Here is my second Cindee Moyer doll, she is an upside down heart but I may have made the face too tight and she looks like she has a headache. I had to be very creative in stuffing her as the hole I'd left was filled with a 3/16" dowl rod so I had to put a funnel over the rod and into the hole and stuff the fibrefill down between them. I now feel more capable of attempting a more complicated doll pattern called Violet by Jill Mass; she is a goth doll and very cute. After her I think I'll get going on a Patty Culea pattern but we'll have to see how I get on.
Last month I had a waistcoat returned because the fashion fabric had broken down, so I'd arranged a swap. However, after taken it apart and ditching the fronts, I decided to add new fronts to the back. I made up two fronts and attached them at the shoulders only to find the sides were 2" too short! Woe was me...I had to take it apart again, make more two new fronts and today I finally had my new waistcoat. Now I have to make a new back for the two fronts I cut short...maybe next week.
Digger had an accident with the dog flap last month, he caught his toe in the corner and on Saturday when I took him for his daily walk, he suddenly stopped and started licking his toe. When I had a look it was bleeding quite badly, so I phoned the vet and got an appointment for him, and the vet found that half his claw had come away but we would have to wait and see if it would all come away naturally or if he would need surgery. Now he has to have pain killers and antibiotics every day wrapped up in slices of beef - what will he do when the tablets run out??
Work is done and lunch to get, then to play again with Violet...
Here is my new art doll, from a pattern by Cindee Moyer. I made a special effort to stay away from PINK. I found this pattern much better to construct than the last one, but some of the instructions were a bit vague and assumed I was a doll maker...well, I'm trying! I've called her Bluebell and she is weighted with pigeon feed, would you believe? The pattern called for plastic pellets, but our art shop didn't stock them and I was sent to the pet shop across the road. They had the polystyrene blown pellets used for stuffing beds but they were too light for my doll, so the shop assistant, bless her, suggested the pigeon feed and having hoisted the bag I realised it was just the right weight.
Why is that all my work seems to be pink these days? There is no reason for it, but somehow I see everything in pink tones. This is a piece for Mixed Media Monday and this week's theme is 'Oriental'. I wanted to show a different slant on the orient and went to my local scrapping warehouse. But they said oriental art had died about a year ago and had nothing I could use. However, after searching around I suddenly had a lightbulb moment and remembered I had photos of moths at home. I bought papers, buttons and chipwords and rushed home to choose this beautiful Japanese oak silk moth - Antheraea Yamamai. I love these moths they are so colourful and have beautiful markings and we get the lovely silk cloth from their cocoons. I printed the moth out as is and in reverse then cut and glued the two sides together so I could curve the wings then researched Princess Xi Ling Shi who first discovered silk threads when a cocoon fell into her teacup in about 2640BC.
de a lovely pink journal,
it had to be one colour but several hues and 3 techniques which were felting, colouring the white cotton fabric with Aquarell sticks and stamping with a stamp made from foam shapes from the children's corner of our local Ryan's shop. Even the pencil is pink!
This week's I.M.T. challenge is Bamboo and my light bulb said Haiku! A haiku is "an unrhymed Japanese poetic form. It consists of 17 syllables arranged in three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables, respectively", so I thought "I can do that" and here is my take on Bamboo. The art is to keep everything simple and ascthetically pleasing so that nothing detracts from the words.
ished my course Sampler Book. It was very intense and very interesting and I can thorougly recommend the course. The pages consist of pictures on fabric, extravorganza and transparency and I went for pictures of my parents and grandparents that were in black and white (or sepia) and seemed to lend themselves to this book. So it is a Memory book as well as a reference book.
This is that doll I was blogging about last time, the one with the awful face, but there was nothing I could do about it once I'd painted it on unfortunately. Still, first attempt and on the way up, as they say.
The wings are made from craft wire, angelina fantasy film and glue. I heated the film after the glue set and burned some holes at strategic points (and not so strategic) and the main problem as getting both sides to match. I used glitter glue and alcohol inks on the film to give it a little bling. I have to thank Deb Wood http://www.debwood.com/tutorials.htm for the tutorial on the web and she also does a great tut on more complicated wings which I'm hoping to try next.
I waited in all day to receive my new mobile phone - the E71 - because my other one is acting up big time and I'm missing a lot of calls. Also the battery seems to be giving up life as we know it so I don't know where I am with it at any given time. However, the new one has arrived and is charging up nicely and I hope to get to grips with it this evening.
Bert is still in hospital but I'm told his brain is OK, and although his eyes are a bit hazy he hasn't suffered much damage from the stroke. He is in a room on his own at the moment and bored out of his tree but his sister won't let him have his mobile yet - I wonder what she thinks he'll get up to?
I finished all the pages for my sampler book course and sent them to the web for comments and tomorrow is the last week when we get to put everything together. It was an intensive course and used up lots of stash, and each page used a different technique which was marvellous - I really enjoyed the course and you can see it at www.joggles.com. I'll post the book after I've put the pages together.
Also I've made my adult and two children's waistcoats ready for Thursday, just have to make two bow ties for the boys and I'm ready to go.
Well, I have a new Crusade to go through with GPP Street and Maggie Grey's workshop on the web zine so I'm having some me time tonight! You can see Maggie's zine on www.workshopontheweb.com and buy a subscription there, it's well worth it.
