rainy day news

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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tattoo man 2

Okay, it went much better this time- (chapter one here)

This toile is perfect. I dyed it before cutting and sewing (lesson learned) and the scale and images on the toile is wonderful.

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approx. 21 inches tall-

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his back-

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he needed a belly button-

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I loved embroidering his hair-

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Now we are going to go buy more peaches so I can make some more yummy end of summer desserts.

events and photos

Have you seen the new blog I’m associated with?  Boston Handmade.  It is connected to the Boston Etsy group that I’m part of.  If you go there, you can see that I will be showing my work in Jamaica Plain, tomorrow evening (9/6).  I will say it once again (since it has never happened), tell me you read about it on my blog and it will make my day!

I’m working on taking photos to send out when I need to include something when applying for shows.

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sometimes the ideas work out perfectly,

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!

meet up- Lilla Rogers

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It is amazing to discover the interesting people that live right in the same town as me. Through an odd series of events, which included helping someone deal with getting rid of a lot of fabric, I met Lilla Rogers. We got together yesterday and had a marathon, 4 hour, gab-fest. It was so much fun to talk to someone else about the web and it’s influences on the art and design world. To see her house and studio. And her art and the art work of some of the artists/designers that she represents. I was so impressed. We talked about blogs and flickr, etsy and the business end of art. I don’t know very many people that I can discuss these topics with- it is like finding someone who speaks the same language.

and one more baby

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more fall colors

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I think the wallpaper in my living room is creeping into my work!

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close-up of the birds-

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When I checked my computer this morning, there were 254 comments waiting moderation- all spam… I think. If you sent me a comment and it has disappeared, that is why. I don’t know what the problem is- my spam filter has been excellent until now. Gotta get my tech guy onto it, eh?!