“For women, shoes are the most important. Good shoes take you good places.”
― Seo Min Hyun
I’ve been working on a new doll. Today she got shoes!
We started with this (above) and ended with this:
I have to decide whether to paint the heels or leave them as is. Probably will be easier to decide after she has a dress. Next step is to attach these legs to a body. I doubt if anyone will be impressed with just two legs standing alone together!
Last week I started working in another book, but ran out of time before finishing the first project. Here’s where we left off:
Three buds, check. Now for those other three stems.
There are all the pieces, stitched and stuffed. But before assembling these iris, I need to add one more element.
After all, no decent iris would be caught without his beard! Three rows of “turkey work” and my iris are ready to assemble.
My Grandpa called these “flags” and a patch of purple iris blowing in the wind can look a lot like waving flags. At one time I had several varieties growing in my yard and they were every color in the rainbow . . . and some never found in the sky! Now I have a small bed of white iris. They are finally growing this year, but not ready to bloom yet.
This fiber vase will have to hold me until the real iris bloom. I will leave the edges unfinished for now. I think I want to make a wall hanging with all five of the floral pieces in this book, so will wait until they are all done before deciding on a finish.
Here’s a sneak preview of next week’s flower. Red! Don’t you love it? I do and I can’t wait to play with it.
Sunday:
Monday:
Tuesday:
Now just a dang minute here! How can I show you ‘What’s On the Worktable’ when I can’t even find it! This calls for some serious action.
Two hours later:
Aaaaah – much better. Project supplies have been boxed by project, papers have been filed, books have been shelved, glitter has been vacuumed (honestly, how could so much glitter have escaped and to such far flung areas!?).
Oops! Time to leave for my doctor’s appointment. So much for getting anything done today. But I have a nice clean worktable waiting for tomorrow! It doesn’t get this clean very often . . . and it won’t stay this way for long.
“Creative minds are rarely tidy.” Ain’t it the truth!
Today was the nicest weather we’ve had recently . . . but I still wouldn’t call it Spring! So, if I can’t have spring weather outdoors, I’ll have it in my studio.
This is the book I’ve chosen for my next round of Sunday experimentation. The first project is iris – my favorite flower!
Preparing the background actually took most of my afternoon. I used leftover fabrics from my Laura Wasilowski class. Her hand-dyed fabrics have such bright colors and yummy variations through the rainbow.
There was some pink/orange left, too which looked right for the vase. The base and handles are a metallic fabric, although this photo doesn’t really show the shine.
For buds, a quarter-circle is folded and stitched, then gathered at one end. I pinned them in place and then fused and stitched a green calyx(?) so that the buds themselves stand free of the background.
Here is what it looks like at the end of the day. There are three stems there waiting for blooms. Those will be constructed of multiple pieces -- just like the real-life flower is -- so I’ll save that for next Sunday.
Hmmm. I guess I didn’t find Spring quite yet, after all. Where there are buds, though, Spring is close by – right?
A dark, rainy, gloomy day. Perfect for playing –er- working in the studio!
As usual, the worktable is piled high! You can probably tell I did a lot of cutting and gluing. Working on that wooden frame. It’s drying now so I should be able to get a photo of the finished product soon.
I also did some gluing on the green girl. Oh. Just a minute . . .
There she is! She is also drying now. I can’t do anything further on these projects until they are completely dry. Not a problem. It took as much time to clean up after the glue session as it did to do the actual gluing! Remember that kid in kindergarten who always got glue in her hair? Um, that would be me! Half a century (plus!) later and nothing has changed. LOL!
After cutting and measuring (or rather – measuring then cutting!) the pieces are ready for assembly.
Still assembling. A couple of tricky bits here and there.
Even the scraps are pretty! Seems a shame to toss them, but out they go. My scrap bag(s) are overflowing as it is!
Remember this? It’s the perfect color combination for this project. I knew I could find uses for these things!
Voila! A little scrip bag. This is a style I’ve not experimented with before. The top edge of the body has elastic so it can expand to carry a surprising amount of “stuff.” Or one can just tuck the sides in for a flatter bag.
It’s even got a pocket on the inside for a little organization. The flap is great for showing off some of those fun pleats and tucks I’ve been learning about. It would work as a showcase for embroidery or quilting, too.
That brings me to the end of this particular book. There are two or three more from this collection about folding and manipulating fabric. Next week I’ll choose one to continue exploring. I wonder which one it will be?
In our last episode of The Purple Project That Never Ends! the blocks were looking like this:
Well, today I made definite progress. Now the blocks look like this:
And before the day was through, I had one end section assembled.
Oh boy, that means it is just possible there could be a finished quilt come out of this project! And since I love purple (a good thing with how long this is taking!) I think I’m going to like this quilt. After this is done I should be pretty good at curved piecing, if nothing else!
The last few chapters of this Jennie Rayment book have some projects for using some of the techniques we’ve learned in a practical way. One of them caught my interest and I made a start on it today.
It was only a start, though. Right after breakfast, Sarge decided he wanted to go into the Big City and I wasn’t about to argue. A day in the Big City usually includes lunch and I’m always up for that! But it left me with a short time for experiments.
I’ve been looking for a project for these fat quarters. I have a bad habit of buying a fat-quarter of every fabric that catches my eye, with no idea how it can be used. This might make sense if it has a small pattern because that is plenty for doll costuming. But these would overwhelm a doll and it’s hard to make a quilt from a single 18x22 piece! Although, I do have enough of them to make several large quilts if they were sewn together!
But, I’m straying from today’s topic. . .
I cut strips from two of the fabrics, folded the edges, and stitched down the centers with various decorative stitches. Love those decorative stitches!
Here is one set of strips trimmed and laid out over a backing and batting. I’ll bet you can guess what comes next . . .
Weaving! Here it is all ready for the next step. I know, the photos all look like different colors. I discovered that gray is a difficult color to photograph and even more difficult to “Photoshop.” Actually, that first pic is probably the closest match.
That is all there was time for, so you will have to wait to see what I plan to do with this. For now, I think I’ll just sit and admire it.
Earlier this year, I took an online course to learn polymer sculpting a female head. I’ve now made three heads, plus about half a dozen heads I’ve done over the years from paperclay. Hmmm. Maybe I should think about giving them bodies!!
You may have seen this head lurking in the background of some of my Wednesday WOW pictures. It’s the first one I completed in the class I mentioned.
This week I finally gave her a body! I had such a good time stitching, testing, and re-stitching, but there’s something not quite right here.
Yes! That’s better! Not perfect yet, but much better. This is only the beginning, though. She needs clothing and embellishments – not to mention hair! Oh, my head is spinning with ideas for this girl.
More to come as she evolves.
We are having some painting done, so I stayed home and worked in my own little studio today.
There’s plenty of projects there to keep me busy. In fact, the hardest part of the day was deciding what to work on!
I started out by working on these wings, gluing wires and getting ready to make them amazing. That sloppy glue job will be hidden beneath some color, so not to worry. I can’t seem to do a neat job – I think I’ve been glue-challenged since kindergarten!
I’ll need a body to attach those wings to, so I started on that while waiting for glue to dry. This is a body design I’ve been working on for a little while – you can see a previous edition standing at left in the top photo. I think it is about ready. Won’t know for sure until it is all assembled, but I’m liking the proportions better.
I have a pile of clay heads that really need to have bodies added. It’s nice to be returning to my doll making. About time!
