Doll

We’ve got Spring! Actually, we seem to be getting near summer temps so these won’t last very long.

I am taking a class with Diane of Craftypod fame on how to run an online class. Now I have so many questions! Whenever I announce that I am going to run a class at my house, people pipe up and ask me to do an online class- that is why I am looking into the technicalities of it all.

Now that I am actually having to think about the specifics, I’d love some feedback. My confession is that I have only ever taken one online class and that was probably about 10 years ago. I can hardly even remember it!

What kind of class do people want? I can only really imagine (at this point) teaching the Tiny World Pattern. What would someone want to get out of an online class that would be so much better than just buying the pattern? Or should I be thinking of a completely different kind of class?

How long would a class like this go for? A week? When I teach it at my house, the class runs from 10 am to 4 pm and most people don’t finish. I know people probably don’t sit down for a whole day and go through an online class- or do they?

One of the fun things about having classes at my house is that I have all the materials and fun tools to play with. Are people going to feel comfortable collecting everything they need? Do most project-type classes have kits with the supplies?

On top of that, if you have taken craft project online classes, what do you like best about them? Why do they work for you? Should I go try out a few classes? If so, got any recommendations?

I’d love to hear your feedback! If I can get some ideas that will narrow things down, I might do a survey but at this point, I wouldn’t even know what questions to ask!

***UPDATE 11/18/2011-  I am happy to report that with the help of a friend we were able to connect with someone at Scotch and Soda who helped us come to a settlement that I am happy with. I am grateful that this was able to be resolved quickly and cleanly. Thank you for all your support.***

I got an email from Alisa at Ink Caravan this morning with a link to this-

When she looked at this fabric she thought, Mimi Kirchner. Well no, I did not design this fabric nor did I give permission to someone else to use my images. The drawings of the tattooed men heads seem to be taken directly from photos on my flickr stream. Like this one-

The other one is probably here. Maybe the designer thought if they flipped the image that would make it their original art? Honestly, what are people thinking? If someone looks at the artwork you are selling and says that looks like *insert other artist name here* did it, then you are probably copying/stealing.  Or at least not original. Also, knowing that said designer stole my designs, I assume that the rest of the images are traced off other artists’ photos online.

As I am writing this an email arrived (in reply to a cry of distress on Twitter) with more shirts. Oh, this is making me sad. Honestly, I am not sure I can bear to poke around and look for more.

I am very grateful for the eyes of the internet. Over the years, I’ve been asked if I worry about posting artwork on the internet- won’t your designs be copied? I always figured that no one would know what I did or who I am if I didn’t share. Also, if the art was no good, people wouldn’t copy. And, I have since learned, if you are known in the crafty/ design online community, when someone does steal, someone else will let me know. And thank you for that.

I have no idea what to do at this point. I guess I need to send them an email or something. Do I just take a deep breathe and let it go?

I am so excited about Abby‘s book, The Artful Bird! I feel that it is a highlight on her incredible growth curve in softie making since I first met her in 2005. As I wrote in that post, she was the first blog friend that I met in person. Here is her post about that first visit. Wow- what a long time ago. She has had 2 more babies since then, made enormous leaps in designing in fabric, has had numerous shows, and now a book- Go Abby!

I was thrilled when she asked me to be part of her blog book tour- a first for me! The book is gorgeous and I love the interviews with the other bird artists. The interviews and photos of 4 other artists, all working with bird imagery, make it clear how much style shines through each artists’ (including Abby) creations. I loved seeing them all.

And look- I made the Wren! He (?) now sits perched on the living room window, supervising all the goings-on at the bird feeder. I made him out of wool- of course.

My intern, Tori, worked on one with me. She put her wings on with a button which I thought looked great! Also, she made her beak with needle-felting.

My take-away from this book? It’s not for a beginner, but if you have some experience with sewing and and love all the detail work, you will have loads of fun making these birds. I could imagine hand-sewing a bird like this, especially if you used felt. I also think that you could take a basic pattern like this one that I did and be very creative with it and make it your own. There are many useful techniques to learn from Abby. This book will be placed on my shelf of books by my friends, and next time I see Abby I am going to get her to sign it for me. Thanks for letting me be part of your book tour Abby- I loved doing it!

I like to have a photo at the top of a post. So here is the man of the day, getting his hair. All pinned on and ready to applique.

One of the great things about blogging and twitter is that it gives me a place to dump some of the ideas, thoughts, questions, conversations, etc… all that talking going on in my head. Actually, the reason I listen to audiobooks and podcasts is because they block all the chatter. They somehow tie up the verbal part of my brain and leave me able to concentrate on my work. Except when a podcast talks about something that gets me so excited that it makes all the chatter even louder! That happened with a recent Radiolab titled, Words.

I was enjoying the podcast, in spite of the annoying sound effects added all over the production. One section was about Shakespeare and words. A line was quoted from his poem, The Rape of Lucrece, where a letter writer describes words (ideas?) like “a press of people at a door”. I couldn’t believe it- that is exactly how I have, for years, described my visual image of the doll ideas I have in my head. And I can guarantee you that I never read that poem (or any, I am reluctant to admit) from Shakespeare. Of course, my “people” are closer to the literal meaning!

Anyway. Funny to think about. When I first decided to start this blog, I couldn’t think of a name. That could have been the end of it right there. My wise husband told me that any name would do- just try out the blogging thing and see how it goes.  He wrote Doll in the title spot. Six and a half years later, that is what it is. But, because it had been a stumbling block, I sometime think of other names I could have used. An early alternative idea was Straw into Gold- since I was using so much reclaimed materials in my work. If I’d waited for that idea, I would have started about 1 1/2 years later then I did! Another, Playing God, probably would have seriously limited my readership by offending loads of people. When I heard that Shakespeare line, I thought that it would be a great blog name… A Press of People at a Door. Pretty good really. Another idea, also inspired by some audio I listened to this week- Diary of a Former Child Underachiever. That one made me laugh. It is hard to believe at this point in my life that that was the word that pretty much defined me in childhood. Yes, I think I outgrew it.

Okay, enough of the yakkity- yak.

It has been a crazy busy week. All kinds of things going on.

Today is the last day to enter the birthday giveaway. If you want to join in the fun, add your comment to the birthday post.

5 weeks until Renegade Chicago- Yikes! I am feeling the push. It is actually less then 5 weeks because I have to send out the work beforehand. This is my first travel-by-plane show. It will be interesting to see how it all goes. I am thinking a lot about the booth and how to set it up with the minimum of props.

I am going to be teaching in October. I will be doing a Tiny World class at my house on Saturday, Oct. 30. More info here. Email me if you’d like to join the fun. It looks like I will also be teaching a Fresh Fish class- more details on that coming soon.

And now a technical question- I KNOW that Bloglines is lame and all the cool kids are over on Google Reader, but, I started on Bloglines and moving everything seems like a big chore. I subscribe to several feeds for my own blog so that I can see how they look and when the new posts get published. About a month ago, one of my Doll feeds showed up with an exclamation point next to it. That one feed has stopped working- and of course, that is the feed with the most subscribers. Arg! I figured it would fix itself, but not so far. I checked out several other blogs in my list that also had the exclamation point- Yikes! Some of them hadn’t been working for many months! Does anybody know haw to fix this? It is making me sad.

Now, back to regularly scheduled programming… it turns out that mid-summer is a great time for thrifting after all. Well, this year it is anyway. I went to my favorite places on two Wednesdays in a row. I now have enough gorgeous wooliness to get me through the fall and beyond. I shouldn’t go back until January at the soonest. Right, shouldn’t, shouldn’t, shouldn’t.

And lastly, I am actually going to be participating in a few shows * in galleries*  this fall. WooHoo! More news on that soon, once I have some links for you.

The months ahead are beginning to look very busy. Full steam ahead!

Probably the best thing about having a blog is the people I have met because of it. Traveling is so much more fun when I meet up with people who actually live in the place I’m going to be. I was able to connect with 2 people in Paris.

Catherine invited me to her doll-making gathering. Her website is here.

The dollmakers meet at a store that repairs dolls, music boxes and mechanical toys and is part of the Le Viaduc des Arts (which is under the Promenade Plantee from the roofs post). It was a beautiful day and they were sitting out on the sidewalk in the sunshine, working on dolls. Wonderful!

She showed me many dolls she has made. The Purl girl in the photo above was made by her 12 yo daughter! And, aren’t these clothes pin dolls amazing? I love the ribbon joints.

Another day, I met up with Laure for lunch and a drive out of town to see her family’s country house. Paris was terribly hot and it was a treat to get out among fields and trees. The house and grounds were lovely.

A structure in the woods- a Folly maybe?

And inside the house- what a beautiful chandelier.

Old walls and the road.

I actually spent some time in the studio yesterday. Hopefully I will have some finished work to show by next week.

Do you know what day it is today? It is my BLOG BIRTHDAY! !6! Oh the places I’ve been, the people I’ve met, the friends I have made, um, the stats I have gotten totally obsessed with. Yes, six years. I won’t be linking back to early posts though. Somewhere along the way, during some computer or server change-over, the early years posts are a big mess so I try to ignore them.

In celebration of 6 years of blogging and launching the fish pattern out into the world- I hope it will be finished in the next few days- I’m having a giveaway. Pick a fish! Any fish!

My school of fish is growing even larger as I work on the pattern. The winner of the giveaway will get to choose whichever one they want before I list the rest in my Etsy shop. All you need to do is leave a comment of any kind on this post. The giveaway will close on Wednesday night 2/17 midnight est. Random number generator, announce on Thursday, you know the drill. Anyone can enter the give-away, but if you win and are not in the US, I will need to ask for a contribution towards shipping which might be around $32.

Here is my desk now, as I work on the pattern-

Still taking Photoshop baby-steps.

Other news of the week- the second meet-up was just as fun as the first. There were dire predictions of snow, but none materialized. There were 2 new people- Hi Linda and Trisha! As always, all are welcome- 2nd Wed, Starbucks, Davis Sq. Somerville, 10am. Kerry’s report here.

I have been thinking for several days about how to approach my review-of-the-year posts. 2009 has been a very strange year. Over here in blogland, things have been mostly fantastic. But, the blog is sort of a Christmas letter version of my life. In my “real” life,  there have been challenges, anxiety, loss of some people I care about- my view of how my own future is likely to play out has changed dramatically this year. I am happy to see 2009 over. I have hopes for a new year- why does a new calendar year hold so much optimism? Anyway, here we focus on my artwork.

I started out 2009 thinking I would make it a year of challenges- every month I would identify something I’d like to accomplish but was difficult for me.

January- make a pattern. When PurlBee asked me in the fall of 2008 if I would make a pattern out of their felt, I said yes- my first challenge!  I worked on it in January and delivered it as part of a fun trip to NYC.

February- teach a class. I taught the tiny world class at the end of February- it was great fun.

March was suppose to be the month to get back to work on the studio room… well, I did get back to work on it for a while… but, got totally off track when I got a contacted by Etsy about doing the Handmade Portrait. After that, all my energy went into cleaning up the house and studio. Luckily I only had about a weeks notice- otherwise I would have made myself crazy! It was a while before I got back to work on the room again.

April was probably the last month I consciously thought about the challenges. I said yes to participating in this print show- yep, that was a challenge (and a distraction). And I got to work writing my first pattern for sale- the tiny world pattern. It felt doable after I saw what a great job PurlBee had done, writing up the directions and photographing the steps for my doll pattern. I used it as inspiration and a guide.

In May, I launched the pattern- it felt HUGE! Apparently I spent June making dolls. Funny thing about that!

July was when I took a class and the first steps into Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator. Talk about getting out of my comfort zone- that was 30 hours of stress. But, it turned out I absorbed more then I thought when I went back to it in November to work on another pattern. I also managed to get the studio room to a point where I could start the move-in process.

August- So busy! 1. All my kids were home for a few days! 2. I worked on settling into the new room, then figured that I really needed to get back to work and the mess would settle out in time… still working on that. 3. I taught another Tiny world class. 4. My camera broke. 5. And the Handmade Portrait came out. 6. Peter left for college and we became “empty-nesters”.

September was a trip to South Carolina and working to settle into the studio. October, another Tiny World class and some tattooed ladies. Also, I started working on a new pattern- a kitty. I got the pattern finished in November- and my head swelled up to the size of a pumpkin because I was so proud of myself for managing to get it done using Photoshop and InDesign- with a little help from Kerry! And December was, you know, December. Crazy month of selling and trying to fit in family and friend obligations.

The biggest challenge always seems to be how to make a reasonable living doing what I love. Because this is my job. I don’t mind working really hard but I don’t want to burn out. I am always looking for ways that I can generate income that doesn’t mean making more dolls- like the teaching, the patterns, cards, etc. We’ll see what 2010 brings.

Tomorrow I will be doing a wrap-up of the dolls and tiny worlds of 2009. I always love seeing everything all together. Happy New Years Eve!

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

3

Timestamp: 2009-08-06 16:09:45 UTC

*** Drumroll please***

Sister Diane!

If people are interested, I can check into how much printing would cost and then get some more of these into my Etsy shop. Would people rather have an academic year calendar or a 2010 year calendar?

This baby is the same color palette as this garden lady. I love, love, LOVE these colors together!

Okay, sorry about that. Back to the topic at hand.

Did you know that Firefox can make all the colors in your photos look terrible? I could not figure out what was wrong- my photos looked fine on Iphoto and totally washed out when I put them on my blog or flickr. When I whined loudly enough about it, my sweetie figured out the the problem- check it out.