Category Archives: General

getting serious about October

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We had a great time on our quick trip to Portland for family weekend at MECA. Friday was a perfect fall day. We drove up the coast and did some beach watching and walking.

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They have great rocks in Maine.

We stopped in Wells at Camp Wool. Thank you to the kind person who clued me in about this place via my comments. Unfortunately, no website yet.

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There was lots of beautiful wool, although I am glad I had been to Dorr first. There was lots of beautiful colors and textures here, but not the basic skin colors that I went up to Dorr Mill Store for.

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Yes, I managed to find some goodies to spend some money on. The lady here told me about another store- Wool and Goods in Rollinsford, NH. Another expedition! I am going to put a list together (in the next few days) of places to buy wool fabrics in New England. If you know of places, let me know and I will add them.

Portland is a great town- amazingly good food and resaturant scene- even made it into the NYT! I look forward to spending more time there in the next 4 years.

Tomorrow- what is ahead this month.

prizes! and some other doings.

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woohoo! I won Crystal’s giveaway and my prize arrived in the mail today!

prize

love this little detail-

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Crystal is my good friend and fellow member of Boston Handmade. Thanks Crystal! This sweet little pair will live in my studio and keep me company while I work.

Several people asked me about the dyes I use. Firstly let me say that I am no dyeing expert. I am pretty bad at it and almost always end up with splotchy fabric… well unless that is what I want. Then I get a solid color. I know this going into the project so I try not to be too focused on a perfect result. I use Cushing dyes– an acid dye for wool.

Other stuff I’ve been doing.

It was a sad day today- after listening to Science Friday and watching the video, I knew that my tomatoes were infected with late blight. I pulled them all up today. Ah well, I got a pretty good crop and will look forward to next year.

Over the weekend, I redid the faces on two dolls- ones that many commenters said looked sad. At the time (last month), I couldn’t really see it. Now, with fresh eyes, I decided I needed to change them.

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Old Face

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New Face

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Old Face

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New Face

Tiny World Pin cushion giveaway

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and another thing!

Check it out! To celebrate the Handmade Portrait, I’ll be giving away this tiny world- all the details are here.

Well, okay, I will put them here too-

Embed the Handmade Portrait video on your blog and email the link to your post to mimi.kirchner.giveaway@gmail.com by 5 p.m. ET, Friday, September 4, 2009. I will pick one lucky person using a random number generator.

If you don’t know how to embed a video on your blog, no worries, it’s simple. Here’s how:

-Click the symbol that looks like a sideways V on the video player at the top of the Storque post.
-Copy the embed code from the “embed” tab.
-Paste the embed code into the html of your own blog post.
-Send the link to your blog post to me at the giveaway gmail address above!

make-dos and my tiny worlds

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So what are these “make-do” things anyway?

I first heard about a make-do when I got interested in doll-making and was immersed in learning everything I could about vintage and antique cloth dolls. The same people who were talking about the dolls, were interested in all kinds of historical needlearts. The definition I came away with was- a make-do is a pincushion made from a household object that is no longer functional for it’s original purpose- Like a sugar bowl without a lid, a damaged candle stick, a goblet stem with no bowl, or a chipped or cracked cup.

I have been making mine, which I call tiny worlds, in teacups, most of which come from the thrift store. I am also lucky enough to have friends who think of me before they throw out something that I might use- Lucky me! My tiny worlds are made on wool balls, covered with wool fabric and then most of the detail work is done with embroidery and wool felt. It is a wonderful way to use up little pieces and scraps around my studio. And it is so much fun to imagine who lives on the miniature landscape.

I didn’t start out with teacups though. My first make-do was made from a broken goblet. Excuse the photo please- that blog post was from my early blog days, more then 5 years ago! Here are some links to other ones I’ve made and also to a basic tutorial on how to make one for yourself. If you’d like to try your hand at a tiny world make-do, the pattern is available here in my Etsy shop.

bad timing

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See that dot on the left side of the head of my new girl? Yeah, it is not suppose to be there. My Canon G10- which I have loved since I got it last December, is making me unhappy. We are thinking (around here) that it is dust on the sensor. The store where I bought it- for full price, I might add- was amazingly unhelpful. Gee, sorry, send it back to Canon. How much? We don’t know. How long? Who knows! Why?! Standard usage- What? This is not a camera that you can open in any way. How can it possibly be my fault?  Anyway- I’m pissed. I will not be buying anything from there again.

This camera thing is incredibly bad timing. Remember this back in March? Well, it is going up next week- August 26. I am nervous and excited. I wanted to give my regular readers a heads up because there will probably be some odd, explaining kinds of blog posts when the video goes up. We’ll see. Of course, now I feel like I am about to have a party or my in-laws over and the vaccuum cleaner is broken!

Also, after sort of limping along all summer, I am getting a rush of ideas- so why does my camera have to break now! Waah! Okay- I think I feel better.

One more thing- I had been hoping to go to the NIADA conference in Tennessee in September. It is now obvious that it is not going to happen. Just wanted to let anyone I’ve talked to about it know.

another studio update

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I am actually working in the room now. The move got to a certain point of trying to get things arranged, and I realized I had to start working in the space to know where things should be. The result is that the room doesn’t look great but I am essentially moved and back to work. I will probably do a blog studio tour in a month or so when things have settled a bit.

The desk area-

This is working pretty well, although I have been rearranging the drawers as I try to find my tools. I moved my sewing machine off the desk and onto a smaller desk. The big desk will be my main work area now.

The shelf above my desk is still rather empty. I haven’t brought any of the dolls that were on the attic studio shelf down yet.

And I have to work more on the wool storage bins. They still seem disorganized, but what can I do? It is so hard to decide what is the right way to organize. Color? Material? (wool, cashmere, etc) Size of the fabric pieces?

On another topic- I will be in the Columbia, SC area around Labor Day. Does anyone know of any not-to-be-missed crafty goodness in the area?

tiny world class 2

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I taught another tiny world class yesterday. It was a great day for it- overcast and cool. Perfect to gather with friends and do a project! There were 9 students all together, but, as usual, I forgot to take photos and only have a few of the projects to show.

In the morning, we all worked on little houses-

After lunch we made our “hills” and put them all together. Here are some that got finished- sorry for the not-so-great photos.

Betsy’s–

Greta’s- glue drying in progress-

She added a side garden- isn’t it adorable!

Crystal‘s- she wrote more about the class here–

And my son, Julian, took the class too. Here is his-

Everybody did really well. Each person was able to do something unique which made it their own. It is so much fun to see what people come up with.

I will be teaching again on Saturday, October 17. Space is limited to 8, so let me know if you are interested.