Lucky me- look what came in the mail today!
clockwise from the upper left-
“My Scrappy Valentine” from Amy Proff Lyons- apl Creations
the very much appreciated organizer of this swap!
“my love of fabric valentine” by Cindy Strine – at Flickr
“My pythagorean valentine” by Cathy Gaubert
“My Baby Love Valentine” by Michelle Freeman- My Busy Hands
“My treasured Valentine” by Caroline- Caroslines
I love them all! I wonder where mine ended up?
Hey! It’s my blog birthday! It’s been 2 years and I’m amazed! I went back and looked at what I posted about on the other Feb. 13’s. I am going to do a review of all my unfinished doll projects- turned out that is what I did last year also. And it turns out, it is almost the same set of dolls! I am not good at going back and finishing things once I’ve moved on to something else. I need a show or something big with a deadline to really do that.
I’ll start from right now and go backwards. That way, if you get bored, at least you will have seen what I’m excited about today! Two fairies and a mermaid, in progress-
I love this- when I stuffed the legs, it made the fairy feet cross- looks like they are dancing!
and now for the other stuff…
several sweater babies cut out of polar fleece- yuck, I don’t like working with this stuff after the joy of recycled felted sweaters-
I still consider these next dolls active- am I cursing myself here? I am hoping to get back to work on these soon. These dolls are labor and concentration intensive- I had to stop working on them at the end of last summer when I got so distracted by family stuff.
I think the issue with these next dolls, is that I like these lovely ladies just the way they are!
This little fellow just needs a little work, but will I ever go back and do it? I even know what I want to do- well I’m pretty sure anyway…
hmmm…
and this poor man has been stuck sitting around in his Edwardian underwear since before I even started this blog!
Okay, even I’m bored now. Time to get back to work and into year 3!
It has been an unusually social week for me- house guest, valentine party, lunches with friends, and visiting the School of Fashion Design in Boston on Wednesday. I was invited by a friend who teaches there, to show my dolls to her class. It was great fun! Here are some photos I took while I was there-
On Thursday, I met up with another friend to get some framing done- I am trading her one of my dolls for a print-
All this is an excuse for why I don’t have any dolls to show- I had such big plans a week ago! In reality I haven’t even got things sorted out and back together since last week when I tore everything apart in search of white wool fabric. Ah well, maybe there will be new dolls to show next week!
I read this excellent article about craft blogging and all the comments on Whip up. One of the suggestions was to see how your blog looks on the various news readers. I am not sure exactly how to do this, but there was a link to Bloglines so I went over there. I had checked out Bloglines when I first heard about it, but don’t use it because I have NetNewsWire Lite, which does a similar thing. I noticed that when I go to look at my site, the pictures don’t show up- ahhh! Just exactly what the article warned of… What is the point if you can’t see the pictures! So, what do I do?
Last night, I went to friends house for a making valentines party- such fun! Here are some of mine-
I was at the library, looking through art magazines and saw a call for artists- The Art of the Doll at the Pump House, a regional art center in La Crosse, Wisconsin. This page has more information. I’ll probably be sending in my slides.
I love watching That’s Clever on HGTV. The artist shows a project, goes to their imaculate work space and in about 8 minutes, it is all done! That’s not how it works at my house.
I was thinking, back on Friday, I really want to get to work on some more Fat Fairies! Up to my attic… pull out the fabric, try to find all the pieces for the patterns. Then I realize that I don’t have enough pinky skin- toned wool left. That means I’ve got to dye some more. Which involves finding a selection of white (ish) wool fabrics to dye. And finding the dye. I KNOW I have both of these neccessities somewhere. First, find the fabric. Okay, look through all the bins that I’ve been trying to organize the wool into. Nope. Then pull out everything in the attic (studio) closet. I didn’t find the fabric I want but I decide to try reorganizing it again to see if I can make the space work any better. And get rid of some of the stuff. Now go into the deeper attic storage areas. Actually I’ve been meaning to sort through that stuff anyway. I now have a big pile of stuff to sell on ebay- related to wool rug hooking- and another pile of fabric to donate to the Fashion School in Boston. And I finally did find some white fabric, although I’m pretty sure there is more around here somewhere. Finding the dye was a similar adventure, but now- this afternoon – I have a nice pile of pink skin tones in a variety of wooly texture. Here they are, pre-ironing, ready to join my bin of multi-hued skin tone fabrics!
What a surprise! I got a note from Amanda Lee last night telling me that my dolls were on Whip Up! I haven’t figured out what Whip Up is exactly- a crafty version of BoingBoing maybe? But then I’m kind of slow with this stuff… I still haven’t figured out how Flickr really works for people and how I could be using it- and I’ve been thinking about that for more then a year now!
Anyway- seeing such a nice post about my work is very inspiring! It got me right back up to my attic this morning, cutting out lots of new dolls. More fat fairies, grandma, big men and at least one mermaid- soon I hope!
Doll club was great today. We did a community project- making dolls for kids (mostly babies and tots) at a homeless shelter. I donated the pattern for my sweater baby. It was so much fun to see what everyone came up with!
Also, I sold my Fat Fairy- Thanks Lois!
