I have a pile of mermaids in progress but a few other projects got pushed to the front of the line.
He has metallic seaweed on his tail,
subtle shiny stars on his hair and beard,
and silver rick rack with a fish button. Also, whale tattoos.
The fish button was something my daughter brought home for me from South Africa, many years ago.
Two photos in my studio-
I love how she turned out.
It took me several tries to get the faces and the hair to a place I liked.
More embroidered scales. I used white silk buttonhole thread to keep the dark blue threads in place. The buttonhole thread originally came from my mom’s sewing collection!
The back of her tail is plain.
I have one more mermaid but she needs to go back to the worktable. Hopefully I can show her to you in a few days. I’ve also dyed some more ombre fabrics and am so excited to sew them up!
I have gotten lots of requests for mermaids but I was not imagining anything to move forward with. During my break from making, I’d been mulling over the idea of ombre (shaded) dyeing. Finally I’ve tried it and am loving it!
Here is Mermaid 1-
I am so excited to be playing with something new!
Green hair
Mermaid hair is a challenge!
No cover-up for her!
Trying out embroidered scales with variegated thread.
She is the last of the tattooed ladies that I am planning for a bit.
She also has an antique button-
Here she is with Archibald, a doll I made many years ago.
All I could think of when I was making her hair was Pippi Longstocking LOL!
It doesn’t take much to amuse me!
A sweet antique button on her belt-
It is hard to see but her tights/leggings/pants are dark blue with black spirals.
Here is a close-up of her hair fabric-
Her hair is like tiny bubbles.
She has a bow belt.
I feel like I am very out of practice. I take photos of my finished dolls. When I look through them later, I don’t love the face. So, I throw away those photos and rework something or other. New photos are taken. Then I notice there is a random thread on the doll’s face. How did I miss that! More photos discarded and reshot. All this is an explanation of why there are sometimes delays. 😝
They get posted eventually!
It’s been a long while since I made some tattooed ladies.
My biggest stumbling block these days is finding the best place to photograph my new pieces.
This toile is such a perfect scale for these ladies.
A close-up of her hair-
Always a helper is on the scene- 😆
Things are slowly settling here although it will take a while more- I go from being energized to hang art and shelves, to just wanting to enjoy what we’ve got so far. Here are some of the latest projects-
We built a plant wall- it is a work-in-progress as we need to find all the perfect plant stands and the plants have to settle in and grow.
We had wallpaper put into our entryway. This star ceiling was after the first day-
And then it was done!
Just how I imagined it.
A beautiful full moon over the lake. This is right out our window.
Meanwhile, in my studio… wallpaper in the entryway there too.
The weather has been beautiful, I’ve been making myself some shirts, and generally slowly moving forward. so far, so good!