Doll

the owl pattern and getting the studio picked up. Both are going slowly.

There are blizzard warnings in the neighborhood so this months’ Crafty Biz meet-up is postponed until next Wednesday (1/19). Email me if you want details.

*blog heads-up* I am going to have a Martin Luther King Day sale- I will be marking down some of the things in my Etsy shop that have been there too long. I have some older pieces that I’d like to sell also and will either put them here in the blog or list them on Etsy. The sale will start on Thursday morning and run through the long week-end.

And, I’m heading back up to Portland (ME) next weekend to deliver P back to school and eat some excellent food. I’m always open to suggestions!

This is one of those weeks where there is a lot going on and not much gets finished in my studio. I’ve got things started- things that I hope will move forward with short periods of focus. There are 9 babies started-

After I’d cut them out and sewed them up, I realized that I only had one roll of wool stuffing left (2 1/2 lbs). Uh-oh! I had to call up and order more stuffing, first thing on Monday morning.

And,  a pile of fish. My idea was to sew them together and then I could trim them, turn them and stuff them as I sit around with family over the next week or so. My daughter has arrived today and as of this evening, I have them trimmed and turned.

So, between the shopping, the cleaning, the cooking, the extra people in the house, I am hoping to get a little bit of work done and not feel too crazy by next Monday.

Honestly, I am not sure why it has taken so long to sink in, but YIKES! I need to get some serious work done for my holiday season sales. It is probably noticing that the calendar now says November that did it. So, I am going to put aside any thoughts of finishing up a pattern for the owl or anything else right now. I’m sorry to disappoint, but I just haven’t been able to concentrate on it. And now it is November. I will go back to it when things settle down- probably in January.

I am putting together a fantasy trip in my head. Go to San Francisco next summer for the Renegade Craft Market and maybe teach a class while I am out there. Wouldn’t that be fun? Hmm, how can I make that happen? I am open to any ideas. My SIL lives in Santa Cruz and visiting there would be part of this fantasy.

I am suffering a tea cup shortage; especially ones suitable for snow scenes. You just can’t put a snow scene in a flowered cup. I’m going to have to go out hunting. And toile for my tattooed people. Finding the right fabric is a real challenge. The challenges and hardships of my art- yup!

And, btw, I should be getting those latest tiny worlds up on Etsy this weekend.

I am getting prepared for my tiny world class on Saturday-

and working on the owl pattern. It is not coming together as straightforwardly as I had hoped. Things that work well when I am in my groove, are now not working at all. I’ve got to step back and rethink how some of it goes together.

I’ve been cleaning the house because of family visitors and the class on Saturday. Yes. it really needs to be done, every once in a while! Anyway, I love the little messages I find on the refrigerator door. I assume, left by one of my kids.

Yesterday morning-

I feel like I am running in place here- lots of things started and I am not sure what direction to go in. I am working on the Luv-able and Hug-able pieces in a very different way then usual, since I am making one of this and one of that- not my usual practice. I should be back on track soon though. And back to the pattern. Well, as soon as I’ve gotten over this bad cold. Then I’ll see if I can figure out how to use the new scanner.

Here is my desk today. I am making a kitty with a skirt made of the vintage fabric in the bottom photo.

Amazing, isn’t it!

I have one piece almost finished but with my head feeling all fogged in, I can’t decide if she is good yet. I might have to change her face.

This was my carry along project when I went to Chicago for Renegade Craft Market. You know, in case I got bored. HA HA! Yes. The poor little thing has been sitting in a ziplock bag for more then a month now. Finally, finished.

The fabrics are mostly heathery and soft. The bird is a blue-grey piece of cashmere fabric that I dyed a while back.

I got the owls back from the Hoot! Show at the Renegade Spotlight Gallery and they are now in my Etsy Shop.  And yes, I am working on a pattern. No promises for how long though… since I am afraid to open Photoshop and InDesign… once I get over that hurdle, things might proceed more rapidly.

beards! Trying out different shapes and colors. Hopefully there will be a group to show by the end of the week.

And now for a bit of a rant. I went to the Charles LeDray exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art this morning. The artwork was fascinating, but I found the museum experience annoying. I was actually feeling angry by the time I left and had to analyze why. I have had a number of experiences where the way the show is set up is so distracting to me, trying to figure out what someone was thinking when they set it up, that I have a hard time focusing on the artwork. It seems that chronological order is out of fashion as a way to organize a show- I guess I can understand that if there seems to be some other theory, but it means that the fun of seeing how an artist grows and builds upon what they’ve done before is difficult or impossible. Then there is the lighting. Yes, light can damage artwork, but keeping the lights so dim that the viewer is straining to see the artwork seems crazy. Lastly, what is up with placing the artwork so that it is too far away to really look at. One of the pieces in the show was called Village People and was comprised of 37 hats. They were hung high on the wall- maybe 8 ft above the ground? I certainly could not see any of the detail work, and this is an artist where the detail work is everything. Sigh. I have been to several shows in the last few years where I had the exact same complaints- even worse was the Joseph Cornell show in Salem. Doesn’t make me want to rush back to an art museum any time soon. The thing is, I really liked the artwork. I was trying to imagine what venue would have been perfect to see it in. I guess that seeing it in the artist’s space would be the most fun and illuminating for me.

and a few other things.

I got an idea that if I raised the bottom shelf about 4 inches, I could actually fit another row of bins on the floor. Once it had occurred to me, it was the itch that had to be scratched.

Yikes- easier thought then done. Firstly, moving the individual shelves on these metal wire shelf units is no easy task- especially alone. And, I think it hadn’t really sunk in, how much stuff I have on that thing. Oh well, it was time to take everything off and go through it all anyway.

Here we are, shelves rearranged and bins starting to go back on.

I have been going back and forth- sorting and putting away until I am bored and then over to hand-sewing the edge binding on the quilt. Both are moving forward! Here is how things look this evening-

I just have a little left to go on the binding. Both desks are beginning to reappear. I have found many, many partially finished dolls- certainly more then I remember having. I’ve re-found fabric that I now have the perfect use for. Still a ways to go on the cleaning but I have made great progress.

Also, I took my Bernina 930 in for a spa treatment-  you know, a tune-up, and am using my Bernina Nova. What a great little machine it is. And speaking of machines… my son wants a sewing machine. I have one that I thought about giving him, but I have heard many tales of woe about shipping sewing machines- they just don’t like it. He lives in the Minneapolis area. Does anyone have suggestions for a place that sells good used sewing machines in the Twin Cities? I saw a perfect Bernette when I took my machine in today and would have loved to get that for him- but of course I would still have the shipping problem. Thanks for any help!

one more thing- Classes in October. I will be teaching my Fresh Fish during this Art Weekend that looks like so much fun! It would be great if you could join in the fun! Also, Tiny World Pincushion on Oct. 30  at my house- there is still space if you are interested. Check out the class link for details.

I pieced the top in January. Fast forward to April, when I pieced a back and basted it together with the batting.  Now it is September!

I have quilted it. Yes- I was very nervous. I did not want to do that thread knot quilting method- (whatever the real name is, I don’t know) like I did on this one. I knew I did not want to hand-quilt another full size quilt. I wanted to finish this before  another 20 years had elapsed. And yes, I could have sent it out, but really, I am too cheap. And, I wondered if I would be able to let it go enough to accept what someone else did with the quilting. So what method did I use? I cut it into pieces that I could manage with my sewing machine, quilted them, and have sewn it back together. That took a lot of nerve and I’ve been talking myself into it for the past 5 months!

Here it is, in 4 pieces. Two pieces that are the middle section and two pieces that are the sides.

I slit the seams on the front, but had to cut through the fabric on the back. And, I pretty much had to rearrange my whole studio. That wasn’t a bad thing though- one of my post-Renegade Market resolutions was that I needed to do a major clean in there. In the above photo, all the pieces are already quilted and I am ready to start the sew them back together process.

Here, I am sewing the 2 middle pieces together. My plastic folding table (behind my machine in this pic) proved to be very useful. I move it to wherever I need some quilt weight-bearing.

Now the table is on the other side of the machine. I am getting ready to sew the backing together along the cut line. Yes, I lost about 1 inch in total quilt size for each of the cuts.

Here is stitching the backing together. I have pinned back the batting and the top fabric.

I did the top finishing seam by overlapping the pieces and carefully sewing down, as close to the edge as possible. My walking foot was invaluable. I could never have done this project without it. I know this because I started without it- since I don’t do much quilting, I don’t even think about it. So, I started and was unhappy and frustrated with the results I was getting- within about 3 minutes. Queue lightbulb over my head!

Here we are, all sewed back together and ready to trim off the excess batting and even out the edges.

Now, on to the finish. And here I want to mention the power of stopping a project when you are tired. Last night I got the quilt trimmed, pulled out my bins of fabric with something in mind for the edging. I found it, cut out 30 feet of bias strips, sewed them together and ironed them. Then I went to bed. At some point in the early morning I got the message (weird, huh?) that I had made a very off choice. All wrong. This morning, back to the bins with a clearer vision. I am back on track and have spent the morning moving forward. Hurray!

drumroll please… random number generator picks #53-

Liz Noonan!

Thanks to everyone who joined in to wish me a Happy Birthday! It was wonderful!

Coming next from the studio-

There are 15 men dolls, cut out and stitched together, hanging from my rack. That is what Sage (intern) and I did last week. Next comes clipping, trimming, turning and stuffing. I am hoping to have about 4 done for Chicago. I am thinking ahead for the fall already- stocking up. Before I continue with them though, I need to get a few Tiny Worlds finished. I promised someone when it seemed like loads of time and now I have a deadline looming.

And the Fresh Fish class I mentioned in the last post? Here! It looks like a fantastic weekend of fun!