Zipper: "New" Fashion Trend?

ZzzziiiiIIIIiiiipppp.

The sound is common throughout daily life. Jeans, dresses, backpacks, purses, briefcases, hoodies, skirts, coats, baskets, bags…pretty much any necessity of everyday life comes with the handy fastener.

But just how much do we appreciate the humble zipper? This tool has slowly made its way into the world, taking 66 years to evolve into any type of marketable form. Since then, it has been a fashion faux-pas, a fashion necessity, hideous, a sign of glamour, a sexual icon and a method of keeping decent.

The original visionary of this “Clasp Locker” was Elias Howe. This ingenious little device was displayed at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, but went largely unnoticed. His other invention, the sewing machine, suitably distracted him for the remainder of his life.

When Gideon Sundback added many of the key components on today’s zippers (more teeth, a slider and a machine to make it all) in 1917 his “separable fastener” was uninteresting to most. Only the US Army thought the device useful, and troops marched into WWI wearing the time-saving zipper.

In the 1930’s a very clever ad campaign pitched the zipper towards parents of young children. Buttons too difficult for your child? Does he get frustrated putting on his clothing? Try a zipper! Now you can teach your child self-reliance. (Not to mention get him into bed faster!) [advertisement not a quote]

Then the Duke of Windsor, a noted fashion-plate and general scandal-creator, adopted trouser flies. “Heeeeey duuuke, ya barn door is open!” His noted acceptance helped push the “Battle of the Fly” in 1937 to new heights. Designers tended to distain the victor, the zipper, and thus hid them. This birthed the still-present tradition of covering the pants zipper with a flap of fabric.

Meanwhile, the fashion world was unsure what to do with the zipper. Was it useful or sexy? Busby Berkeley tapped into the indecision, portraying the zipper as the new lace negligee. The zipper promised “fast disrobing.” *wink, wink*

Elsa Shiaparelli, the designer, was first to use the gizmo in her fashion designs. Suddenly the zipper became very “a-la-mode.” Since Elsa, the zipper has been featured by hundreds of designers in every decade as both tool of dress and decoration. Madonna popularized the zippered corset, Elvis rocked a zipped jacket, and so on. 

Now the fashion trend is once again on the rise. Zippers have been reborn (no such thing as original ideas anymore, huh?) into an iconic and fashionable accessory.

This week’s craft is a spin off of the current zipper-obsession making the rounds. A zipped-up flower is perfect for this nearly-spring time of year. Everyone is starting to get cabin fever, but it is just too soon to plant real flowers. Maybe my little metal one will add some glitz to your winter.

A Zipped-Up Flower

Materials:

24” zipper

Scissors

Hot Glue Gun

2 Glue Sticks

Torque (a circlet-style necklace—Hobby Lobby has them for $1.50)

Heat-Resistant Surface

Call 'em Caps, Hats, Bonnets, Berets, Sombreros Or Fedoras

Hold onto your hats, folks. This week I want to discuss *drumroll* CAPS. Not just caps, but baby caps! No, I’m not breeding. And no, I have no intention of breeding anytime soon. However, women worldwide are.

In the less developed (consequentially poorer and less well-educated) nations, millions (MILLIONS?!?!) of babies die a year due to lack of medical care and ignorance. The babies most at risk are those born underweight and/or premature. As a preemie, myself, I have a bit of a soft spot for these young’uns. In times past I have made baby blankets, hats, booties and outfits for various local organizations. However, I have never contributed on the scale the Save the Children organization is making a difference!

            The Save the Children organization works in a two-prong format. The first goal is to help with emergency and disaster reliefs. The second, and more challenging, goal is to effect change in the world’s more conflict-ridden nations. Through long-term development that can be sustained in the communities, Save The Children is offering tangible results to global citizens.

            Right now Save The Children has two pet projects in the works. The “Rewrite the Future” cause is an effort to educate as many of the 40 million children not normally able to receive an education. In the group’s words “Schools are vital in protecting children and supporting their emotional and social development by giving them comfort, security and opportunity. The routine of school develops a sense of normality and the environment is one in which children are allowed to be children.”

            It almost brings tears to your eyes, yes?

            The second project, my own personal interest, is “See Where the Good Goes.” In 2010 Save the Children and the Ad Council joined forces to deploy more formally trained medical personnel globally. Together they have formed “GoodGoes.org,” a website for supporters to learn more about how to help children survive the iffy early stages of adolescence. 

            And finally, I get to my point: Save the Children and Warm Up America! are motivating Americans to get to crafting to create caps for babies born worldwide. Not only have these charity groups have joined forces with schools, bloggers and other charities, but they are currently looking for political backing in order to spread the warmth and health. And you can help!

            Naturally, the Save the Children has free baby-cap pattern available in knitting and crochet instructions, but the possibilities online are endless. The only restriction is that the circumference of the cap be around 12” so it fits just right on the babies. Knitting On the Net's website has dozens of clever hat ideas for the ambidextrous knitters, as do Knitting Pattern Central and Do-It-101. For my fellow crochet-i-teers AllCrafts.net, Antique Crochet Patterns, and Lion Brand Yarn offer dizzy, dazzy and daring options.

            Even if you are not a knit-artisan or crochet-creator, there are ways you can help too! The most obvious is through donations. A more worthy cause is hard for me to imagine, and you can be sure my budget is going to be taking a hit. The second, and potentially more useful, way for you to help is to raise political awareness. No, you do not have to go canvas the malls with tiny “STC” buttons. All you have to do is print a “Letter to the President” already written by the Save the Children organization and mail it. The cost is less than $0.50 in postage. That’s worth not buying my next coffee to me!

My Beret-Bonnet Crochet Pattern

            I caution my readers to have knowledge of crochet before beginning this pattern. I only used three stitches, and the pattern is decidedly simple. SC is a single crochet, HDC is a half-double crochet and a chain.

            Materials:

·      Medium-weight yarn (2 oz.)

·      Crochet hook size C (2.75 mm)

·      My Pattern ^_^

Round 1:

Chain 4, and link the 4^th and 1^st chain together. Do 10 HDC in the loop you have created. This should surround the circle. Join the 1^st and 10^th together with a SC and chain one.

Round 2:

Form 2 HDC in each stitch of your previous row (you are going around the circle ;)). Join the 1^st and 20^th stitches together as above and chain one.

Round 3:

Repeat! (40 stitches)

Round 4:

Crochet a pattern of one HDC in each of three stitches on your previous row followed by two HDC in the 4^th stitch. (50 stitches)

Round 5:

Repeat! (62 stitches)

Round 6:

Here’s where it gets a little trickier. Now you are going to reduce the number of stitches you have. Crochet a HDC in the first three stitches and join the 4^th and 5^th stitches together. Follow this pattern around. (back to 50 stitches)

Round 7:

Repeat! (back to 40 stitches)

Rounds 8-14:

HDC in each stitch. (Just keep going ‘round, and ‘round, and ‘round).

Round  15:

Single-Stitch time! Do one single stitch in each stitch. Tie off your round when you are done. Snip! And weave in the ends.

Last step: Print out the label and mail this hat to Save the Children. 

Valentine, In a Bottle!

Valentine’s Day is only five days away! The streets are bedecked with hearts and men everywhere are frantically searching for roses and chocolate. I, for one, am a teeny bit sick of the over-priced-ridiculously-expensive-and-downright-garish cards. 

(Please note, chocolate is always welcome no matter the cliché!)

Onto the Valentine’s Fun Facts!

8. I remember when I was little, we would exchange cards in school. I always thought the teacher made out like a bandit on holidays. My teachers taught at a private ( *cough* expensive *cough, cough*) so they got additional perks like movie tickets, gift cards, baked goods, flowers, etc. It turns out that, in order of popularity, teachers receive the most Valentine’s Day cards. Children, wives, mothers, sweethearts and pets follow them.

9. If that last fact made you blink, think about this: 3% of Americans give valentines to their pets. I love my dog and yes, she did get a couple Christmas gifts. I have no idea what I would give her for Valentine’s Day. A heart-shaped bone? A love-bug squeak toy? This holiday is getting more expensive by the year. 

10. When I was younger I was convinced the “x” in “XOXO” was the hug. The letter’s similarity to crossed arms made me certain I was correct. I wasn’t. In the Middle Ages many people were illiterate and could not even spell their own names. The popularity of signing a form with an “X” arose. Apparently the best (and quirkiest) way to show sincerity was to kiss the mark. Thus kisses became synonymous with the letter “X.” 

11. I mentioned my love (rhymes with obsession) for chocolate. Apparently Casanova agreed with me! He would eat products of the cocoa plant before his….*ahem*….amorous adventures. His three favorite foods to maintain virility were raw oysters, chocolate, and eggs. (I bet his breath was enough to just knock women off their feet.)

12. I’ve gotten a couple strange gifts for Valentine’s Day, including a wooden postcard. (I was confused too.) But maybe my gift wasn’t so odd. In Whales they give wooden spoons! These “love spoons” are usually elaborate and have a space large enough to engrave the sweetheart’s name. I am intrigued; better a utensil than a postcard. I wonder what I did with that…

13. When I make out the list of people I have to send Valentine’s Day cards to, somehow fictional characters never make the list. Can you imagine? Grandmother, check. Boyfriend, check. Mom, check. Siblings, check. Shakespeare, what? Juliet from “Romeo and Juliet,” despite never having existed, receives about 1000 letters a year. Senders address them to Verona, Italy. Not only does she receive these letters, but around 23 “secretaries” send back responses!

14. My last fun fact is entirely modern in origin, and could serve as a warning to procrastinators everywhere. Those last-minute February 14^th shoppers are likely to spend upwards of $103. Talk about a romantic nightmare!

For the past couple Valentine’s Days I have struggled nobly to come up with creative ways to express the same sentiments as the cards, but with the sincerity that comes with an investment in time. This has culminated in my “Valentine in a Bottle” idea. Each little note is an opportunity for my loved one to receive a compliment/sweet-nothing any day he chooses. You can’t ask for more, right?

Material List:

1 Glass Bottle/Jar

2 Valentine Printables

1 Valentine Title Page

Printer

Tape

Scissors

Ribbon

Valentine's Count-Down, Recycled Lamp Shade

Two Weeks to Valentines

Love it or hate it, Valentine’s Day is coming. Soon radios will be playing the best of the year’s “love songs.” I truly hope Ke$ha’s “Your love is my drug” does not make the list of romantic mood-setters. All the stores already have their myriads of chocolates, and their bevies of flowers—not to mention the aisles upon aisles of teddy bears, t-shirts, mugs, and cards that profess emotional enrapture. Isn’t the commercialization simply exhilarating? 

Before you go commenting that Valentine’s Day is overly commercialized and entirely created by marketers to have another excuse to sell diamonds, etcetera etcetera, etcetera, please stop and think about all of our holidays. Do any remain untainted by the marketing urge to run out and run up credit debt? No. Now, please no picking on this day of love.

I was going to write a summary of Valentine’s Day, the history, traditions, and so on, but I have since discovered that to do so would take much longer than one blog post. Besides, Wikepedia has a fairly credible summary. Instead I want to share a few of the odder Valentine’s Facts I’ve collected. Here we go!

1)                   The oldest surviving love poem is from the time of the Sumerians. The small clay tablet was uncreatively named “Istanbul #2461.”

2)                   The heart, which is highly prevalent in Valentine’s iconography, was especially revered by the Ancient Egyptians as the seat of the soul. They would take great pains to embalm and preserve the heart, but would throw out the brain.

3)                   Cupid became associated with Valentine’s Day because he was the son of the Roman love goddess Venus (Aphrodite in Greek). His arrows were said to force people to fall in love even in Ancient times. The story of the “Aeneid” has perhaps the first recorded instance of this…poor Dido.

4)                   Valentine’s Day got its name from the Saint Valentine who was a priest in 270 A.D. Roman Emperor Claudius II beheaded him for performing marriages. Claudius had been having issues with his soldiers refusing to go to war; instead they wanted to stay at home with their wives. So he outlawed marriage ceremonies.

5)                   During the Medieval Ages, the people thought that birds selected their mates on February 14^th. For an inexplicable reason, the boys and girls decided they should too. 

6)                   The saying of “wearing your heart on your sleeve” came from the Medieval Ages as well. People would draw draws of the opposite gender from a bucket to select who their valentine would be. Then they would wear the name on their sleeve for the week.

7)                   It was in the late 1800’s that v-day cards rose to popularity. Despite the prudish Victorian era, they were very racy cards. So much so that the Chicago Post Office refused to send 25,000 of them! Apparently they were “not fit to be carried through the United States Mail.”

Next week, I’ll give you the other half of my 14 fun facts. ;)

Recycled CD Lamp Shade

Materials:

2 Sun-catcher sheets from last week

1 Lamp stand (just another excuse to go to the thrift store!)

1 Glass Form (the top of the lamp)

Tin Foil

Baking sheet

Oven

Directions

1)   1.) Heat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.  Line your baking sheet with tin foil. Cover your glass form with tin foil.

2)  2.)  Place your baking sheet and covered form into the oven. Center one Sun-catcher sheet over the form. Allow everything to bake in the oven until the form has melted to conform to the shape of the mold, about 4 minutes.

3)   3.) Remove and allow the mold and new plastic shape to cool. Put everything back in the oven, plastic side down. Center your other plastic sheet on the form and bake. Remove and cool.

4)   4.) Now the two forms should have melted together to form a solid lamp shade. Slide the center glass form out of the center.

5)   5.)You can trim off any stray plastic pieces to make the lamp look more regular, if you like. Similarly, if the two sun-catcher pieces did not melt together completely, a little hot glue at the seams works wonders.

 

6)  6.)  Place the lamp shade on your lamp stand. Enjoy!

**** Safety note: please always be around your new lamp shade when the light is on. My light bulb never burned hotly enough to remelt my plastic, but every lamp is different. And the last thing we would want is an accidental fire, right?