Category Archives: blogging

august updates

Posted on by

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!

connections

Posted on by

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.

Hey! It’s a Giveaway!

Posted on by

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.

thinking about 2009

Posted on by

window

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!

and the winner is…

Posted on by

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?

garden baby

Posted on by

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.

more reportage…

Posted on by

Last Friday, my Boston Etsy street team- Boston Handmade, had a meet-up with Maria Thomas, the new CEO of Etsy.

Here is my photo of the event-

There are much better photos and a great recap here on the BH blog. It was so great to meet her- we all came away feeling that Etsy is heading in the right direction with a thoughtful and intellegent leader.

And there is more-

You know I love blogging. I’ve been doing it for 5 years now and it feeds something in me. There are lots of reasons to blog and lots of great things that come as a result… but I have to admit- presents in the mail can not be beat! What is better then getting an email saying “I found something I knew you would love” from someone you have never met in real life (see related story here!). This came in the mail for me last week-

Thanks Mary! You were right- I love it all!

There are various side benefits to scheduling a workshop/class at my house. It is like having your mother-in-law come to stay. The house gets cleaned up, projects get done. When I decided to do the workshop, I used it as an incentive to move forward on a stalled house project- the bedroom that will be my new studio some day. Yes, a room that actually has heat! Anyway, the room has been in limbo for … I’m too embarassed to tell you how many years. Various life events happened after I got started on it and then everytime I thought about getting back to work, I felt totally overwhelmed. Well, I have made great leaps forward.

It is not done, but it all seems doable at this point. Maybe I will be working in there by next winter. I am not going to go overboard with unrealistic expectations!

Cleaning up meant collecting things to go to the Salvation Army. You see, I have to restain myself from going- my rule is, I have to donate a bag if I want to go shopping. So, on Friday, as I was driving down to the meeting with Maria Thomas, I stopped by to drop off my bag and take a quick look.  ooo, all knits, 3 for $1. I spent $3 and came home with another load of cashmere, angora and wool. Yum!

update on nothing in particular

Posted on by

things I meant to do…

2/13 was my 5 year blog birthday- amazing. I meant to do a blog facelift- didn’t happen. I meant to do a give-away- didn’t happen. Hopefully both WILL happen in the next few weeks.

And I meant to wish everybody a very happy Valentines Day.

I seem to be doing more socializing then usual and going to too many meetings. It is hard for me to get into my work when there is so much other stuff going on. I have a pile of dolls started and have gotten bogged down, trying to get one finished. Hopefully I’ll have something to show very soon.

Today I had a meet-up with Tracey and Melissa. We had lunch and then went on a little photo walk. Fun! This fence always makes me think of Melissa- rust, swirls- and I felt like I had to show it to her. Just one of those crazy blog meet-ups when you know all kinds of odd tidbits about a person. Anyway, we all had fun taking some photos.

starting the new year right

Posted on by

2009 isn’t even one week old yet, but so far it’s a good one! On Sunday I invited Tracey over for a studio visit. She had commented on my blog a few times and I knew she lived near me. We got into an email conversation and I knew we had to get together. We did that wonderful blog friend thing where the conversation starts where so many other conversations would end. So much is a given when talking to another art/craft blogger- like how great the online community is and how clueless so many other people are about why we do it! We can move right on to other important stuff.

First, Tracey brought me this wonderful gift inspired by the interview in Craft magazine-

I’ve hung it up over my desk. Here is her description of the inspiration for the piece and also her report of the visit. I think it is too funny that she photographed all the doll bits that never got finished…

We talked photography (among other things)- she is doing some amazing work with ttv– through the viewfinder (tutorial if you are interested). It sounded intriguing and, of course, somewhere in this house I knew I had one of those cameras where you look down into the viewfinder. I’m pretty sure I bought it at a yardsale with a red leather camera bag that looked like a child’s doctor kit, in the early ’80s. Yep, there it was on the shelf in the living room. I tried looking through the viewfinder and it was so dirty I couldn’t really see anything.

I took out a few screws and cleaned it up as well as I could.

It is now significantly better and here are some photos I took from off the back porch-

Everything looks so spooky!

not so sure what to do about the grid in the viewfinder.

I think this uncropped one is my favorite-

Lots of fun but probably not going to pull me away from dollmaking.

Yesterday I had fun outing. A local fashion designer, Deborah Parker, invited me over to her studio to go through her scraps and see if there was anything I could use. Yes! I came home with 2 large bags full of wool, silk, linen, and some little pieces of cotton. Delicious! There are some very inspiring pieces in that pile- like, have you ever heard of wool corduroy? I hadn’t but now I have some to play with- it looks like perfect hair fabric to me.

Hurray- what a great way to start the year!

2008 review

Posted on by

Bear with me- I find this kind of analysis very helpful.

I finished 72 dolls this year-

and some cookies.

There were 23 tattooed men in various modes of fashion-

18 girl dolls-

11 babies

15 ladies-

2 gifts that inspired 24 more tiny world pincushions-

And the other stuff- I went to NYC, London, Portland, OR, and Chicago. I met Diane, Melissa, Jan and Susan in person. The paperbag swag project got finished after a long delay caused by 4 out of the 6 participants having babies- a pretty good excuse I’d say. I grew tomatoes! I did 4 shows. I was mentioned on Design Sponge by guest bloggers in January (Thanks Kath!) and then again in December (Thanks Camilla!). That was a little freaky. And, one of my dolls is Mr. April in the Whip Up calendar. All in all, it was another great year for my artwork and for my own crafty blogging universe.

Thank you so much to everyone who stopped by and visited and left comments or not in 2008. Happy, healthy and creative 2009 to all!