While She Naps

Doll #3

I'm really pleased that my work has been selected for the Morphe II soft toy exhibit. I created the Cube Zoo with Morphe in mind and I'm so happy that Carly liked my little lions enough to include them in this fantastic show. Do I get to call myself an artist now?

I finished a third doll during nap time today (everyone is taking a nice long nap right now - thank god for the summer sun and the pool!). Two of these dolls will be off next week to Seattle for Plush You, I just have to choose which ones I'm willing to let go. I like making these dolls because each one requires four different prints and a vintage button. I get so much joy from sorting through my big bins and matching fabrics together, especially when I use up a tiny scrap of treasured fabric that I've held onto for years even though it is so small .

On a totally different topic, my sometimes difficult but seriously funny two-year-old got her first haircut last week.

Roxy has long curly hair and it had gotten so long and so scraggly that it really needed a trim. I took her to see Lori, my hairdresser at Hair West here, who did a great job.

It really brought tears to my eyes to see my little baby sitting up on the salon chair with clips in her hair like a little woman. Oh my.

Have a good weekend everyone!

It must be so hard to be 2

Roxy and I are taking a little nature class on Thursday mornings called Puddlestompers. It meets at a different local park each week and we experience parts of the natural world together. Last week we learned about sow bugs and today we dissected flowers.

Except that WE didn't do much with the flowers. Instead, we screamed because we couldn't keep the pinwheel that we were given to test for wind and we shoved to the front to get daisy stamps on our hands and we threw colored rice all around the tarp instead of putting it on our flower picture.

Then we launched into an out of control, all sweaty and teary-eyed temper tantrum that started at 10:30 in parking lot on the way to the car and lasted all the way to the doctor's office (We had an 11:15 appointment for a skin irritation in the diaper area that was looking pretty raw and potentially infected to me). But the tantrum didn't stop there. Oh no. It continued while we were in the waiting room and I was trying to nurse Stella who, did I mention, was also screaming, poor thing. I ended up taking them both back out to the car, strapping Roxy into her car seat so I could feed Stella in the front seat.

Then, the nurse came out to the car to tell us they were ready for us. Back in we went. The tantrum finally ended after she had been examined and her temperature had been taken and I'd been assured that it is only a bad case of diaper rash and not an infection. I think potty training needs to come sooner rather than later, but let's not even go there.

Gosh.

The happy quiet part of my day came after everyone had been fed and diapered and put down for naps (they thankfully are both napping at the same time today). I finished up a sister to my first doll.

These two are very easy to raise - so quiet and agreeable. Ahhhh.

pincushions

Six in total, made from bits of vintage fabric, linen, woven ribbon and trim and vintage bottons.

And guess who finally got his own blog?

doll

I finished a new doll today during nap time.

Last week I received a bundle of vintage fabric scraps from an ebay auction and they were so inspiring (nothing is better than someone else's scraps!). A lot of the pieces are fairly small - perfect paired with linen for some pincushions. And some of the pieces are tiny florals that would be great for doll dresses. This doll's dress and bloomers are made from fabric from that package.

Here are the steps that went into making this doll.

It started with a sketch

And then I drew pattern pieces onto freezer paper. I chose the dress fabric and used it as the anchor for picking colors for her hair, bloomers and boots and for the vintage button in her hair. Then I ironed the freezer paper to the fabric, cut and sewed the pieces. Here she is sewn, but unstuffed

and here she is all stuffed and still in her underwear and without a face.

Then I inserted elastic into her dress and clothed her, embroidered her facial features and sewed the button in her hair.

Here she is sitting up proudly.

I really enjoyed making this doll. I am realizing that I have only made animals for a long while now so dolls feel fresh to me again.

Four Years

Today is our fourth wedding anniversary. Charlie and I met in the summer of 1999. I had just moved to Cambridge to get my master's degree at Harvard. Charlie had been in the Boston area for a few years already and was regularly leading Friday night services at Harvard Hillel. After spending four years at Johns Hopkins, where there were few Jewish students, and two years in the Mississippi Delta, where I was one of the only Jews in town, I committed myself to attending Shabbat services every week. Charlie and I sat across from each other for a year before I asked him out to dinner. It was a really good dinner.

Before our wedding we had several meetings with the rabbi who was marrying us. Our homework assignment before the last meeting was to write each other a love letter. We decided to continue to write each other love letters every year on our anniversary, instead of any kind of gifts. Here is my letter to Charlie this year:

Dear Charlie,

Today is our 4th anniversary. Do you know what I think about when I reflect back on these last four years? All those long talks on car rides to and from New London and how they’ve changed and how they’ve stayed the same.

Way back when, more than four years ago, we were talking about falling in love. Do you love me? Could you fall in love with me? Who are you really? What is your history?

And then we talked about hunting for a place to live together. Moving in together. The beginning of really sharing life together.

And then we talked about diamonds. And about huppas.

And then all of a sudden it was about babies. When should we have one? How come it is taking so long? When will I feel better? What should her name be?

In four years we’ve become a family of four. We have two beautiful daughters to love and raise together and now I’m called mommy and your called daddy (and your necktie has taken on a role of surprising prominence in our household). But of course, I’m still Abby and you’re still my beloved Charlie.

So in many ways our car ride talks have changed, but in essence they’ve stayed exactly the same. Still full of excited planning about the next big thing we will take on as a couple, still evincing the wrestling that goes on within us and between us about what is truly important and what we can compromise on, still looking forward to walking shoulder to shoulder together through our lives.

Charlie, you make me laugh every day. With your constant hunting for the best food in the metro area and the most interesting new art shows to explore, you help me enjoy life. You encourage me and respect me. You’ve seen me through the most difficult and most wonderful days of my life.

To my husband - here’s to many more long car rides and important conversations. I love you so much. You mean the world to me. Happy anniversary.

Love,
Abby

under gussets

The new dog pattern is working out really well. It turned out that the head gusset on the first prototype was fine, it was the under gusset that was the problem - it was a bit too wide so he ended up doing the splits. I fixed that and also set a better order in which to sew his parts together. Doing the head and under gussets first and then the rest of him seems to work best.

Has anyone else noticed that not all polyfills are created equal? Some of the bags I buy are squishy while others are, well, crunchy. Crunchy like cotton balls. I do like that crunchy kind, but it doesn't seemed to be marked as any different than the squishy kind. Am I crazy here or has anyone else noticed this? How do I find more bags of the crunchy?

Other dogs are in the works, this time with patterned fabric.

visiting the farm and a new sketchbook

We had a nice, if hot, Father's Day. Charlie liked the necktie/shoetree collage Roxanne and I made for him as well as his gifts - an actual necktie, a business card folio, and a book called "I Love My Daddy" which Roxanne requests by name, giving Charlie a nice thrill.

We spent the morning visiting Drumlin Farm in Lincoln.

Goats are always a favorite with the Rox.

To help with my creative slump Charlie recommended a trip to the craft store (always a treat for me, especially without a toddler in the shopping cart). I bought some small canvases. I'm still thinking about painting them and then sewing softies to them. Most importantly, though, I bought a new sketchbook. My old sketchbook was just about out of pages (I've had it since 1997 - hmmm maybe I need to do a bit more drawing) and I love this new new one. It's hard cover and sturdy and so...empty right now. I'm trying to just dive in and not worry if I'm not satisfied with the sketches on some of the pages.

I know I'm not in time for Work In Progress Friday, but here is a glimpse of my desk today. I'm working out a new pattern for a dog, having a bit of trouble with the head gusset. Head gussets are so fussy! This prototype is made of white muslin so I can figure out how to tweak it without using up any sort of lovely fabric.

I'm having a bunch of dental work done this summer. I've already been to the dentist three times and it is looking like four more visits until it's all done. It feels like such a time suck when I have only a few hours of babysitting a week and I spend it all in the dentist's chair. Oh well. I know I'll be happy when my teeth are all better.

Charlie

To my guy - thanks for everything you do. You are a creative and loving father for our two little girls and they do love you so. Happy Father's Day.

Bear

I was in the mood for some color the other day and started to put together this bear. He's made of pretty much random pieces of fabric, vintage and thrifted and new, that happened to be out and in piles on the floor for other projects. I almost didn't finish him because I just wasn't sure that the colors were really going to work well enough together, considering that there really was no master planning here.

I'm glad I did though. I'm in a bit of a creative slump and maybe he will help me get going again.

Here he is with his friend, made a while back from the same pattern, but in a very different palette.

Happy weekend!

red