Sewing

Happy Birthday to elinor today!  Isaac’s mom’s in town for a few
days and she brought along this funny little doll, inspired by a
drawing by my niece, Lily (who’ll be here on Wednesday with Laura &
Luke (not of the soap opera variety), but not before Evie’s family
(another of Isaac’s fun sisters) gets here on Monday).  Isn’t she
fantastic?  I love her skinny, mis-matched legs (the doll’s).

A few months back, I led elinor to a couple of Softies groups that
had formed on Flickr and to Softies Central and the Softies Awards blog after she declared
that young women were not interested in making dolls.  So not true! 
She couldn’t believe what she saw.  Elinor has been a many-decades
pillar of the cloth-doll-making community and neither she nor her
friends knew what a doll-making revival had been taking place amongst younger
(generally, I think) men & women .

Her overview of "Softies" or "Stuffies" (new words for her) pointed
out the naive and quirky nature of many of these stuffed creations, as
well as the broad influence of Japanese illustration and design.  She
was impressed by the creativity, adventure and general silliness of it
all.  Aren’t we all?  C’mon, stuffed food and sea creatures, fabulously
silly.  Many of the best dolls remind me of children’s illustrations,
playful and light-hearted. 

So, anyhow, elinor’s new Lily doll brought us back to that conversation
and in revisiting the discussion I realized that perhaps "Softies"-
makers don’t exactly know yet what a resource they have in "Doll"-
makers. Softies-makers are often hunting down used books from the 70s
for stuffed-animal and doll patterns, but perhaps don’t realize that
there are Doll-makers today that can show them how to create their own
vision in 3-D.  Maybe they don’t even know that the Doll-makers exist.  My
MIL, for instance, has several booklets on designing dolls — Let’s
Face It! (designing faces), Big Fat Hairy Deal (hair tips, techniques
& ideas), The Rag Doll from Plain to Fancy (body shapes,
contouring), etc.

There are some fantastic techniques out there, like the joints on
this Lily doll, or how to dart a foot to make a heel (these doll feet don’t have any darts though).  I don’t know
where I’m going with this.  I guess you could say that I’m excited to
see what will happen with Softies when some of these techniques are
discovered.  There’s some inspiring creative energy being poured into
the genre as it is.  Will added technique kick things up even more or will Softies lose their wacky edge? 

You know, the night I met my husband (I was 16, he was 21), he asked me
what I liked to do and after a long pause I blurted, "I like to make
dolls."  He replied, in a perfectly matter-of-fact fashion, "My mom
likes to do that."  At the time, I supposed he was trying to repair an
awkward moment.  I later learned that he was 100% unflustered by my
answer.  Of course.  (And, holy cow, what an understatement… "My mom likes to do that!" ??)  Elinor is dolls. 

The Softies movement has been a hoot to follow, it brings me back to
the crocheted banana slugs and Santa Frogs of my own quirky childhood
ambition.  Softies, dolls, whichever term you prefer, they’re a fun
place to play.

Happy Birthday to elinor, who’s been saying it all along, right mom?

I have one of those fancy-schmancy sewing machines that can output
original embroidery designs.  When I first received the machine (oh,
about a year ago), Isaac took it upon himself to figure out exactly how
I might utilize my new Cadillac considering we’re a totally-Mac
family and these machines are all designed for PC users.  He signed up
to write an article on the process for Sew News. All I had to do was
design an embroidery and sew up something cute with it — no problem. 

My design is now a free download.  Follow the "Sew News Rose" link over
in my sidebar and you’ll download a zipped folder containing several
file types of the same design (.ART, .CSD, .HUS, .PCD, .PCQ, .PCS,
.PEC, .PES, .SEW, .SHV, .XXX)  If you have a tricky sewing machine too,
then one of these should work for you.  If you need some other sort of
file type to be able to use the design, I apologize, but the above 11
file types are all we can do.

I wish I could say that digitizing embroideries is now second-nature
for me, but I have some work to do before I can hatch an idea out in
thread lickity-split.  I’ll have to take some classes or hook up with
someone who enjoys moving needle positions around.  I’ve got the
flower-doodling part down pat… and plenty of thread.

Check out Isaac’s article in the August/September ’07 issue of Sew News. 

Enjoy!  (and send me photos!)

Don’t struggle with obnoxiously-thin slivers of soap in the shower ever again!  You know, the dwindling remains of a bar, when the soap finally gives up the ghost and snaps in two?  Set them aside with your sewing supplies.

Waifish
soap bars can be the perfect marking tool in many instances.  In fact,
I find myself using soap far more often than chalk.  And there’s no longer any
guilt in instating a fresh bar of soap in the shower when the old one
gets cumbersome.  Handy and resourceful.  Yes, there should be
some sort of disclaimer here — test it on your fabric first, etc, etc.
— but it works for me. 

My favorite little soap trick made its way into ReadyMade this
month, along with a groovy illustration.  Like my favorite knot,
"the soap trick" is one of those little things that makes sewing more
fun.  And showering more pleasant.   

My next collection of fabric gets turned in this week.  And, yes,
that’s where I’ve been — tending my two-dimensional garden.  As soon
as the designs* are shipped out, it’ll be a mad-dash to prepare three
lectures and one hands-on class for these guys (attendees — note the
supply list in the sidebar) for early July, followed by the launch of
Trash Ties in mid-July. Then I think I will fall over sideways for a
couple of weeks before committing to anything new.

Thanks Kim, for your kind take — this sort of thing helps keep a girl peppy and at-it — at least for a few more weeks.

*It’ll be months before we see the resulting fabric.  It’s still Freshcut season 🙂

Looking for a sewing pick-me-up?  How about a new pincushion.  The new Summer 2007 issue of Quilts and More sports a pincushion pattern written by moi.  Aren’t they cute?  And so simple.

They also did a feature on me.  Blush, blush. They asked fun questions, like "What’s on your iPod?" and "What’s your ideal day?"  A very comfortable interview.

Yes, there have been all sorts of ‘secret’ projects I haven’t been able to share.  So, I’ve got to make a big splash of them once they come out of hiding, like this pattern.  Hence, the parade of photos.  See, I’ve been doing stuff.

So, go get my little pattern and cover the world in pincushions.  They make great presents too.

Ha!

Oh ya:  Local folks (Arizona), I’m going to be on TV tomorrow — Sonoran Living.  I think it’s on ABC — sometime in the morning.  It’ll be live ; )

Keeping with a theme, here’s a palette of crochet yarns to go with my hooks and buttons, all singing in chorus, "It’s time to play."  So, if these make up the strings section, what are the hooks and buttons — winds and percussion?

I picked these up at a second hand shop for $5 yesterday — pretty nice way to stash up some supplies.  The only trick was picking which bags to go home with.  They had at least ten full bags of crochet yarn to choose from.  No surprise, I went for the brights. 

But, don’t expect to see any major crochet projects anytime soon– I’m mostly interested in adding borders to things and ogling this box of colors on occasion.  The sewing box is new to me too.  It reminds me of blue eyeshadow and kneehigh sports socks, and The Brady Bunch, somehow.  Hmmm.

Also, Laura‘s got her new Etsy shop all decked out and she’s giving away a free print to mark the occasion.  All you have to do is fess up your most embarrassing story.  Should make for some good reads, no?

Ay, they’re calling to me: paint, thread, buttons, hooks, hexagons.

Every once in a while I ruffle through my button drawers to tide me over until it’s time to sew again.  It’s like popping one of these to fix a sugar craving instead of attacking a batch of cookies. It works for a while.

But, now that I’ve straightened up the laundry room, mopped the floor and made space in the studio, I’m off to make something — not sure what yet.  I just hope Charlotte’s nap lasts a while today.

Have you seen the Bitty Booties Photo Pool lately?  There are some amazing little booties in there – almost 200 photos.  Some with amazing embroidery, some with funky embellishments, some simple, some a little wild — so many great interpretations of a simple baby shoe (free pattern in my sidebar).  Go take a peek at the photo pool if you’re expecting a baby, know someone who’s expecting a baby or are just looking for crafty inspiration.  You’re bound to think of someone to make shoes for once you’ve bathed in the cutness that is Bitty Booties.

Also tickling my fancy is this new patchwork dress from Anthropologie.  Who’d have thought a patchwork dress could look so chic?  Yes, and a little Oklahoma, but I like musicals.  I’m pencilling-in a patchwork dress for a summertime project in my fantasy craft calendar.  Who knows, some dreams come true.

Thanks for the chandelier love. And, yes, you’ve been heard…I’ll try to get some good pictures of the
studio tomorrow.  I have such a good time taking detail shots, I
haven’t stepped back to get the big picture. (Sounds like a metaphor
for something.)

Finally, today’s the last day to vote for the Bloggies.  I’m putting in a major bid for Amy Angry Chicken who’s a finalist in the Best Craft Weblog category.  Just in case I’m not being obvious enough… Go vote for Amy!