the winners are… better late then…

Posted on August 4, 2007 by mimik

Okay, drum roll please- first name- Diane L, 2nd- Shobana, 3rd- Shula, 4th- Kristine Hudson! I will email you to get addresses. Now, for everyone else- I’d like to send you a printed patch, so I will email you and if you want one, you can send me your address.

Everything got a bit too crazy here on the actual birthday. I ended up hardly being home at all! I added the names of everyone who wished me Happy Birthday, no matter what post they commented on, also emails, up to Friday evening, when we finally did the drawing. I couldn’t make myself do it- I had to get my husband. Otherwise, somehow, it didn’t seem fair! Then, the computer got unhappy and I couldn’t post until this morning. Everyone should have gotten their emails by now.
I had a great birthday. I spent the afternoon at the Boston MFA and saw the Edward Hopper show. I brought Noah with me to the museum, but never got a chance to take a photo. I had to run out at the end to go pick up Peter. I turned to snap a photo of the museum before I left. This is what I found when I downloaded the pics-

Isn’t that weird! It was NOT on purpose! Just in case it isn’t obvious- the sculpture is the man walking on a pipe over the entry driveway…

And, I got my very own Ipod… yes! I can’t wait to start downloading all the great podcasts, instead of having to listen to them on my computer.

Then, out for ice cream with Noah-

Isn’t that an eye-popping photo of a hotdog- yikes! Altogether a great day.

Friday, Ben and I took Noah out for iced coffee in the North End of Boston- and I took his sweater off. I couldn’t bear seeing him wearing it- it has been very, very hot and humid here-

This morning, I am off to Northboro for another day of doll making togetherness. Next week, back to my studio… ahhh!

tikis and give away reminder

Posted on July 31, 2007 by mimik

I am working on 2 more tikis. Commissions. Everybody likes red.

I will be collecting comments until Thursday evening for my birthday give-aways, so go leave me a comment (or email) now! I will post the winners on Friday.

doll gathering #1

Posted on July 29, 2007 by mimik

I had fun and I think every one else did too! There were 8 plus me. Here is most of the group working away at my dining room table.

2 people made cats-

2 people worked on sweater babies and Jeri got hers finished!

And 2 people made swaddled babies-

2 worked on mermaids, but somehow I didn’t get photos- darn!

One fun part was that I got to meet 2 fellow bloggers, Lisa and Rebecca. Also, one of my local blog readers. My only regret is that I didn’t get a chance to really spend time talking to everyone- I spent most of my day running around.

It was hot and very humid, and then there would be a torrential downpour. It would cool off for a bit, then get dark, humid and rain again. A very strange weather day- perfect for making dolls. I would certainly do it again- I was very happy with how it went. If anyone is interested, I am doing it again next weekend in Northboro, Massachusetts.

fun stuff!

Posted on July 27, 2007 by mimik

What a week!Â I am so pleased to have sent off my fabric for Bitter Betty‘s swap.Â And I have been cleaning up a storm in preparation for my workshop tomorrow.

When I got back from vacation last Saturday, there was a notice from the post office that I had a package from China.Â I couldn’t imagine what it was.Â When I went to get it on Monday, here is what I found-

Noah, the traveling gnome!Â Mary has organized a trip around the world for this fellow- a Rosa Pomar gnome.Â Shula knitted him a sweater when he was in Australia, but he must be dying of the heat now- it is hot and humid as anything here in Boston!Â Next week, I will take him around Arlington for some photos and will post them on his Flickr site.

And sweet Elia has named me a-

Yep, ME- a Rockin’ Girl Blogger!Â That has had this 50+ blogger smiling all week, every time I think about it.Â This is a project started by Roberta– what a great idea!Â Now I am suppose to name 5 people.Â That is the hard part because it is always leaving out some totally fantastic people.Â Eek, I tried and I just can’t do it right now- I will try again next week.
And speaking of 50 plus- next week is my birthday and I am going to give out some presents.Â Let’s say 4 presents.Â I’ll wrap up some of the fabric I printed and if I have any idea who you are, via a blog or flickr or something, I try to pick out some stuff from my stash that you’d like.Â Leave me a comment or email me – mimik(at)pobox.com.Â I will pick out my giftees at random next Thursday- Happy Birthday me!

I think I’m hooked

Posted on July 25, 2007 by mimik

I found it hard to stop, once I got started. So, I have lots of new fabric to play with (or trade or whatever)!

These are the ones I mailed off to Bitter Betty today for the swap-

1. pears printed on light blue- this is showing half of the fat quarter. It is folded lengthwise.

2. Orange spirals and baby faces- also folded.

3.Green and black, Baby faces, folded fabric-

4. Flower babies printed on light blue-

5. and on off-white with different spacing-

6. Red birds, green leaves, light blue background-

I have the other half of the fat quarter of most of these. I sent the ones that didn’t have the mistakes!

Then there are these-

The bugs faded quite a bit when I washed them, so now they are mine. In general I wasn’t too happy with the ones I printed on the green Kona cotton. The colors must not have absorbed well, because all of them were a bit faded after washing.

I liked this one so much that in the end, I decided to keep it.

even after I’d printed up more in various color and image combinations! I am thinking about cutting up some of these for patches or ribbons.

these too- ribbons or strips-

These are odd sized test pieces and use up the ink/paint pieces. I won’t have any problem finding uses for these non-standard shapes.

and lastly, I needed fabric like this for my applique work-

I am so glad I decided to participate in the swap- just the incentive I needed to get me started. This is a crazy week though. Isn’t it always that way when we get back from vacation? I am having my workshop this coming weekend at my house- that means I have to clean up space to do it in! I’ve got lots of things on my mind and lots of things I haven’t had a chance to blog about yet, so if you are wondering why you haven’t heard from me, that’s why. If I owe you an email, write again. I might have lost it. Now, back to cleaning up!

fabric stamping

Posted on July 24, 2007 by mimik

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-

and also rice onto cardboard-

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.

And here is what I’ve done so far-

bugs-

birds-

ack- a mistake! One of many, actually…

and flower babies-

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

I’m back!

Posted on July 23, 2007 by mimik

We had a wonderful time in Ithaca!

1. Ithaca Falls, 2. Tree roots 1, 3. Taughannock State Park, 4. Buttermilk Falls, 5. Buttermilk Falls, 6. Buttermilk Falls, 7. Butterfly and yellow echinacea, 8. Buttermilk Falls, 9. Ithaca woods, 10. Taughannock Falls, 11. maidenhair fern, 12. Lucifer Falls from above, 13. Stairs and more stairs, 14. Lucifer Falls, 15. Treman State Park, 16. Buttermilk Falls

We walked and saw lots of waterfalls and beautiful woods. We were mystified by the lack of buzzing, biting insects. Enjoyed excellent weather.Â I’ve posted tons of photos over on Flickr.
We saw Hair at the Hangar Theater– we loved it!Â And, of course I found some places to shop-

I got these treasures at a little antique shop. I also found the local Salvation Army store- there is nothing like a thrift store in a college town- wow, it was fantastic!

We ate a delicious dinner at the Moosewood Restaurant-Â We had to go- the Moosewood cookbook was so much a part of being young in the 70’s.
I got Peter to play Scrabble with me- he beat me both times!Â And I got a little work done on my tikis.Â I brought a ton of magazines with me- ones I never seem to get around to reading.Â I went through them, tearing out inspiration, recycling what I didn’t want.Â That felt like a big project accomplished!

Now that I’m home, I’ve got to get onto my fabric printing.Â I’ll show something about that tomorrow.

7 things

Posted on July 13, 2007 by mimik

I am leaving for vacation tomorrow- I’ll be away for a week. As a result, I have a big long list of things to get done and the piles all over the house are actually getting looked at! Then there are the things I am suppose to get done online- the emails, etc… Alyssa over at penguin & fish tagged me recently. I have never done one of these before, for any number of reasons… one of which is because they are really hard! Anyway, I figured it was time to give it a try.

so, 7 things-

– I did not get onto a computer until 2000. No email or anything. It was my new millennium resolution. Luckily I had a 9 year old boy in the house to help me out when I couldn’t figure out how to turn it on or off!

– I am 4 out of 5. My mom is 15 out of 18. (Sorry about the picture, Tina!)

– I have a 5 pointed star in the middle of each palm.

– My interests at 10 years old- dolls, needlework, gardening- no change.

– I lived in London for a year when I was 9 years old. That year had a huge impact on me. I didn’t want to come home. Life in Connecticut was just not as good. I have made choices in my adult life based on the experiences of that year- the kind of house and neighborhood I wanted to live in, my relationship to an urban area, gardens and roses. It also influenced how I wanted my kids to interact with the place they lived.

– If my life had a soundtrack, it would be an audio book. I listen to books all the time when I work. I have books connected in my head with certain art works and visa versa- dolls with stories.

– hmm, one more thing… well, I don’t watch tv. We have one, but it can go for many weeks without being turned on. I’ve never seen Survivor, the Sopranos, West Wing or Sex in the City.

Okay, that’s it. Wow, like I said- that was hard. I am not going to name anybody because I think everyone else has already done it.

I am taking 2 tikis with me on our trip, since they are mostly handwork. That means I might have something to show you when I get back. Also, I still have some space in the doll workshops- July 28 and August 4. Let me know if you are interested. I will be emailing and confirming with everyone who expressed an interest. I am really excited about it!

playing with fabric printing

Posted on July 9, 2007 by mimik

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…

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-

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-

detail-

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!

Paperbag swag month/page 5

Posted on July 6, 2007 by mimik

This month I am working on Amy’s book. I already showed the first 3 steps of the project. Here is the rest. Tons of photos ahead.

After doing the background, I sewed the figures onto the fabric and cut it into the pages afterward. This is the pre-cut photo. Sorry it is a bit out of focus.

I glued rickrack onto the edges- silver and blues. Photo of glue drying-

Then the part which always feels like a huge step- gluing the pages into the book-

… in case anyone wants to see my oh so complicated system for clamping, weighting and gluing.

Phew- they are in! I’m committed! Now for the finished photos-

left page-

right page-

close-ups-

I had so much trouble with this face- I did it over 3 times!

I wrote “Momma’s Dream” on this piece. When my kids were little, the one thing that seemed like bliss was when everyone, even me, was asleep and safe- ah, peace. Amy’s theme for her book is balance, but I don’t really think you get much balance with three little babes. You get through every day, trying to keep your sanity intact, and if you can relax, laugh and still notice the beauty around you, you are doing an amazing job!

Finishing this project has overlapped with starting the next- the printed fabric swap that Bitter Betty organized… this is all new to me, but more about that learning process another day…

Doll

the art and craft of Mimi Kirchner