While She Naps

a poultry scene!

It has taken a little while, but I've finally finished my poultry scene - three hens, three eggs and, of course, the snarky rooster.  Thank you to Charlie for helping me see that the hens should not only have smaller combs and waddles than the rooster, but also lighter colored plummage.  I love these four birds posed together.  What are they discussing? Clearly something about those eggs.  This set of soft sculptures will be for an upcoming show. In fact I'm a bit deluged with work again.  Three upcoming shows and a new gallery to send work to.  Very exciting stuff!

In other news, I recently found two very nice dance costumes at the dump and we have been treated to many an interpretive dance around here.

And we have decided to do some upgrades to our computer at long last.  We installed a gig of memory last week, all by ourselves without blowing anything up.  Editing photos has become so much less annoying now that it doesn't take forever. Next comes an updated operating system and iLife. If only Typepad would get their act together and let us type at a normal pace when posting here I might like my computer again.

chicken

I was inspried by the new loop feathers idea to make a chicken.  Whenever we go to Drumlin Farm I always admire the fluffy, feathery top hat chickens in their hen house.

I really like the open beak on this bird.  I'm hoping to do some more with open beaks. It seems to me that they are really alive when their beaks are in action.

We had a delightful afternoon yesterday picking strawberries at our CSA farm.  Stella was totally covered with dripping strawberry juice, eating them right in the field.  We got there after a torrential summer rainstorm and it was so beautiful and peaceful at the farm.

Today we are going to Morses Pond for some swimming, some sandcastle building, and some hoping for the jingle of the ice cream truck.

inspiration

As always, there are so many beautiful things being made and shown on Flickr every day.  I thought it would be nice on this chilly, overcast day in Boston to post a mosaic of a few of my most recent favorites.  Enjoy.

 

1. let`s go down!, 2. nature table, 3. totem fabric, 4. Untitled, 5. aw23, 6. awe30, 7. Citroën 2CV, 8. Morty CU, 9. Crested gecko terrarium, 10. veggies, 11. sepia pirate, 12. Plush aquarium #1, 13. Exhibition at Jimmy's Skate + Street, 14. Untitled, 15. Jellies, 16. 3 battle cuffs, 17. who is peeking out?, 18. Chorus Gals (C365: day 27), 19. aw7, 20. scarfed

dress #2

I made a second dress, same pattern as the first. This one is made from a very groovy 70's pillowcase that has been in my stash for many years. 

I learned a few things and made some improvements this time, including making my own bias tape which I think makes for a cleaner look in the end and using a wider seam allowance (I'm so used to the 1/8" seam allowance that I use on soft sculpture it is hard to see all that fabric to the right of the presser foot) which hopefully will make this one true to size so that it will fit Stella. And I added a pocket made with a scrap of vintage fabric.

Fun stuff this dress making.  Let's hope she likes it in the morning.

patchwork horse

I recently discovered the lovely work of Sian Keegan.  I love her custom dogs and these scallions are totally amazing (and are for sale at Rose and Radish - it has been a long-time secret dream of mine to have my soft sculptures there).  But it was her  patchwork horses that got me inspired at the end of last week to make a patchwork horse of my own again.  It has been many months since I've made one of these and the pattern for it will be in a book out by Penguin Putnam Australia in the fall.  It is really fun to pick all the fabrics for the patchwork and then four vintage buttons to match.  This guy is stuffed with wool and is now listed in my shop.

We are back from four days out on the Cape, this time to the town of Wareham.  We rented a friend's incredible home right on the water with our own private dock to sit on and gaze at the sunset (and sunrise since Roxanne has recently taken to getting up at 5 am!).  It was a lovely, restful and fun getaway.  Besides going to the beach everyday to collect hermit crabs and periwinkles, we spent one afternoon at the Heritage Museums and Gardens in Sandwich.  An indoor carousel and adjacent pirates of New England exhibit had both kids totally enthralled for a good long while. Just look at those smiles!

Lots of new ideas are brewing and I may finally have some time to work on them because our new babysitter, Whitney, is starting Friday morning.  It has been nearly a month without a babysitter (those college kids get out of school early!) and I think Charlie and I are ready for some snippets of time to ourselves.

i made a garment!

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time you know that as a rule I don't sew clothes.  I think the bad memories from Home Ec. class of the teacher yelling at me for cutting the pattern out incorrectly and then me getting a C- on the resulting Bermuda shorts that I never wore left me so discouraged. 

But recently I've begun to feel that, hey, things have changed.  I sew a lot now, nearly every day in fact, and I've experimented on my own for so many years.  I can do this. I can sew simple dresses for my daughters.

So I took the plunge and bought what seemed to me to be the simplest of all little girl dress patterns, Burda  3026.  This is a dress with no zipper, no sleeves, nothing complicated.  I cut out the size 2 and picked some vintage fabric that Mimi Kirchner recently gave me and got started last night.  And an hour and a half from opening the envelope I had the finished dress.

Originally this was intended for Stella, my two-year-old, but it seemed a bit wide.  I think the length would be perfect, though.  Fortunately, I have a four-year-old, too, and she put it on first thing this morning and wore it to camp today.   The width is perfect for her, but it is more of a tunic length.  But paired with some leggings I have to say it was pretty cute.

More than anything, though, is the feeling now that I can do this.  I have SO much fabric and I have adorable little girls running around me all day and I can make them clothes.  So I've changed my slogan.  Mostly I sew soft sculptures but on occasion I sew dresses for my daughters.

little gifts

for Roxanne's teachers.

Little owlets (excuse the photo - I took this last night around 9, right before packing them up).  These are based on the popular pattern in this Japanese craft book (ISBN # 4-8347-2189-2). I know this pattern appears in other Japanese craft books, too.

 I placed each owlet in a nest I bought at the craft store and then wrapped them in cellophane and tied each package with a ribbon.

We are going on a little trip soon and I am really excited to get away and be by the seaside.  I'm tempted to bring the sewing machine because sewing is my true relaxation.   Hmmmm... Maybe I should plan some embroidery projects instead. This is always a quandary in the summer - being away means not making things for some time.

On a total side note, Typepad's new interface is really bringing me down.  It takes forever to make corrections to the text.  Why is the backspacing so slow?!  Any advice? 

loop raptor II

Stella got her first haircut yesterday.  She was somewhat wary of the whole thing and insisted afterward that they had actually only washed her hair and not cut it at all.


There is something so tear jerking about seeing your baby girl in a big salon chair getting her hair done.

This week I'm sending these three birds to artstream.

 
And I finished a new raptor with torn fabric loops.


She's got really striped wings. I used two different fabrics when making the loops - one black and cream and the other rainbow - and I added some solid black strips to her crest.  I left all the threads long on the edges and I just love the tangles they get into with the frayed edges of the torn strips.

This is the last week of Nursery School for Roxanne, but camp starts the day after school ends.  We are shifting into a new schedule and summer is finally arriving.  A giant poppy is blooming in my front garden!  The pond opens on the 11th and our first CSA pick-up is on the 17th.  I love summer.

The new loop raptor is now available in my shop.