An Afternoon with Tasha Tudor

♫Simple Gifts♫

Several members of the Maryland Chapter of the Tasha Tudor Museum Society gathered today to hear Tasha Tudor's "Gentle Wit & Wisdom."  Even though we had to settle for Tasha's visit on a cassette tape, we felt she was sitting at the end of my dining room table talking about her life as we made cut-wool rabbits. . . .

Tasha was is in fact sitting in her own front parlor in 1996 talking about her childhood...how her father would read poetry that would give you goose shivers and how he could quote the Rubiayat of Omar Khyyam from memory.  She said her mother surprised her with a dollhouse that took her a whole year to make since she had to do it in secret.   Her mother also loved gardening and made a sunken garden.

Tasha only made it through the 8th grade.  Her family felt she'd never succeed at anything--but she showed them she said.  Some other tidbits:  her father owned a trained seal; she bought her first cow when she was a teenager from an uncle with money she'd made by having a nursery school in the Bahamas while staying with her mother one winter.  Her uncle sent her the cow when she got back to Connecticut along with her money.

After she grew up and had her own home Tasha had a menagerie of animals.  She likened her farm to Dr. Doolittle's.  Her pet crow, Edgar Allen Crow, followed her around as she hid jelly beans for the jelly bean hunt for her children one Easter.  When it came time for the hunt, no jelly beans could be found anywhere.  It turns out Edgar collected them all and hid them in the barn.  He would always call out to the children "Don't fall off the barn."

She made her brother a linen shirt from flax she grew herself, spun it into thread, wove it, and then sewed the shirt.  It took her 3 years from start to finish.  When people say they want to be just like her and live a simple life, she'd tell them to just be themselves.  She says it has to come from within.  As much as she loved all the things she'd done in her life she said she was happiest right now.

As we listened we wrapped yarn around a cardboard disc to make the pom-poms which would be used to make the cut-wool rabbit.  I made the above rabbit using the template and instructions in Tasha Tudor's Old-Fashioned Gifts . . . .

But then I found a tutorial on YouTube for an easier way to make the pom-poms. . . .

                           

                    
   

The table was set with the supplies we'd need.  I provided a rabbit to model for us. . . .

Linda and Cindy are working hard on their bunnies. . . .

Linda had to leave early, so she only got her 3 pom-poms put together and would finish it at home. . . .

Cindy used a curly yarn and made a rabbit that looked a lot like a lamb until she added the ears. . . .

I made another rabbit with a lighter yarn and added a button nose this time that made it look a little like Gabriel.  I still need to give my bunny a clipping to give him some shape. . . .

In Tasha's book, A Time to Keep, she writes, "Easter week we all made pretty Easter eggs and had hot cross buns for tea". . . .

So, that's what we did--have hot cross buns for tea. . . .

Here is Tasha's receipt (recipe). . . .

Cindy gave me this delightful hand-painted egg she did from one of Tasha's drawings. . . .

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Take Joy!