Doll

This is what I was talking about here- the last paragraph about doing sets. Ten postcards, house with window, a face in the window. The same, but all different. This way works better for me, I think.

I really need to find the manual for my camera and figure out how to adjust the setting so that the night postcards will not come out over-exposed. I hate seeing the rich colors and face details wash out… but I have an overwhelming need to post them anyway!

has anyone else ordered any of these cards from Moo? I ordered up my free ones, then thought, What the heck, and ordered up another 100. If anyone wants to trade, send me an email or a comment. I won’t have them for another week or so, but figured I’d post about it before the free offer expired.

Boyfriend 5-

I am pretty sure the wool fabric for the suit came from Abby. So beautiful to work with.

Such a sweet face, and soft too- it’s cashmere.

I have listed the available postcards at my Etsy shop. I am back to work on the postcards again- they are my current creative itch.

I plan on putting the boyfriends into the shop sometime in the next few days. I will post here when I get to it.

Here is the whole gang lined up-

and here is boyfriend #4-

I had a terrible time trying to get a decent picture with the colors even remotely accurate- I ended up using my Ott light in my studio. The red background is my chair. Still, things are a bit washed out.

His expression looks so sincere to me.

Next in line- this is getting to be like The Dating Game!

I added ears to make the face look less mask-like-

hmm, my numbering system is getting away from me. As I worked on the last batch of postcards, I was also thinking about and starting these boyfriend dolls-

this is the first of the 4 to get done-

I tried a different way to make his face - I’m not sure if it looks too much like a mask? Is it weird looking? I made a flesh colored head and then added the hair and face after. In the earlier men, I made a hair colored head and sewed on a face.

detail of flowers and candy box-

The beige check is recycled cashmere from a poncho (actually sort of a short cape) of my mom’s. She made one for me too- it was brown and white checks. I wore it in Junior High School. I still have it up in the attic somewhere- it has buttons with horses on them- I loved that when I was a kid.

and here are some pics of the others in progress-

I will put them up in my etsy shop later- I am still thinking about/working with them now.

this one is washed out- my camera would not cooperate.

so here is a close-up. You can sort of see the stitching on the moon.

I’ve got some more Boyfriend dolls in the works. And I want to do more of these postcards- figure out how I want to approach doing them. I usually don’t work on two separate ideas at the same time, but somehow both of these projects have got my focus right now.

I’ve finished 4 so far- 2 trees

and 2 topiary

I have some problems with the stitching puckering the fabric- sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t-

this is what I am using inside these postcards. It is great- very firm and iron-on adhesive on both sides.

I should do sets of these cards- 10 (or some other random number) of each design at a time. Then I could concentrate on color, stitching and fabric work instead of trying to make each one completely different. As I was making such a big mess the other day, I was thinking that I was approaching this project all wrong. Somehow I was trying to start from a detail (my little sketches) and work out instead of having an image/ composition that I would be working toward.

this is to show Carley-

oh those awful hippie colors!

I am working on postcards now. But there has been so many steps between the intention and the end product! I spent a lot of last weekend, cleaning up in my studio. A friend was suppose to come for a visit and I realized it was so bad that 2 people could hardly fit in the room together, let alone actually sit down and visit. So- step one, find the floor-

well, you can see I’ve already started to lay out new projects in that picture.
Step 2- cut out the sketches from my fabric sketchbook. I washed them because I used a water soluble chalk pencil on some of them. Here they are, drying on the edge of the bathtub-

Oh No! Now the floor is completely covered again!

I worked on the floor for a day- boy, was I sorry though. My back was killing me by evening. The next morning I cleared off a table (i.e. piled everything up on top of any other clear surface) and layed the project out so that I could sit at my chair and also have decent light.

ah, much better. And here we are today-

the floor is not too bad- at least I can move around and find stuff… Hopefully I’ll be able to show some finished postcards in the next few days.

One of the people in my doll club, brought this book, Kokoro no Te by Kumiko Sudo, to show us. I ended up buying myself a copy- it is fantastic! It has some inspired sewing kits- I might have to try making one, instead of just admiring the beautiful photos.