Category Archives: progress report

stuffing, tikis, atcs

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making up a title is always a challenge.

I have decided that I should start stuffing most of my dolls with wool- the whole earth friendly, biodegradable thing. It really isn’t a price issue- polyester-$3 a pound, wool- 5.25 a pound. So I ordered up 5 pounds. I bought this wool batt from West Earl Woolen Mill.  They don’t have a web site so you have to actually call them on the telephone- eek, so old-fashioned! (717-859-2241) I say, I’d like to order some wool for doll stuffing- they know just what I want. And I got a free calendar!

Okay now everybody, this is what I want- someone to invent/manufacture so I can buy it- recycled scrap wool stuffing. Just figure out a way to take scrap wool and chop or shred it up for us to use- come on now, people!

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I’ve been working on some more tikis. They have been my carry around project for a while now, so they are going rather slowly. Here are 2 brown ones. I’ve also got a red one going.

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And today, I’ve been working on ATCs- artist trading cards. I will be doing a swap with my etsy group- Boston Handmade. I haven’t made any in more then a year. It is great fun to get back into it. I am remembering why I liked them. They are like little doodles.
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ATC- Work in progress. I’m loving how they look all together here on my ironing board.

the men- tweaking

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I’ve been working on these guys all week. I’ve really enjoyed playing with the hair embroidery.
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4 heads, front and back-

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I’ve spent a lot of time tweaking. The feet have been an issue. Four dolls, four different feet designs.
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The first guy? I took off his feet, restuffed his legs, repositioned the feet and sewed them back on again. Then I embroidered the white of his eyes- what a difference that made- some contrast! I gave him a mustache and embroidered details on his pants. And I decided that the blotches weren’t so bad after all.

Second guy– I thought a lot about the comment Babs left… I agreed with her. I wasn’t satisfied with the lower half of the body. I thought about adding dimension by using a 4 piece pattern for his pants. In the end, I decided that was not the direction to go in. If I did that, I’d really have to change the head too; give him a chin, a round head. There is a balancing act of keeping a simple design and making a believable figure. So, on this guy too, I removed his feet, restuffed the legs- that made a huge difference- repositioned the feet and sewed them back on again. I added embroidered detail onto the front and back of the pants.

Hopefully I will have them all completely finished and ready for their formal portrait tomorrow. I’ve been doing so much hand stitching that my fingertips hurt!

I put some of the embroidered head photos on Flickr, if you want to see more detail.

rainy day news

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this is going to be one of those all over the place posts… bear with me.

It is a rainy day today- hurray! We haven’t had rain since my July workshop and everything in the garden has been shriveling up. That said, I hope it stops by the weekend because I will be showing at the South End Open Market on Sunday (9/16). It is the Open Studio weekend in the South End. I will be sharing tent space with Betsy of Stonehouse Studios.

I have had a classic me kind of morning.

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I went upstairs to get to work. My table and desk had gotten to the critical point where I had to do a little cleaning up. I dug down through the layers- tattoo men patterns and fabric on top, a few big man pattern pieces and floss colors, lots of swaddled baby wool and rejected cut out applique pieces. Okay, I got the table usable again. Back to work on my latest tattoo guy. I was busily embroidering away, trying out some new stitches on the hair. Having fun. I ran out of my color and went to find the skein- I couldn’t find it.  Arg! I HAD to have more. I went through my drawer. Everything out. It turns out to be a clean and sort morning. I pulled out the wood cigar box at the very back of the drawer. (This box has history. My mom used it to store rayon embroidery threads probably as old as the 1920’s. I still have those threads although I’ve never figured out anything to do with them.) The box has a big tangle of floss that probably dates back to the 60’s. Not anymore though- I untangled them and sorted them by color and added them to my other threads. And, I did find my dark brown floss- see, I knew I had it!
And here is the drawer now- probably doesn’t look so great to you, but it works for me-

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other things-

* An acknowledgment- I want to credit this cute little girl by Heidi for the push to make my tattoo guys. I have lots of ideas in my head and sketchbook that never get made. The dolls in limbo. There is always some little spark that causes one idea to jump to the front of the line. I’d been mulling over the toile/tattoo idea since June.

* I got an IPod for my birthday- I know, I was the last person to get one. I love it!!! I am still figuring out all the great things I can do with it. As of yesterday, I am a CraftyPod-aholic. After a few tries I successfully got the podcasts onto my Ipod- I was a bit Itunes store phobic- afraid I’d be sucked into some money pit vortex or something. Phew, over that! Anyway, I’ve listened to about 10 so far and have to remind myself that I don’t have to listen to all of them at once. They are so much fun though- as I listen I am thinking/saying “Yes, yes, yes! That’s just the way I do it” or “I think that too!”. I love hearing the voices of the people whose blogs I read. Now I will go on a Craftypod diet so I’ll be able to savor them longer.

This is my table now- tattoed men and tikis piled up.  Lots of projects started…

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sometimes the ideas work out perfectly,

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other times, not so much.

The idea was, make a tattooed man using toile. I scored a great selection of toile scraps at a swap I did with some fellow Boston Etsy people.

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note to self- check to see if decorator fabric has been Scotchgarded, before using on a project that includes dyeing/painting the finished piece. hmph.

Maybe you can’t tell from the photo, but the color went on unevenly and worse, the fabric looked scabby after the paint dried. Yuck. Since I knew I wasn’t satisfied with it, I thought I might as well see what I could do to make it better.

First, I put him through a gentle cycle in the washing machine. That made the texture better and the blotchiness worse. So, I stuck him in a bucket of dye for a soak…

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then, another trip through the wash, and out to dry-

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He is still as blotchy as ever, and somewhat misshapened. Not out of shape- I mean he is clearly in great shape! His head is lumpy as you can see.
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I’m not quite sure where I will go next with him, but I have now dyed a selection of fabrics to try again with.

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and another thing…

Fresh peaches are one of my all time favorite seasonal treats-

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well, and then we ate it!

What’s happening

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I’m working on some fancy swaddled babies- lots of applique.  I have covered my table with all my favorite fall kind of colors.

We went to the Peabody Essex Museum on Sunday to see the Joseph Cornell show, among other things.  The show is large with an amazing amount of his work.  Unfortunately I was left with mixed feelings about the experience- the exhibit was very dimly lit to protect the artwork, but really, what is the point- I could hardly see the pieces.  It was frustrating.  I also couldn’t understand the theory of how they arranged the show.  It wasn’t chronological or based on themes or anything else I could figure out.  That always leaves me feeling confused.

The other exhibit I was excited about seeing, was an origami show.  It was fantastic!   No crowds, no shoving, absolutely mind boggling constructions.  One that I can’t stop thinking about,  was a giant squid attacking a sailing vessel… all made out of one sheet of paper.  Incredible!  There was a hands-on area too.  You can check out instructions here-  Ben and I both made butterflies.  Fun!  I was very into origami when I was a kid.  The enthusiasm has carried over.

The other show we wanted to see in Salem, was “Ode to Cornell-  What would Joseph Do”.  Abby had 2 pieces in the show so I particularly wanted to go check it out.  It was so much fun to see after seeing the Cornell show at the PEM.

fabric stamping

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I’ve been working away on my fabric stamping project. So much to learn!

I showed my carved stamps and first experiments here. Abby lent me a very helpful book. After looking through it, I made some other stamps by gluing string to cardboard in a spiral-

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and also rice onto cardboard-

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I love these patterns. I was thinking I would use them as background texture, but I really like them the way they are. I can really see using these patterns in my applique work.

BTW- I am not using acrylic paint for the stamping after all. As I have mentioned before, I have a house full of so much art supplies, I should always be able to find what I need. A few years ago, I bought some Createx colors and fabric medium at a yard sale (Thanks Beate!) and that is what I am using. I learned in the book, that you can make a stamp pad using felt. It really works! This is the felt (el cheapo variety) sitting on top of the color. I press the felt into the color using my palette knife, until it is saturated. Then, stamp away.
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And here is what I’ve done so far-

bugs-

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birds-

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ack- a mistake! One of many, actually…
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and flower babies-

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They are being washed right now. Hopefully they will look the same afterwards.

playing with fabric printing

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I mentioned at the end of the last post that I was starting to work on my pieces for the printed fabric swap over at Bitter Betty Blogs. I signed up because I have been wanting to try it forever and this is the push I need.

I decided to go with stamping as opposed to silk screen or something. I wanted to try it with the least possible capital outlay and the fewest new skills to learn. I was already feeling totally over my head and have had a very hard time finding any information. The first confusion was over the Speedball Speedy-Cut block- pink or white? What is the difference? The people in my local art store couldn’t enlighten me. Later I found this on Alma Stoller site, so now I know. I ended up buying the white because it cost less and I had no idea what else to base the choice on! Carving was easy and fun! I was having so much fun with the carving part, I was very reluctant to transition to the next step…
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printing. I REALLY didn’t want to go out and buy printing inks- I know, I’m cheap. But I have so many types of color mediums already- I just couldn’t imagine bringing something new into the house. I was thinking about oil paints, oil bars, acrylic paints, to start the list. I found this article and it helped me settle on acrylic paints. This is another page of useful links and information. I wanted something that would be washable and have a good feel, not stiff- I want to be able to actually use this fabric!

The first step was to try out my stamps on paper. I used inexpensive craft type acrylic paint- the kind that comes in the little bottles. I sponged the paint onto my stamps using pieces of make-up sponges- those things are a great art tool! Here’s what I got-

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The brown stamp on white was my first attempt on fabric.

Based on the various bits of information I could find, this is what I have figured out so far.

-Acrylic paints work very well, but don’t try using a brayer or a brush of any kind- I couldn’t manage anything that wasn’t very streaky. Daubing the paint onto the stamp works very well- I used the make-up sponges and also some wads of felt.

-adding drying retardant was helpful both in slowing the drying and also making the paint a bit gummier.

-one article suggested dampening the fabric first. I had no better results when I tried that. Actually I had some color bleeding so I’d say forget that idea.

-after I finished printing/stamping, I let the fabric dry for a bit (1/2 hour?). Then I ironed the fabric on both sides with steam on a cotton setting. I have no idea if this was necessary. I then threw them all into the washer at a regular warm wash. I noticed no change in the color at all, after the wash. Yeah!

Here are my test pieces after washing-

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detail-

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Now I have to think about doing my bigger pieces- yikes! This is actually a lot harder then I ever thought. I am nervous about the 1/2 yard pieces with no major screw-ups. Also, choosing the colors turns out to be a lot harder then I thought it would be. I will be coming out of this project with a new respect for fabric designers!