Doll

I am hoping to have 6 done by Monday and then post them all on Etsy.  Here they are, in progress, this morning.

I got one finished today-

I thought I’d ruined him with the acrylic wash, but I love how he turned out.

Vintage bias tape, rick rack and snap belt-

Back view-

I finished him at about 5:30 pm and then took him outside to photograph.  The light was just right and I got lots of photos that I really liked- not the usual situation- hurray!

I didn’t realize how funny the pointing finger looked until I was working on the photos!

I love this toile.  Before dyeing, it is  brown on cream.  I had originally rejected it because of the scale and the brown print.  Now I think it’s perfect!

Check out this vintage Doll Man comic- so funny!

My son and I will be in Portland, Oregon for a few days- arriving mid-day Sunday 4/27 and leaving again on Wednesday, 4/30.  I know, very short visit, very long plane ride.  We will be visiting PNCA and I would love to meet up with some friendly folks out there. Leave a comment or email me at mimik(at)pobox(dot)com, and we can make some plans!   Otherwise, recommendations for totally amazing, not to be missed, fun places to go, eat, shop, etc. would also be appreciated.

starting now.  Getting going on these has not been a smooth process.  First, I misplaced some of the toile that I’d bought especially… well I did finally find it.  Isn’t it great?  The Hawaiian theme?

And I’ve been having trouble dyeing flesh tones that I like- I am no expert with the dyes.  As a result, it is difficult to reproduce colors that I’ve been satisfied with before. (Reminder to self- take more notes!)  Also, all the scrap toiles I’ve been using take the dye differently.  Arg.  I have a crafting mantra- limit your variables… that’s the problem here- too many variables.

So- here is the first to be finished-  on the left.  I looked and thought and brought him to show off at doll club, but his skin was just too, too pink for me.  I HAD to change it, but was afraid I’d ruin him…  in the end, I knew I had to do something.  I mixed up a wash of Burnt Umber acrylic paint and brushed it over him to tone down the color.  Thank Goodness, he survived the operation!  Phew!  So, now we present Mr. Tattoo Man #1 in the next series!

I’m not sure you can even tell from the photos, but trust me, it’s better.

I sewed up 4 dolls.  One, I managed to spill ink on- ink that does not come out …  I told you I was having a rocky time with these.  I have another one finished which I will post later.  One more that I decided needed a color wash.  We will see if he survives his treatment.

My plan is that when I have 5 or so finished, I will put them into my Etsy shop in a bunch.  I will post and notify people who have written to me, when that will happen.

these photos are for the family who know where this is-

That’s the roof of the gazebo.   And the island is back to the way it was when I first saw it.  I wonder if the beavers are still in the lodge on the right.

Pieces of the gazebo are now part of the beaver dam-

On the other side of the street, the water is really low-

Lots of water coming through the culvert though- we were surprised the beavers weren’t working on the dam.  We didn’t see any sign of freshly cut wood.

Ben and I went on a daytrip to Logee’s yesterday- so much inspiration!

I love this rust and green slime covered crank-

and this is the ceiling in the bathroom! I couldn’t help myself, I HAD to take a photo!

I made a set over at Flickr with full size images from our visit.

Dolls in progress-

and the first flower pictures of the year-

hellebore-

and crocus-

and then my sister Tina came for a visit. We were suppose to work on sorting and clearing more of the papers and fabric I have in my house from our parents.

She brought up a carload (minivan) of fabric (hmm, great idea?)- fabric that my mom had insisted she take because they were “her colors”, even though she knew she would never use them. My sister had always planned on getting them to me, but I had forgotten all about them.
She stopped to visit her daughter who is an Interior Architect. Laurel threw a few bolts of designer fabric into the car.

Next, Tina spent some time with my brother and sister-in-law. Diane looked at the car and decided she had some fabric that my mom had given her over the years that she was never going to use- another load into the car. I am surprised the car made it up to Boston!

After sorting through the fabric I had already decided to get rid of and everything Tina had brought, here is a photo of the back of the car before we drove down to the School of Fashion Design of Boston to make our donation.

I am not sure that I ended up with less fabric. Here are some highlights-

Liberty and liberty type cottons-

flowers on linen and so sweet bunnies-

I think I bought that orange when I was in high school! And some great green tones-

This bird fabric is interesting- I don’t like the colors, but it is a design that looks so modern. So, I kept it… even though I don’t actually like it… hmm…

There is tons more, including 2 different colors of green coat cashmere- swoon! Now I need to figure out how to store the new stuff. And, we never got to much of the papers… I guess you’ll have to come back soon, Tina!
There has been a small amount of forward progress on dolls-

lots of dye work-

Hopefully I will have some finished work this coming week.

some more things I’ve been doing which have not yet lead to making finished dolls.

I spent half a day at CraftBoston. I saw some great work, but also a lot of high-end and expensive craft that looked like a lot of other expensive and high-end craft I’ve seen. And I saw people I knew that I hadn’t seen in 20 years, and people I’ve become friends with in the last year, and in the middle of it all, got a phone call from the daughter with some fantastic job/school news. It was a a great day!

Here are some links for the things I liked the most-

Sarmite Wearable Art- incredible coats

Valerie Bunnell- figurative art

Ananda Khalsa- jewellery

Insect Lab- bugs

Sheilagh Flynn- pottery

Wendy Ellertson- fantasy figures

I also spent a while talking to a very nice woman in a booth that was showing textile artists work from the Wales, UK. Amazing work, but I don’t seem to have a link- bummer- here.

definition- a turning aside (of your course or attention or concern)

That’s what happened to me, right after I finished Night Lady. I had the doll that became Nature lady cut out and the machine stitching done. It was time to stuff, construct and embroider. Instead I started thinking about the next project in the line- more tattooed men. I needed to gather the toile and dye it to flesh tones. I thought I would do that while working on the nature lady doll. yeah…

What happened was that I couldn’t find the scrap toile I bought on Ebay in January. It turns out to be difficult to find toile that works well- I need blue or black printed on white or cream, the images need to be clear, the scale has to be right. I somehow totally lucked out when I bought some scraps on Etsy last summer that I used on this guy. So, after looking in the obvious places, I ended up pulling everything in my studio apart, going through all the bins of fabric in the studio and then the back storage. That lead to sorting through papers, clearing out and reorganizing a bookcase, listing books to sell on Amazon (I call that as “un-buying”), packing up and shipping the 7 books I’ve sold so far (!), thorough vacuuming, etc., etc.! I did finally find the fabric, folded inside some wool fabric that was ready for dyeing. I didn’t find it until I’d given up and decided to dye the wool and so the bag got emptied and the fabric sorted. Oh well, it most certainly needed to get done.

I “processed” some recyclables- un-constructed, washed, bagged-

I pulled out all the striped fabrics that will be needed for the tattoo guys-

I did some more dye testing on various wools-

And finally- the toiles and other “soon to be tattooed people” fabrics.

And then I finished the nature lady.