THANKS TO MARION, TSP’S PAIGE IS facing a challenge this week: to put together her own personal playlist, a measuring out of her life in coffeehouse tunes, if you will. This isn’t quite as easy as it sounds, she says, but Joni and Joan figured into her mix. The hits from Paige’s soundtrack (come add yours).
From the category archives:
Growing Up Together
STOP FORWARDING HER EMAILS composed by some anonymous person about how much women love their sisters-friends, Marion says. If you want to tell a sister you love her, fill her heart with song. Send her the song that you shared, stomach down, ankles crossed, lying on her canopied bed while you wondered aloud if someone would ever ever ever love you, or the song you learned to teach one another your dance steps, or while you practiced making out against the mirror, or driving back to college. Or…(get Marion’s full list, and add yours).
SPEAKING OF BEAUTIFUL braids, have you seen (or participated in) the Flickr pool Braid Wednesday? It features the beautiful braids of hundreds of Flickr users–kind of like a mini braid sisterhood! Our Sister Anastasia is a regular lurker; here’s why.
WHAT IS IT ABOUT BRAIDS and sisterhood that makes them such divine companions? The fantastic how-to book Beautiful Braids was a longtime staple in TSP Sister Anastasia’s childhood, but somehow she never really mastered the tricky task of braiding her own hair in the mirror. (When she’s home sometimes her mom still does it!) Maybe the secret of sisters with fabulous braids is that they do it for each other? After getting a tip on the braid-heavy photo above from Pam at Retro Renovation, Anastasia started thinking about her favorite plaited ladies from The Sister Project. Here’s what she found:
MARION’S SHE SAID, SHE SAID BLOG is one year old, and in its short life has taken on everything from the precious to the red hot between her older sister, Margaret, and herself. If you’ve been reading along you’ve learned that they don’t see most things the same way, and that on some topics—their mother, for instance—there is no seeing eye-to-eye. That behavior does not extend to their other parent. Read a love letter of sorts.
THIS SISTER CAN REALLY WIELD A NEEDLE AND ALSO THE LOVE, whether in her practice as a small-town country doctor in Canada or in her nature-inspired crafting—weblike crochet work, charming embroidery on thick, colorful felt, and all manner of sewing and knitting creations. Margie (short for Margaret) Oomen is the gentle genius behind the popular blog Resurrection Fern, and a force of nature herself online among the web’s most creative pairs of hands. Meet her in the TSP Galleries’ latest show.
THAT’S TSP’S MARION (YES, THE DRUM MAJORETTE with the giant plume) and Margaret (yes, the retiring princess in the back row) on Halloween, 1963, a telling photo if there ever was one. If Halloween costumes are a litmus test of personality, what do yours and your sibling’s Halloween images say about you? (Maybe just that the get-ups your parents dressed you in were downright hilarious, bordering on embarrassing?) Never mind that; share them with us, with a caption, and let’s see. Email images to thesisterproject at gmail dot com–or just describe your memorable garb in the comments below. Happy Halloween!
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SINCE LEAVING FOR GRAD SCHOOL, Sister Anastasia hasn’t been able to connect much with Big Brother T…until the other day, finally. Guess how it went? (Read: This is a brother we are talking about.) The sorry outcome is here.
WHEN YOU START A SISTER NETWORK, you find new sisters—or they find you. That’s what happened recently when Mexican-born Kitty Castillo, a complete stranger, reached out from Sweden, where she lives today, to share her sister story—and some amazing vintage photos. “I thought that if you are interested in using the pictures It will be a surprise to all of my hermanas,” she wrote. Read Kitty’s tale, see more pics, and think about maybe sharing some of yours with TSP? [click to continue…]
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THIS DARK-AND-SUNNY FILM STARRING AMY ADAMS (of recent Julie and Julia fame) is the latest sister flick to reach my dvd player, after its release about two weeks ago. Single-mom Rose (Adams) and her neer-do-well sister, Norah (Emily Blunt), find their way back to a more connected sisterhood and then the freedom of individual paths along a road that includes some odd stops, most notably collaborating on a cleaning business that specializes in crime-scene aftermaths. [click to continue…]
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Sister Marion, in her swim-team suit, before she knew the 15 Rules.
WHY WOULD SISTER MARION be asked to speak at a school commencement, her daughter wanted to know? She is no one’s idea of a traditional role model. But she has been able to chart a life to do what she loves, so her speech turned out to be a list of rules to help the girls do just that. Get her 15 Rules for Living, from overseas travel to a certain pair of red shoes.
ELANA AMSTERDAM, AUTHOR OF THE JUST-OUT “GLUTEN FREE ALMOND FLOUR COOKBOOK,” hesitated when I asked her to join TSP for a profile some months back. We get this reaction a lot: No, she said; her relationship with her own sister, a noted yoga teacher, hasn’t always been easy, and as Elana put it, much of what she learned about sisterhood came from outside her family, not within. But what seemed like an obstacle was merely the proverbial opportunity in disguise. Before learning what happened, though, get to know Elana a little better: [click to continue…]
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WHEN TSP RECEIVED AN EMAIL from Shelley Kommers with the subject line “Sister Artwork,” we were startled: Had Shelley, known in the Etsy world as Oiseaux (meaning bird in French), seen us lurking in her shops and sites? Magic! Shelley attached two mixed-media pieces about sisters, including the one above, created as a representation of herself with her own sister, Carrie (look whose little arm is around whose bigger waist). No wonder Shelley defines “sister” as “someone you’re stuck with in the best way.” Today, on baby sister Carrie’s birthday, we celebrate big sister’s world rich in our latest TSP Galleries show.
First time here? Here's the idea: TSP is a network of blogs about the many facets of the word sister, and the concept of sisterhood. A sisterhood of sister blogs, you could say. Whatever sister means to you, from identical twin to sister-in-law (or in-friendship or in-feminism), we’ll make room to listen in about it or express it on TSP. Like the slogan up top says, “Don’t you have something to say to your sister?” We've got galleries of art and literature by and about sisters, and a Sisterpedia of sisterly trivia...but now we're getting ahead of ourselves. The quick study: 
As the suffix of its name suggests, 
No surprise, really, that sisterhood, often life’s longest relationship and always one of its most important, has been the Muse for so much creative self-expression by women, and also by men. 
