Okay, you all convinced me! And thanks so much for your feedback. I’ve chosen 6 of the babies and they are at the printers now. I hope the cards will be done by this time next week. And, now I’m working on another postcard series- reading-
I think spring is putting me in the mood to work with my cotton prints right now.
I’m thinking about getting the 5 or 6 of the babies printed up for more note cards, but I’m not completely sure. Opinions are welcome. I’m thinking slightly smaller cards then the last ones which are a little bigger then 4 x 6. Would people want to buy a pack of cards with assorted babies (geesh that sounds funny!) or would someone want a pack of all the same baby. I seem to think that if I was buying them, it would be for a thank you card for baby gifts or a welcome new baby card- maybe people would want single cards, but that isn’t so easy when selling through etsy.  I need to decide by Wednesday at the latest, because I’ll be setting up for the show on Thursday and I’ll want to have decided what I’m doing!
I’ve been inspired by all the beautiful babies showing themselves in my blogs and in flickr!
Ten fabric postcards-
1. Skirt fabric last seen on this kitty–
2.
3.
4. This one has a baby gown made from an old embroidered piece of fabric-
5.
6.
7. My mom had a dress made from the background floral fabric. It feels like Liberty, but I don’t know if it is.
8. Hey Eleanor- see what I did with that fabric you left me?
9. The background is chita fabric that Rosa set me-
10. The background on this one is some 70’s Laura Ashley fabric. I have a lot of vintage Laura Ashley fabric scraps…
And on another note- my naked robot is making a tour of sex blogs. My husband figures they must be desperate for content! As a result, checking my stats has become a LOT more interesting- ha!
Were you wondering what ever happened to these lovely girls? Well, they are out on the West Coast and showing off at Mahar Drygoods! This is my first foray into wholesaling my dolls and I am thrilled with how they look and are described on the website. There is a lot to be said about having someone else rave about your work! I am so happy to be part of Robert Mahar’s beautiful online shop. He works with many people whose work I admire- when he inquired about my work, I knew I wanted to be one of his artists. The room decor section is my favorite. I am sorely tempted by these prints by Jen Corace.
Etsy Boston Show & Sale
May 4th, 5-8pm
Door prize to the first 50 visitors!
Eight Etsy Boston sellers will be showing their work in Boston’s South End neighborhood during the May First Friday South End gallery night. All handmade items will be featured at this event: Jewelry, Cards, Fine Art, Dolls, Collage, Accessories, Clothing, and much more!
Location: 35 Wareham Street, 2nd Floor, Boston, MA 02118, between Harrison and Albany.
Time: 5-8pm.
Etsy sellers showing at this event: amyolsonjewelry, ElizabethBrennick, mck254 (this is me), ReclaimedToYou, ambientdesignjewels, TookToTheSky, StonehouseStudio, ZestyB.
Street parking available, T accessible via the Silver Line bus.
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I will be showing dolls and fabric postcards. I will also have my notecards to sell.
This is the last part of the interview.
Here are links to all the rest of the segments.
I’ve been missing this week- school vacation, random little jobs to be done, and the big thing- I’ve been trying to clean my studio- very slowly. Work will begin again soon, hopefully tomorrow.
also- here is a link to a picture of the sampler mentioned in the interview.
one day late! Here is week 4.
Week 3, week 2, week 1. One more segment left.
On Saturday, Ben and I drove down to Southbridge, Connecticut to go to an opening in this amazing building called the Flat Iron building-
It is a town where the store fronts look like they got caught and stuck somewhere around the middle of the last century. After the opening, we drove over to Sturbridge, Mass. and went to a favorite store of mine (I’ve blogged about it before in 2005 and 2006), Vintage and Antique Textiles. Since I was with Ben instead of a group of doll makers, my time to shop/explore was limited, but I managed to find some treasures. I love these tiny shoe buttons. They are glass.
I got some other buttons too, some rayon seam binding, hmm, oh, and some little lingerie hardware for future robots. I met the owner for the first time. She now has a website and asked me if I’d include a link- which I am happy to do. I’ll go back and add it to the old posts as well. She said to tell everyone that she has tons of lace!
And about the open studios- here is some more info.
another little thing I was working on this week-
Here’s the problem. I am going to participate in an open studio event in Boston with a group of other Etsy sellers- details on that in a week or so, but in case you want know, it is May 4. I needed to figure out some kind of give-away to add to a promo pack… stuff from all of the exhibitors. Some of the others in the group were already doing this and had buttons made up. Hmm. I knew I didn’t want to spend much money, I wanted a clear image of my work and I didn’t want it to involve a lot of labor. Here is what I came up with-
ta da! Refrigerator magnets!
They are made from photos of Mosaics on Flickr. First, I made up a variety of mosaics. I picked out photos that worked well in the square format and in a 2″ x 2″ photo. I made the mosaics 2 photos by 3 photos since that translates perfectly to a 4 x 6 photo. The most important thing is to upload your images in the large size- spoken from experience. My first batch of photos was too grainy to use. I printed out my info- name and etsy site address– nothing fancy. Then it was just putting them together onto the self adhesive magnetic sheet. The paper doll project brought this stuff into my life and I’m loving it! This project involved no special tools- the photos were printed at Target, I got the magnetic sheets at AC Moore, you can cut the magnetic sheeting with regular scissors, I printed out my info on regular paper with my very low end printer. Yes- meets all criteria!
First of all- Thank you, thank you for all the positive response to mr. naked robot! I’ve been glowing!
It was one of those weeks where a lot was going on that kept me away from the sewing machine. I have a friend that works at Harvard in the African Studies Department. They were having a special event this week which included a workshop lead by Oyenike Okundaye, on Nigerian fabric dyeing. It was fun to get out of the house and get a glimpse into several worlds I’m not part of- African textile arts, Harvard and their academic arts, and people in general who end up at a workshop like this, mostly somehow connected with Harvard, which I am not.
The first night we did what I think of as tie-dyeing. She showed us a variety of traditional ways to fold the fabric before tieing (actually we were using rubber bands). These are the ones I did-
and this is what the floor looked like by mid-evening-
We also did some work with wax and dye and also a technique that involved stitching and pulling to gather the fabric. What I did the second evening-
I think I’ll be able to use some of what I was playing with when I dye my wool fabrics… which I do every once in a while. Lots of fun!
Also- I think I worked out the twisting leg problem that was bugging me on the naked robot guy- I did some ripping stitches out, adjusting and resewing- better now- phew!
This one has been waiting a long time to be made. When I first saw that pink zipper pull… well, it seemed pretty obvious where it needed to go!
Side view-
I quite like how the back looks-
his face-
and the torso.
Here I am holding him so you can get a little scale. He has very long legs and is about 25 inches tall.
I worked and reworked the legs. I am still not 100% satisfied with how they hang. So I might be reworking them again- if I can think of what to do. It is a common problem for me- the doll looks fine/right when it is sitting, but the legs twist into an odd position when they are in a standing position… which they normally wouldn’t be in because they can’t stand on their own. hmm. He is basically the same pattern as Robot #3.