that most of use associate with suffragettes today.

Fashion was actually part of the arsenal of the suffragettes, as members were cautioned by Mrs. Pankhurst that "Suffragettes must not be dowdy"  and urged to outfit themselves in an appropriate manner.  Department stores such as Derry and Toms or Selfridges even advertised clothing incorporating the movement's colors in advertisements in the paper Votes for Women and in their shop windows.

While some of the jewelry was specifically made and sold to support the suffragettes, that combination of purple, green, and white was also popular at the turn of the century, thus much of the jewelry we now classify as "suffragette" may not be.  This brooch below is an example of one that uses the same color combination, but doesn't seem to have any connection to suffragettes. (It's a snake, I had to include it).  The colors still stick in our mind, though.

So the pink pussy hat is carrying on the same tradition of women using fashion and crafts to bolster political efforts.  That's why I designed the miniature pink pussy hat and why I used it along with purple, white, and green crystals to fashion a brooch.  I am sure that you can think of other uses for the little beaded hat.

The pattern is available in my Reckless Beading Etsy shop.  At first, I was going to offer the pattern for free but that means that anyone else could take the pattern and sell it or teach a class in how to make it.  So my compromise was to charge  for the pattern and donate $2 from every pattern sale to Planned Parenthood; I actually wanted to donate the money to the Pussy Hat Project as they are organizing more marches, but they never got back to me.  Given the passage of the new healthcare bill by the House, it seems like a lot of people on both sides may need help with healthcare, so Planned Parenthood seemed to be a good alternative for those who may lose their insurance in the future.

Happy Crocheting!

Valentine's Day Love

This seems to be a good day to share my latest experiments with making a heart shape in bead crochet. 

For more hearts to brighten your day, check out the latest blog post at Bead Love, where we have put together a collection of beadwork hearts.  Some have accompanying free patterns, some are patterns for purchase, some are for upcoming classes or blog posts, and some are just to share the love.  We hope they brighten your day.

Spread the Bead Love

    

     Ready to be energized?  Last year was a tough one for many people on both a personal and global level; many of us lost our beading mojo.  Marcia DeCoster came up with the great idea that we needed something to get us going again, something to do with love and beads (of course).
     So a group of us have been planning projects and Marcia has set up a place to share them as a way to bring some love into the world.  New content will be added every week in the form of photos, free patterns, stories about their Bead Love creations from members, and links to patterns for sale.
     To start us off, Marcia has literally beaded love in the form of the letters L,O,V, and E.  She has even provided the pattern for L on the blog and the other letters will follow weekly.  I hope you will stop by the Bead Love blog and return throughout the year and that it will inspire you as much as the idea has inspired us.  If our project prompts you to make your own bead love, feel free to share a photo at #beadlove on Facebook.