Category Archives: General

Wow! What a week!

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I taught 4 classes- 4 nights and 2 weekend days. Phew! And I learned so much.

First we did the owl as seen in the last post. Then the swaddled baby.

The 4 hours scheduled was nowhere near long enough. Next time, 6 hours. The faces take a good amount of time and concentration.

Then, 2 nights of Perfect Puppies. There was lots of laughing and doggie talk here. And the dogs came out great! Well, the almost finished versions that I saw. I hope I’ll get more photos of completed pups.

And lastly, 2 long afternoons of foxes.

Wow!

This is how it was from my perspective. I want to do more teaching so when Virginia of Gather Here asked me to do the Artist-in-Residence, we decided that I’d teach.  I volunteered to teach 4 classes, 3 of which I hadn’t even written the patterns for. Yes sir, jumping into the fire here. Because really, not only were the patterns not written, I have very little teaching experience. I’ve taught in my house where I have all my stuff and I taught a class with my doll club where I knew everyone. This past week was the first time I was working in a new environment with strangers- scary!  I’m a worrier and a homebody. Knowing I’d committed to being out of the house for a week, I worried that I’d get the flu (nope, my husband got it though), I’d have horrible insomnia the whole week, I’d forget everything I needed, etc, etc. I can always think of endless things to worry about! Of course it was all fine. I didn’t get sick, I was so tired at the end of the day that I crashed every night, and everything I forgot, they had there- of course, cuz you know, it’s a store!

Every day I’d start to get really anxious about half an hour before the class started. By 15 minutes into the class I was fine. Phew!

I was a little flummoxed by a different sewing machine but there was always a helper to work with the students on the machines. And I got to play with some new to me tools/toys like these light-weight Gingher scissors– I really liked them.

Honestly, I am so proud of myself for doing this. It was totally out of my comfort zone in a lot of areas- writing the patterns, teaching out of the house, so many people I didn’t know. But I learned so much by watching how people worked, the mistakes they made, the mistakes I made. I will be doing some tweaking on the patterns based on the experience. And everyone was so great! Thanks all you amazing students! I want to see more photos!

I hope to be finishing the patterns in the next few weeks. The Swaddled Baby will come first. I’ll keep you informed!

let’s review- 2012

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My Christmas sewing this year- reusable lunch bags and shopping bags-

Another year goes by! I am thankful for my blog to keep my memories for me. It is fun to go back and review. Here are some things that made me happy this year-

– a new floor in the studio! I know it doesn’t seem like much but I love scooting around in my chair.

– I was in a show with some other fantastic doll artists. Thanks Nichol!

– I went to Honk! It was AMAZING!

– San Francisco- Loved it! Renegade and some vacation too.

– I got to meet Sonya for the first time when I went to SF. We’ve been internet buddies for years and it was a thrill to give her a hug in person. And then we got to meet again!

– I won something from a blog give-away- Thanks again Mr. Finch! I love my moth!

– My monthly meet-up with other like-minded crafty-biz people. We are starting our 4th year in January! This meet-up started from a New Years resolution and all I can say is, if you want something in your life, sometimes you really can make it happen!

– And Ryan, my 5 hour a week helper. It has been great fun having someone to talk to on a schedule.

Other important events of the year-

– I took Sister Diane‘s class about doing on-line classes. I quickly realized that I really didn’t want to do it. And that was absolutely worth taking the class to figure out. It became clear to me that doing the classes involves a lot of tech support- not something I want to do. And, being the kind of person I am, I would likely be unable to do any other work during the duration of the class- too distracting.

– 2 things that sound good but mostly were really stressful for me, book and licensing.

– I did 3 Renegade shows- Brooklyn, San Francisco and Chicago. I decided not to do any Holiday shows this year- the right decision for my sanity but maybe not for my business. Hard to know.

Tomorrow I will post my dolls of 2012.

House on the Rock

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After Chicago Renegade, my husband and I drove into Wisconsin to visit the House On The Rock. I’m not sure I’ve ever been in Wisconsin before- it is beautiful even though they’ve had a terrible drought all summer. We were lucky enough to be there a few weeks after they’d finally had rain and although the corn was only about 3 ft high, everything was very green and pretty.

This is the display in one of the the Ladies Restrooms!

I was initially confused about what kind of collection I was looking at. It is a wide variety of stuff. Some is rare, special and amazing, some looked very close to junk to me- especially when I was looking at something I know about. I readjusted my expectations.

There was an amazing collection of automata, mostly musical- from individual self-playing instruments to whole orchestras!

I was saddened by how many were in poor repair. Visitors can buy tokens and choose which they’d like to see in action. One of the first that we tried was a mechanical banjo. There were 4 “fingers” but only 2 of them were working. It was terrible. Other ones that we tried were wonderful in spite of the broken bits, but I really wish someone cared enough to spend money on keeping these treasures going.

Wonderful collection of circus posters in the cafe.

A player piano with an interesting way of storing the scroll- definitely worth 50¢ to see that in action.

Here you can see the scale of some of these “music boxes”.

This one filled an entire room- And it wasn’t the only one!

There were a number of these planters out in the parking lots. I’m not sure you can tell how big these are- well over 10 ft tall I think.

And next I’ll post some photos of the NIADA doll conference and my too short visit to Maker Faire.

Thanks for all the nice notes- really I’m fine. I mostly wanted to let people know why things were going to be quiet around here. We all need time to reflect.

Currently I am planning to schedule some classes in the next few months- I’m thinking that it would be fun to focus on projects that people would like to make for holiday gifts- little felt ornaments, owls, tiny worlds… and if I can figure out about sewing machines, the fish. I’m wondering about weekends versus weekdays. Also, just a reminder, I am happy to schedule a class for any group at your convenience if you have a least 4 people ready to go.

I’ll be back soon!

Chicago Renegade booth

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above was Saturday, below Sunday. I put the back wall up on Sunday so it looks a little different.

This was the Saturday wall display.

And more goodies in a cloth basket. All those fish have found new homes!

And this is how I changed the wall around for Sunday.

And the table display-

I have almost finished putting everything in my shop that didn’t sell. Hopefully I will get that done in the next few days.

Thanks to every one that came out to say hello!

long dog

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You can see the curly tail- I put a pipe cleaner in all the dog tails so they are pose-able.

I have a little confession. I’ve been holding back on you. I finished all these doggies over the week-end but have been posting them slowly. I can’t show you what I’ve been working on and don’t want things to get too boring around here. I’m working on the prototypes for another line with Land Of Nod. I am getting soooo excited about the first line which will be in the Holiday 2012 catalog. Every day it gets closer to reality!

San Francisco was Awesome!

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I had a fantastic time in San Francisco. Renegade was incredible. I heard that 17,000 people came on Saturday and I’m not sure what the total was for the weekend. Our days afterward were filled with visits to wonderful places and first-time meet ups with internet friends.

We started our stay in San Francisco in an apartment that we found through airbnb. It was on a really steep hill, just a few blocks from the very windy Lombard St.

We had excellent views.

The venue at Fort Mason was wonderful- indoors, lots of light, wide aisles, real bathrooms and running water… Paradise! So many people came out to say hi- I was thrilled and a bit overwhelmed. If you came by and I had a dazed look on my face, that is why. I am not used to being around so many people! Thank you to everyone who stopped by, bought my work, said nice things, brought me presents (!). It was incredible busy and one sign of how good an event it was for me- I ran out of shopping bags!

So, I am sure I will be back! Here I am at my booth-

Isn’t that a fantastic photo? An amazing photographer, Sarah Deragon stopped by and took some shots. Then she sent me a link and said I could use them- for free– as long as I credit her. Wow! I am so grateful. Check out her website– she does amazing portraiture. Honestly, I met and interacted with so many nice people.

Here are my pics of my set-up-

And someone brought her tiny world to show me. So beautifully done and unfortunately my photo is blurry- sorry V. I love seeing the personal creative touches. She’d added yoyo’s around the edge!

At the end of the day on Sunday, my Sister-in-law picked us up and we went down to Santa Cruz for a few days and then later back up to Berkeley. Here is a quick list of the people I met up with-

Robert Mahar and Cathy Callahan of Cathy of California who were at Renegade with me. Michelle, who I (internet) met originally when she still had her craft blog going, Green Kitchen. I had dinner with Alice aka Futuregirl. And I spent a wonderful day with Sonya, both at her studio and some other places she took me to around town. I am always amazed at how comfortable it is for me to meet people that I’ve had an internet connection with- all the ice-breaking, explaining, proving ones self can be skipped over. We already “get” each other and speak the same language.

And the fiber art related places I visited:

– the Jean Paul Gaultier show at the de Young Museum. It was incredible- absolutely worth seeing if you can. I wish I’d had a whole day to spend just watching the videos of the fashion shows.

– Castle In The Air is a fun shop with all kinds of little treasures for art making. They are famous for their German crepe paper and high quality glitter.  Hard to describe really!

– Tail Of The Yak (which doesn’t seem to have a website) was amazing, what can I say. They have a stuffed emu.

And they carry surprise balls by Anandamayi Arnold who unfortunately also doesn’t seem to have a website. There is a blog post about her and her botanical surprise balls here. I bought one that looks like a plum because I thought the beautiful lily would never make it home in my suitcase.

Sonya took me to Lacis, a store I’ve been hoping to visit for as long as I can remember. This is another place where I could spend a day, exploring and spending a pot of gold!

There were so many threads of various kinds- my idea of a thrill! Also, ribbons, lace, trims, tools, notions, books, wedding dresses, hats, buttons… honestly, I was in heaven.

After a delicious lunch we headed over to A Verb For Keeping Warm, a fabric/yarn shop/studio to visit and for me to buy some SF fabrics. I will try to get my act together and post photos of some of the treasures I brought home. As I said, an amazing trip!

Here is a public Google Map I made with places I went to and some places I wish I’d gotten to so will hopefully get there next time, all recommended by various people who know the area better than me. If you have favorite places that aren’t on the map, I’d love to add them so I will remember on my next trip out west.

Brooklyn report

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We had 2 beautiful market days. It was hot, sunny and there was a little breeze. Well actually, there were a few BIG breezes which were a tiny bit too exciting but my tent weights kept me safe. I was happily situated next to several friends which is so helpful when you need to borrow some little thing.

Here is the first day set-up.

This was the fantastic view out the back of my tent in the morning as we were setting up.

This is a few hours later- the grass was covered with sunbathing bodies.

Then on Sunday, I rearranged the dolls on the panels. I always think it might make a difference but really, it never does.

And packing up at the end of Sunday- the Brooklyn Bridge in the background.

We drove home yesterday (Tuesday) after having some recreational NYC time. We had a great time away from home. Brooklyn is such a fun place to hang out for a few days. I loved meeting blog readers (you know who you are and Hello again!), people who were seeing my work for the first time, and all kinds of enthusiastic Market goers. Today, I am back to work. I’ve got a lot of computer stuff to do- emails, etsy (I’ll be listing some of those dolls I finished up during the weeks leading up to the Market), blog stuff… all that not-studio work. My next big event is San Francisco Renegade, July 21 and 22.