Daily Discovery: Suffrage Flag Infinity Scarf

Post written by Morgan Wilson, Museum Assistant for Collections.

Daily Discovery: Suffrage Flag Infinity Scarf

Basic knitting skills are required to make this scarf. Luckily, this is a quick and easy knitting project that will be ready for the cool weather this fall. This scarf is made in the colors of the National Women’s Party flag- purple, white and gold! Once you reach the end, just connect it in a loop to create this stylish infinity scarf.

Supplies:

  • Between 40-50 yards of bulky yarn (weight 6) in purple
  • Between 40-50 yards of bulky yarn (weight 6) in white
  • Between 40-50 yards of bulky yarn (weight 6) in gold
  • 1 pair of US size 13 knitting needles
  • 1 yarn needle

Instructions:

  1. Cast on 12 stitches in your preferred method in the purple color.
  2. Knit the first two rows.
  3. Purl the next two rows.
  4. Repeat the knit-knit-purl-purl pattern until you have about 20 inches left of the first color.
  5. Continuing the pattern, knit or purl the next color onto the existing scarf.
  6. Continue the knit-knit-purl-purl pattern with the second color until you have 20 inches left of yarn and knit or purl the last color onto the scarf.
  7. Continue the pattern until you have about 20 inches of yarn and cast off the stitches to close the scarf.
  8. If you want to wash and block your piece, now would be the time to do so. If not, continue to step 9.
  9. Using the remaining yarn and your yarn needle, mattress stitch the end of the scarf to the beginning of the scarf to create a loop.
  10. Enjoy your suffrage scarf!

Want to download these directions? Click here for a handy PDF!

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Daily Discovery: Women Who Rock

Post written by  Forrester Tamkun, Music & Sound Lab Assistant.

Daily Discovery: Women Who Rock

Throughout history there has always been amazing and strong women. Here are a few such woman who made their mark in the Music Industry.

Dolly Parton

Dolly Rebecca Parton was born on January 19th, 1946, in Locust Ridge, Tennessee. She was the fourth of twelve children in a poor farming family. However, from a young age she showed a high aptitude toward music and would ultimately pioneer the emergence of fusing the genres of country and pop. Upon high school graduation, Dolly set off toward the music Mecca of Nashville, where here musical career began to blossom.

In Nashville, Parton became the protégée of Porter Wagoner, a star of the Grand Ole Opry. Working with Wagoner gathered attention toward Parton and she quickly became one of country’s most popular singers. Parton launched her solo career in 1974 and released her critically acclaimed song “Jolene.” She was chosen as female singer of the year by the Country Music Association (CMA) for 1975 and 1976. In 1978, Dolly began expressing her poppy side with her song “Here You Come Again,” which won her a Grammy. That same year she was declared entertainer of the year by CMA, speaking odes to her convergence of the two musical styles.

Click here to listen to “Jolene” by Dolly Parton.

Parton would continue to win Grammy’s and awards throughout her musical career and was inducted in 1999 into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Aside from heavy success in the musical realm, Parton has acted in several successful films as well as made guest appearances on many films and television shows.

She has also notably been very charitable in her life as well. In 1988 she created the Dollywood Foundation which aimed to provide educational resources and inspiration for children. She was named a Living Legend by the Library of Congress in 2004 for her enrichment of American cultural heritage.

Aretha Franklin

Perhaps one of the most distinguishable female voices in music is Aretha Franklin. The Queen of Soul was born Aretha Louise Franklin in Memphis, Tennessee, on March 25th, 1942. Her father, C.L. Franklin was a Baptist minister at the New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit for over thirty years. He was known to have a “Million-Dollar Voice” which seemingly passed onto Aretha as she grew up singing in church and learning to play the piano by ear, culminating in complete understanding of the correct tones and pitches.

Aretha signed with Columbia Records at the mere age of 18 and released her first song and album, reaching up to 10 on the billboard. In 1966 she signed with Atlantic Records and released her monumental hit song “Respect.” She released three more top ten hits through Atlantic Records and won her first two Grammy’s. Not only did Aretha achieve musical success, but she was consistently a voice that spread the importance of equality, peace, and justice for Americans.

Click here to listen to “Respect” by Arethra Franklin.

Aretha set history as the first woman to be inducted in the Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame. Her 1972 album, Amazing Grace, is the best-selling gospel album of all time. Franklin collaborated with countless other musicians throughout her life, including George Michael, Elton John, and James Brown. She too appeared in film, most famously alongside Ray Charles and James Brown in the hit feature film The Blues Brothers, in 1980.

The Queen of Soul will always resonate as one of the most powerful voices in music history. Her music and what it stood for will echo the dire importance of racial equality and justice in society.

Joan Jett

Aretha set history as the first woman to be inducted in the Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame. Her 1972 album, Amazing Grace, is the best-selling gospel album of all time. Franklin collaborated with countless other musicians throughout her life, including George Michael, Elton John, and James Brown. She too appeared in film, most famously alongside Ray Charles and James Brown in the hit feature film The Blues Brothers, in 1980.

Click here to listen to “I Love Rock n’ Roll by Joan Jett.

The success of The Runaways helped Joan Jett go solo in the late 1970’s. However, it was the band she would form after her solo career that would really help Jett take off in music history. In 1980, Jett formed the group Joan Jett & the Blackhearts. The band’s most famous song, “I Love Rock N’ Roll,” is become a staple in the history of the genre. It was released in 1981 and was the top song on the Billboard charts for seven weeks straight. It is in fact Billboard’s number 56th song of all time and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2016.

Joan Jett herself was inducted into the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2015. Her albums have achieved either gold or platinum awards. On top of achieved monumental fame and success in the music, she is also an inspiration for other realms. She has consistently been a prominent feminist icon and animal activist throughout her life. She will forever be a symbol of Rock N’ Rock and feminine strength that helped push the fresh roots of rock music into Earth.

Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell was a Canadian experimental singer-songwriter who was once described as the “Yang to Bob Dylan’s Yin, equaling him in richness and profusion of imagery.” She was born on November 7, 1943, under the original name Roberta Joan Anderson, in Fort McLeod, Alberta, Canada. She studied art in her hometown until 1964 when she moved to Toronto. There she began performing at local clubs and coffeehouses, and had a brief manage to folksinger Chuck Mitchell. In 1967, Joni Mitchell relocated to New York City where she made her debut album, Songs to Seagull. Her first album was produced by David Crosby and was a massive success with much attention paid toward its maturity of lyrics.

With each following release Mitchell’s popularity and following grew. Clouds in 1969 won a Grammy for best folk performance and Blue in 1971 was her first million-selling album. Mitchell’s career has not slowed throughout her life. She has released a total of 19 studio albums and 3 live albums. She is without a doubt one of the first women in modern rock to achieve a longevity of critical recognition. She inspired countless artists including Bob Dylan, Prince, Suzanne Vega, and Alanis Morissette. She was inducted into the Rock N’ Roll hall of fame in 1997 and in 2002 won a Grammy Award for a lifetime achievement.

Click here to listen to “The Circle Game” by Joni Mitchell.

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Daily Discovery: Women Who Changed the Music Industry

Post written by  Goose Seifert, Music & Sound Lab Assistant.

Daily Discovery: Women Who Changed the Music Industry

Historically, women and their contributions to music have been very overlooked in the music industry. Let’s take a look at a few women who molded various genres and eras with their music!

Ruth Brown

Ruth Brown is a singer, songwriter, and actress born in Portsmouth, Virginia in 1928. Ruth started singing in nightclubs and performing with Lucky Millinder’s orchestra in 1945, taking a different path than her church choir director father, who did not want his daughter listening to “the devil’s music.” After a disc jockey saw Ruth play with Duke Ellington, he told the higher ups at Atlantic Records what talent he had seen. Not long after, Ruth suffered from a car crash and signed to Atlantic Records while in bed at the hospital! After recovering, she released her first song, “So Long” which reached #6 on the U.S. Billboard R&B chart. Following that in 1950, Ruth peaked the charts as #1 with the new release “Teardrops from my Eyes.” After this, Ruth was acknowledged as the queen of R&B, as well as “Miss Rhythm.” Her releases afterwards continued to top the R&B charts, and they stayed up there for a while. Because of Ruth’s great success, she became a household name and was responsible for Atlantic being the foremost label of the genre.

Patsy Cline

Patsy Cline was a country singer born in Winchester, Virginia in 1932. Patsy began performing on the local radio station at age 15, and in a local band occasionally appearing on country television channels. After performing “Walkin’ After Midnight” on CBS’s Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, she had her first hit on country and pop charts, gaining national recognition. She began to work under Decca Records in 1960, which led to her first country billboard chart #1- “I Fall to Pieces” released in 1961. Next, she released “Crazy,” which also became a huge hit. Patsy also performed regularly on the Grand Ole Opry country radio broadcasts in Nashville. As her success was rising, the country music industry competed with the rock and roll industry, adopting more pop elements to appeal to more mainstream audiences. Patsy, who favored traditional country, continued to dress in western clothing and include yodeling in her music, bridging traditional country music with modern pop successfully. Patsy’s life ended suddenly in a plane crash in 1963, while she was 30 years old, however her legacy lives on, as she was the first woman inducted in the Country Music Hall of Fame, documentaries about her life have been produced, and her childhood home was turned into a museum.

Diana Ross

Diana Ross is a singer, actress, and record producer born in Detroit, Michigan in 1944. Her success emerged as lead vocalist of the Supremes, a vocal trio signed to Motown that quickly became the first U.S. group to have five songs in a row reach #1. The group went on to have 12 total chart toppers, the most billboard #1’s that an American group had in history! Around 1969, Diana left The Supremes to start a solo career, and continued her success by reaching #1 with “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” Following that, she had three other tracks reach #1 in the 70’s as she was also branching out and acting. In 1976, Billboard Magazine titled her as “Female Entertainer of the Century.” Diana continued to release pop records in the 80’s with a few more chart toppers, and returned to Motown for a couple records producing singles that gained international success. She sang lead on a top 75 hit for 33 consecutive years in the U.K. from 1964 to 1996. In 1993, she was declared the most successful female musician in history by the Guiness Book of World Records for her total of 70 hit singles in the Supremes and as a solo artist!

Suzi Quatro

Suzi Quatro is a musician and actress born into a musical family in Detroit, Michigan in 1950. Suzi was raised studying classical piano and percussion, and started a band with her older sister at age 14, fronting the band with vocals and bass. This band toured and released singles over a few years, until Suzi accepted a solo contract from producer Mickie Most. From there, Suzi worked with songwriters Chinn and Chapman to produce “Can the Can,” which reached #1 in 1973 and sold 2.5 million copies. She continued to release hits and was featured in the British Charts for 101 weeks between 1973 and 1980. Suzi then expanded her career into acting where she played roles in TV series and then hosted her own talk show. Throughout the 90’s, Suzi continued to release records, and began a radio career with BBC in 1999 that still continues today. In 2006, Suzi was nominated for broadcaster of the year at the Sony awards. While Suzi is successful in multiple areas of her career, she is widely recognized as the first female frontwoman to also play bass in rock and roll, paving the way for more female rock pioneers such as the Runaways and Tina Weymouth of the Talking Heads.

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Daily Discovery: Coffee Painting

Post written by Kathy Bush, Discovery Agent.

Daily Discovery: Coffee Painting

Use your rockin’ creative skills and make your very own work of art using coffee as your medium!

Supplies:

  • Coffee grounds &/or instant coffee – 1 spoonful
  • Water color paint brushes
  • Paper towel
  • Clean water
  • Water color paper
  • Bottle caps

Instructions:

  1. Tape your paper down if you fear it will buckle while working on it. Use the bottle caps to mix your coffee with fresh water, being careful to use only a little water at a time until you have a good shade. Test until you like what you have. Be aware that your painting will smell of coffee!
  2. Draw two squares for an exercise when first learning to use this medium. Decide which one will be for a layering with coffee and which one will be for water layering.
  3. Paint on the full space with coffee and let dry. The one square that is layered with coffee will be darker with each layer added while the square with water will become lighter. The sun is great for speeding up the drying time!
  4. The paintings from the ground coffee will have a textured look as the grounds will be picked up by the brush. This texture will be delicate as it is easy to brush off, which can take some color off. Ground coffee needs to be fresh when painting. You can reuse coffee grounds for painting but each use will result in a weaker color that is more diluted. Paintings with coffee grounds will be more free form and can lose some definition and/or color as it dries.
    – Instant coffee paintings will be smoother and easy to work with. Instant coffee paintings will acquire a shiny look the more layers you do. It is more durable than ground coffee as it behaves.
  5. Once you’re finished with your painting, it’s time to clean up! Thoroughly clean brushes, especially the ones with the coffee grounds in them as it gets caught in the tips. Have a dirty water cup for cleaning and a clean water cup for re-wetting the brushes. The paper towel is for cleaning the brush and picking coffee up from the painting if desired.

 

Want to download these directions? Click here for a handy PDF!

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Daily Discovery: Storytime in the Home – A Moon of My Own Paper Craft

Post written by Lea Mikkelsen, Early Childhood Coordinator.

Daily Discovery: Storytime in the Home – A Moon of My Own Paper Craft

Follow along with FCMoD’s live stream Storytime in the Home: A Moon of My Own. Then gather your supplies to make a beautiful nighttime scene!

Supplies:

  • Black, Blue, and White Construction paper
  • Glue stick
  • Black Crayon
  • Scissors

Instructions:

  1. Place all your supplies on a clear surface with plenty of room to work.
  2. Use your black crayon to draw a moon shape. What phase is your moon in? Is it a full moon, half moon, or crescent moon? Can you draw some craters?
  3. Glue your moon onto your blue construction paper.
  4. Cut out a nighttime scene with the black construction paper! Can you think of a time you played outside at night? What did you see? Buildings, trees, mountains? What will your nighttime scene be?
  5. Share your creations with us on social media using  #dailydiscovery or tagging us! We can’t wait to see the moon you made!

Want to download these directions? Click here for a handy PDF!

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Educational opportunities like this are supported in part by Buell Foundation. Their support helps make access to early childhood education at FCMoD possible for everyone in our community.

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Daily Discovery: Crazy Quilt Tie-Blanket

Post written by Morgan Wilson, Museum Assistant for Collections.

Daily Discovery: Crazy Quilt Tie-Blanket

What even is a crazy quilt? It is a pieced together blanket that is all about looking good and does not follow a pattern or have the quilting stitches joining its front to its back that define true quilts. Crazy quilts are often full of souvenir ribbons, fancy fabrics, and embroidered or painted pictures. We have several crazy quilts in our collections at FCMOD. Check them out to get inspiration for your own. Today, we will be making a tie-blanket crazy quilt. There is no sewing required! Don’t worry if you make a mistake, it will just add to the craziness of the quilt!

Supplies:

  • Fleece (2 yards total in at least 2 different colors but use as many as you like. Most fleece that you buy from a craft store will be 60 inches in width which is perfect for this project!)
  • Scissors
  • Tape Measure
  • Colored pencil or fabric marker

Instructions:

  1. Find a work surface to lay your fabric on.
  2. Use the tape measure and colored pencil to lightly sketch a 12 x 12-inch square on the corner of one piece of fabric.
  3. Cut out the square. You can use this first square as a template for the rest of them!
  4. Using your template, cut the rest of the fabric into 12 x 12-inch squares.
  5. Once you have all your squares cut out, take one square, your tape measure and pencil and mark every inch on each edge of the square.
  6. Make a 2-inch cut on each mark. This will create fringe around the square and cut off the corners!
  7. Repeat step 6 until all your squares have fringe.
  8. Take two squares that you want to tie together and line them up so that the tabs are lined up with each other.
  9. Double knot the tabs on either square together until you have 8 knots joining two squares together!
  10. Continue tying squares together lengthwise until you have 5 squares in a row. Make 6 rows of 5 squares.
  11. Now, join each row together width wise until you have a 5 x 6 square blanket –crazy!

Tips and Tricks:

  • You may knot the fringe on the edges of the blanket to give it a more finished look.
  • If your squares are not exactly even, that’s okay. As long as they all have an equal number of fringes it will come together just fine.
  • You can arrange the squares in any pattern you like since a crazy quilt has no pattern.

Image Credit: The Spruce Crafts

Want to download these directions? Click here for a handy PDF!

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Daily Discovery: Local Women’s History Coloring Pages

Post written by Lesley Struc, Curator of the Archive.

Daily Discovery: Local Women’s History Coloring Pages

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the passage of women’s suffrage in the United States, explore the stories and legacies of several local women, and add some color while you’re at it! Then, test your knowledge with the quiz below!

Supplies:

  • Coloring book pages, and the end of this document
  • Crayons, paints, whatever you want to use to add some color!

Instructions:

  1. Print out the coloring pages from this document.
  2. Learn about the history of some notable Fort Collins women as you color!

Want to download these directions? Click here for a handy PDF!

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Daily Discovery: Suffrage Flag Friendship Bracelet

Post written by Morgan Wilson, Museum Assistant for Collections.

Daily Discovery: Suffrage Flag Friendship Bracelet

Purple, white and gold striped flags were the symbol of the National Women’s Party of the US. During this craft, make your own string friendship bracelet inspired by the flag of the National Women’s Party!

Supplies:

  • Purple, yellow and white embroidery floss
  • Scissors
  • Tape

Instructions:

  1. Cut 3 pieces of each color of floss, making sure each one is about 3 feet long (you will have 9 strands total).
  2. Line up the pieces of floss and tie a knot to secure them together.
  3. Be sure to separate the colors how you want them to appear on the bracelet.
  4. Secure the bracelet with a piece of tape to a table (or clip it down to a hard surface with a clothes pin).
  5. Take the first piece of floss on the left and lay it over the adjacent piece, creating a “4”.
  6. Cross the string under and bring it through the loop. Pull it up to cinch it at the top.
  7. Continue with this piece, repeating steps 4 and 5 for each strand until the first strand is all the way on the right side.
  8. Repeat with all colors, always taking the piece on the far left and knotting it until it lays on the right side.
  9. Continue the pattern until the bracelet has reached your desired length.
  10. Tie a knot at the end and tie it on your wrist!

Tips and Tricks:

  • The bracelet will curl as you make it, but it should straighten out over time as your wear it!
  • If you want to work on your bracelet away from home, you can secure it to your shoe and work on it wherever you want!

Image Credit: Flagguys.com

Want to download these directions? Click here for a handy PDF!

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Daily Discovery: Optical Illusions & Color Vision

Post written by Hannah Curtis, Education Assistant.

Daily Discovery: Optical Illusions & Color Vision

Is your brain playing tricks on you? Optical Illusions can use color, light and patterns to create images that can be deceptive or misleading to our brains. The information gathered by the eye is processed by the brain, creating an interpretation or reality, and may not match the true image. Our brains are slow, well only by one-tenth of a second, but in that time it computes, translates, reacts and process information.

Perception refers to the interpretation of what we take in through our eyes. Optical illusions occur because our brain is trying to interpret what we see and make sense of the world around us. Optical illusions simply trick our brains into seeing things which may or may not be real.

See if your brain believes your eyes with some optical illusions below. Learn how they are perceived by your eyes and interpreted by your brain!

Face Recognition

From a young age, our brains are trained to recognize and remember faces. Infants smile and react when they see a face they recognize more than a strangers face. We are able to recognize friends and family in a crowded room, and identify the sex of an individual based on slight facial features. Our “face sense” ability relies on the neurons within the fusiform gyrus in the brain.  Injury to this area can cause face blindness which prevents an individual from recognizing close relatives, or even themselves in the mirror. Location of the Fusiform Gyrusin the Brain; Labroots.

Our brains are also tricked when two faces are displayed to us at the same time. Our eyes see two face shapes, but our brain struggles to perceive them separately and will morph them together. See for yourself with this celebrity face morph experiment.

Color Illusions

Our eyes do much more than observe our surroundings, they also allows us to see those surroundings in color! The photoreceptors, respond to light, dark and color wavelengths. The rods are sensitive to changes in light and dark environment and are used more often at night. Cones are sensitive to bright light color wavelengths and are used mainly during the day. There are three different types of cones which are receptive to red, green, and blue light. The colors we see are perceived when the cells within the cones fire together sending messages to the brain for interpretation.

Just like the muscles in our body, the cone receptors can become fatigued when you stare at a color for a long period of time. The cone becomes less sensitive to that color of light and when you look away other the colors opposite on the color wheel are what we briefly see.

On a contemporary color wheel, the colors opposite orange and green are red and blue, allowing you to see the flag in it’s red, white and blue fashion!

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Daily Discovery: Straw Rockets

Post written by Charlotte Conway, Public Programs Coordiantor. Activity adapted from NASA/JPL

Daily Discovery: Straw Rockets

Blasting off! Practice the engineering design process by creating your own soda straw rocket. Design, launch, and then modify features of your rocket just like engineers working on rockets today.

Rocket Design Background

Modern rocket design began near the beginning of the 20th century. While much has been learned and rockets have grown larger and more powerful, rocket designs are still improving. Engineers developing new rockets must control variables and consider failure points when improving rocket designs. By changing one variable at a time, engineers can determine if that change leads to an increase or decrease in performance.  They must also consider how their design might fail, and work to improve their design. These incremental changes allow engineers to improve rocket performance and increase the amount of mass they can lift into space.

Supplies:

  • Pencil
  • Scissors
  • Tape
  • Soda Straw (plastic or reusable)
  • Meter stick or meter measuring tape
  • Rocket template and data log (Printable PDF)

Instructions:

  1. Carefully cut out the large rectangle on the rocket template. This will be the body of the rocket. Wrap the rocket body around a pencil length-wise and tape it closed to form a tube.
  2. Carefully cut out the two fin units. Align the rectangle in the middle of the fin with the end of the rocket body, and tape it to the rocket body. Nothing should stick out past the bottom of the rocket body.
  3. Do the same thing for the other fin, but tape it on the other side of the pencil to make a “fin sandwich.”
  4. Bend the part of the fin that looks like a triangle 90 degrees so that each fin is at a right angle to its neighbor. Looking at the bottom of the rocket, the fins should look like a + .
  5. Twist and pinch the top of the rocket body around the tip of the pencil to create a “nose cone” for the rocket. Tape the nose cone to prevent air from escaping and to keep it from untwisting.
  6. Measure the cone from its base (right where it starts to narrow) to its tip, and record the length in your data log and the on the rocket itself. Once completed, it should be about 13 cm (or 5 in) tall.
  7. Remove the pencil and replace it with the soda straw.
  8. In your designated launch area, away from people and other hazards, blow into the straw to launch your rocket.
  9. Use a meter stick or measuring tape to measure the distance it travels. Record the distance of the launch in your data log.
  10. Now, try to improve your design! Make a new rocket by altering the template. Try different rocket lengths, fin shapes, or fin angles. Remember to only change one variable at a time to see how each rocket launch performs and compares to the original design. Repeat the steps above for every launch, record each design change, and rocket-flight distance in your data log.
  11. You can decorate your rocket for fun if you would like to as well!

Safety First: Launch in a place with a large open area. You may ask parent permission to move furniture to create space. Or, consider launching your rocket outside if that is an option for you.

 

Want to download these directions? Click here for a handy PDF!

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Educational opportunities like this are supported in part by Fort Fund.

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