Monthly Archives: July 2011

soldier, sailor and commissions

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This is the secret project that I was working on a month ago. Secret because it is a gift for someone.

It was a commission. You may or may not know that I have a policy of not taking commissions. I feel like I’ve talked about it regularly, but when I searched the blog, this was the only post I could find. It isn’t recent but still pretty accurate. These days my excuse for not doing commission work is that I am not getting paid enough to not being doing just exactly what I feel like. But, sometimes someone asks me if I’d be willing to do something that I do feel like doing. Something that tickles my imagination. When I got an email from someone asking me if I would interpret a Staffordshire figurine that a friend owns, my first thought was no… until I scrolled down and saw the photo.

How could I say no? I had fallen in love at first sight!

I used my tattooed man pattern but had to do quite a bit of problem solving to make the coats and hats. It was lots of fun and I love how they turned out.

So much white was a challenge. I decided to use a variety of slightly textured whites (twill) to give more visual interest.

I love all the blues here-

and I used every last little bit of this striped fabric to make his hair and beard.

I wanted the hats to be removable so I found some matching pins to hold them in place.

The coat is a piece of vintage twill. I’ve seen antique children’s coats made of this fabric.

These are Crimean War veterans- a soldier and a sailor. The figurines must have been a popular collectible at the time of the Crimean War because there seems to be a wide range of styles. Some examples here.

And here is my husbands arm to show scale-

They are on their way to their new home. I had a hard time parting with them!

 

corset

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Chugging along slowly here. I finished this lady yesterday. I love how her breasts and corset work with the stripes. (that line will probably get me some disappointed visitors from google search!)

I’ve recently finished reading The Corset, by Valerie Steele- inspired by the Alexander McQueen show. It is a very interesting book. I thought I’d just skim it and look at the photos, but I got sucked in and read all about the history of women shaping underwear. Yes, very interesting! And, by the way, this is not an accurate corset of any kind!

We have a big patch of Queen Annes Lace next to the driveway. Looking at it takes me back to my childhood. I remember being curious about why some of the flowers have a black dot in the center. The mysteries of nature.

one fish, two fish

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6 fish-

I needed some new fish. Between sewing fish faces, I’ve been sewing breasts onto lady dolls. I’ve got the air conditioner installed but I need a really good audiobook to listen to. I’m still feeling like I’m running on slow motion here.

a pirate

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I finished him. It turns out he is a pirate. I think it is the boots.

He is a patriotic pirate. He has Ben Franklin on his back and George Washington on his arm.

I used a blue variegated floss for his eyes so they are slightly different colors.

Isn’t this perfect for his hair?

I found this little buckle in my stash. Perfect.

Things don’t always go smoothly when I’m putting the dolls together. I cut this tattooed man out last spring and sewed him up at the end of May. Now I stuffed the body and did the face embroidery. I sewed the fingers and then stuffed the arms. I was about to sew the arms on when I realized they not the same size. At all. I put everything aside and went to Vermont.

Today I unstuffed both arms, back to the hands. Then I carefully retraced the pattern onto the bigger arm. There was a bit of fiddling on both, sewing, taking out, resewing. Fixing mistakes often takes much longer than you’d ever expect. And of course I don’t have enough fabric to just make new ones.

But, he made it through the reconstructive surgery. He did not end up in the pile of not-sure-how-to-fix problem dolls. Phew!

 

 

visit to the Shelburne Museum

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I had SO MUCH fun- what a glorious day! My visit to the Shelburne was wonderful. To start, the weather was perfect- mid-70′s, clear, no humidity, light breeze. Amazing. There is tons to see so I guess I will just have to go back. I tried to see the things I knew I would be most interested in and along the way I also saw some other treasures that weren’t on the list.

My friend and I started at the top on the hill and headed down the path that lead us into the carousel exhibit. The Round House building  also held a 3-d paper exhibit. The artwork of Jared Schorr caught my attention- enough that when I got home, I checked out a whole lot more of it on his website.

Next, we went to the Circus Building. Learning about the circus collection is what reminded me last winter that I really needed to visit. I have known about the Shelburne for years, especially their toy and folk art collection and I knew I wanted to go “some day”. But, it is far enough away (4+ hrs driving) that it is easy to forget about. I am so glad that I made myself leave the studio and make the trek.

They have an amazing collection of posters. Here is my friend standing next to one so you can see the scale. I love these giraffe. I might have to spend some time thinking giraffe thoughts. Most of the exhibits had glass in front so please forgive the glares and reflections.

This was my favorite exhibit in the circus collection- an enormous circus “toy”. One man (Edgar Decker Kirk) worked for 40 years, first for his children and later for the neighborhood kids. I can totally relate to getting so immersed in a project. It would be fun to examine each piece close up- there are so many details.

After the circus, we explored needle arts. Amazing quilts, samplers, embroidery, clothing. This is a fantastic collection for anyone interested in fiber arts.

I fell in love with the Helen Bruce dioramas and am grateful that (no flash) photography was allowed. I am thrilled that my photos actually came out so well considering how little light there was. Unfortunately there didn’t seem to be any postcards or books with photos so I’m glad I’ve got a record. This photo has my hand for scale. (More photos on flickr)

And our last stop was the folk art collection. Again, so much inspiration in this collection. And, I loved the bright colored rooms that the artwork is displayed in.

I have added a lot more photos to Flickr. I would highly recommend a visit to this wonderful museum. I am only showing what I saw and we were at the museum from 10:30 until 5. There is so much more as you can see if you check out their website. I did some other things on my trip, but I’ll save that for another day.

 

feeling summery

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and not much is happening around here! Things are going on in my life- they just aren’t showing up here.  I’ve been doing boring projects like cleaning and weeding, projects that I forgot to photograph before I sent them out- sleeves for some computers, and secret-for-now projects- gift type things.

The garden is looking amazing. So many colors!

Lavender-

Poppy season!

The crocosmia are just starting.

Coreopsis “moonbeam”

and Butterfly weed.

Daylilies-

And in the back, my favorite combination. Blue lace-cap Hydrangea and anything.

And an oakleaf hydrangea.

My desk is not completely bare of dolls. Now that I finished the *secret project* (I’ll tell later), I pulled out some partially finished dolls from before Brooklyn and I’m giving them faces, and hair. And life.

Speaking of Brooklyn, I will be going to Renegade Chicago in September- hope to see you there!

Okay, what else? I’ve been going through my scrap box, thinking quilt thoughts. We’ll see if anything materializes. Tomorrow I am driving up to Vermont for a few days. I am going to visit the Shelburne Museum. It looks like there is a lot of interesting goodies there- I’ll give the report when I get back. I think that’s it for now. Hope you had a great long week-end (in the US). The Boston fireworks were amazing!