I really wanted to get another post out before August is over. Happy Labor Day weekend to all my US friends! I have finished up a group of 4 kitties that are a special gift for someone :-)
Here is the first kitty girl-
She has a cashmere sweater with tiny antique 3-hole buttons. What a sweet face!
All her goodies.
Purse close-up-
And here she is in the garden, hanging out with all her gnome friends!
What is going on? Well, I have been working on kitties but I started from scratch so I am building up inventory of all the parts.
But first; I was looking around on Ebay this past weekend because some of my pottery bowls came up for sale. (I have an alert on Ebay for my artwork) These are gone already, but I found more where the seller spelled my name wrong. Here and here. In case anyone is interested.
Back to the kitties-
Step one; find all the cat appropriate fabrics. Step 2; Cut out and sew up too many kitties! Step 3; sew on the noses, embroider the faces, attach the arms.
Step 4; get them dressed. I haven’t really touched all my lovely fabrics for about 1 1/2 years so I kinda went overboard…
There are even a few more that aren’t sewed up yet. Yikes! Well, I will be ready for lots of future kitties and foxes.
Here are some of my friends, waiting for their turn to be dressed. And enjoying the air conditioning because it is VERY hot in Chicago this week.
Here are some sweet girl kitties that are almost finished- just have to do their accessories. It is so much fun to see things moving forward again. Next I have to make some boy kitty clothes.
Another Green-tailed Mer-lady.
She has silver knots in her hair-
It is the first time I’ve tried french knots with metallic embroidery floss. I got this beautiful watery batik for her hair during my recent trip to Connecticut.
Still playing with tail embroidery.
I gave her some decoration on her back-
And some relaxing shots :-)
Dreaming of the beach…
And making friends-
This mermaid has a lot of purple!
She is a slim mermaid. If you haven’t noticed, I made 3 body sizes :-)
Her hair matches her fins.
The ombre dyeing crept right up her belly. Tiny glass stars beads on her belt.
I’m still playing with the tail embroidery. And I decorated the back a bit.
I love her sea-bubbly hair.
I’m enjoying playing with the embroidered tails.
This time I put a little embroidery on her back.
Yes, I am having fun with the hair!
I spent way too long on the tail embroidery.
Again, the back is plain.
And here she is, out in the garden.
The last month or so has been busy. I cut out and dyed more mermaids, made myself some new clothes, traveled to Connecticut for a family get-together, and made a baby blanket. Now that it has been received, I can post it!
Here is step one… well actually step 0 was finding the right bins in my disorganized studio…
Laying out the pieces of scrap cashmere sweaters. Step 2, sewing it all up.
The edging is sweater ribbing.
Step 3, mail it off, wait to make sure it gets there, then wrap up that sweet baby!
This mermaid had several “make-overs” before I was satisfied. That is not unusual when working on a new design. I’m going through my embroidery books to get inspired for the scale design.
Variegated perle (pearl) cotton by Sue Spargo– I love this thread!
Her back has no embroidery. But her hair is fancy!
And here she is, out in the garden. I would definitely not recommend displaying this way :-)
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!