Spinning Back to Summer

This coming Saturday and Monday, Castle in the Air is hosting two day-long sold-out classes in the marvelous art of the paper pinwheel, taught by John McRae. John was inspired to create a small collection of whirligigs after a visit to Ulla Milbrath's house, where he saw an antique lithograph of a pinwheel vendor. At the time the picture of this merchant was drawn, the spinning paper contraptions were popular children's toys. The word "whirligig" is much older though, coming from the verb "to hurl," and in the 15th century was used to describe a way of vomiting!

John's pinwheels were part of our window display all summer, and people came into the store to admire and play with them. Summer has been over for weeks, but a hot day like this is enough to distract us from Christmas preparation and take us all back to the dog days.