Laugh Out Loud Dolls

Chosing Fabrics for dolls

2011-01-18T01:16:00.000-06:00

This is one of the dolls I am currently working on. She started as a head I did as a demo in a class I taught quite some time ago. Then I found some legs I done (again as a demo for a class). I found the body fabric that seemed to work and when I sewed parts for the dolls I'm making for my mom and nieces, I sewed hers as well. I love how pale and soft her features are and for her hair I needle felted some mohair roving. Her skirt so far is two layers, a sheer handkerchief and then several panels of lace scrap underneath.

Here she is posed with some of the fabrics I'm considering using for her sleeves (rose and light blue fat quarters I picked up at my local quilt shop). I am also thinking I might make some long bloomers or a third skirt layer out of the fabric behind her. It was on sale and on an impulse I bought what was left on the bolt (a little over a yard). I will have lots left, and I don't know what I will use it for, but I just fell in love with it. Actually, this brings me at to a topic that I've thought a lot about in the last few years in terms of doll making. Fabric choice.

When you make cloth dolls, especially ones that are tightly stuffed so the body parts are firm and hold their shape, the fabric you use matters. I like to use a off white 100% cotton muslin with a high thread count for hands, heads and sometimes bodies (if I want the body to match the coloring of the face and arms.) This plus using a small stitch when I sew the doll helps keep the seams from fraying when put under pressure in the process of stuffing them. I set my stitch length to around 1.2 to 1.5 on my machine, which is very different from what I would need when sewing a quilt then my stitch length is set (depending upon the machine) at 2 to 2.5. Sometimes I will tea dye the fabric before I sew the doll, or use fabric already dyed to a certain skin tone, but often I use the plain muslin and then give the doll a skin tone after I've sewn and stuff the body parts and after I've needle sculpted the face. Not the most efficient method, but then its worked for me so far. It has its risks, however. I have dyed a face unevenly, or with a really strange skin tone and then had to throw it out because I simply couldn't fix it. I also, have run out of the textile paint I mixed for the head, before getting everything done and then had to try and remix the colors and make the other parts match. I would suggest if you don't like the risk involved in altering the skin tone after the doll is sewn, then either use a base fabric that is the color you want the skin already, or dye your fabric before sewing.
In fact, if you don’t want to bother with dying the fabric yourself, there are some websites that offer good fabric dyed in a variety of skin tones. Not to mention, if you are working with other types of fabric (such as doeskin, doll-skin, robe velour, or craft velour, or knits) all can be found in a range of skin tones. For non-realistic skin tones, any fabric with a high thread count can be used, however some fabrics that tend to fray a lot might cause some problems.
The doll pictured above has a much stronger skin tone which works well with the very bright body fabric. Behind her in the photo you can see part of a doll leg using a green batik fabric I just love. I painted the wooden bead that is the dolls knee joint to match the fabric. For this next doll, I had the body fabric selected already, so I knew that the skin tone shouldn't be too strong or too pale and I'm over all happy with how her face and arms came out. For this doll I tea dyed the fabric and added additional color with a range of colored pencil, gel pens and a little acrylic paint.

Once I have a skin tone, it is much easier to find fabrics that go along with it. If I want to do the legs of a doll in a non realistic skin tone fabric, I often choose a batik (bought from one of my local quilt shops) as the base fabric they use in Bali batiks is of a higher thread count and stronger than your average 100% cotton quilt fabric. Sometimes, I will risk a print or a striped fabric if I like it enough, but it can be frustrating when the seams fail (i.e. start to fray) as I stuff the leg. For fabrics for the doll's costume, anything can be used. I often use cotton fabrics from my stash for doll clothing, but I also, have some silk, some polyester, some velvet, some upholstery fabrics, lace netting, old linens, feed sack fabric, scraps of rayon, scraps recycled from old clothes (pants, skirts, blouses) felted wool, whatever seems best for that particular doll. Often times I will gather together colors and textures of fabrics that I think might work and then let them hang out with a particular face for awhile before I decide on what I want to do. One thing to keep in mind though is that most fabric, especially thick or heavy fabrics are going to be harder to use with small dolls as the thickness of the fabric itself may to too out of scale for the doll, it would be like if we were to try and make an outfit out of a carpet scrap for ourselves. It could be done, but it would very bulky and heavy especially where there was more than one layer of fabric.
Also, the scale of the prints matter a lot choosing fabric for outfits. You want any pattern or print to match the size of doll and a lot of what would look normal sized on a person, would be too large a graphic when put on a doll. In addition to pulling out fabrics that I think might work, I will also pull out trims I’ve collected and see what might work. One of my favorite dolls I managed to find a good use for some Kelly green silk from a bridesmaid dress. Now that I’m known in my quilt guild as being a doll maker, people sometimes bring me scrap fabric. At the last quilt show the ladies put together a bag of fabrics they felt I might find a use for (as it wasn’t very suitable for quilting). 90% of what was there wasn’t of use to me, but some of it was and it may show up in some future doll I make. Anyway, this is just some of how I chose fabrics for dolls and I hope this gives you some ideas. In Finishing the Figure: Doll Costuming, Embellishments, Accessories by Susanna Oroyan, she gives much more detailed discussion about fabric choice for dolls, from issues of color, texture, and of course scale for the doll. I have to get back to work on these now that the holidays have passed. Hope this was of interest and possibly a little bit useful.

Granny Square Afghans...I've made a few

2010-11-26T16:36:00.001-06:00

There is nothing quite as relaxing as crocheting a pattern that is simple, and that you have memorized. This is what the granny square is to me. It's comfort crochet, rather like comfort food. Simple, round and round they go, and whether made with lots of colors, or as a solid colored square, for me at least I can whip up a batch in no time. I also love doing crochet in odd moments at work (particularly in the evenings after everyone is ready for bed or off in their rooms doing their own thing).So I have made a lot of these crocheted objects, sometimes not even sure what I was going to do with them, just using up oddments of yarn from other projects.
However there is a downside to the granny square, loose ends as it were. Lots and lots of loose ends, especially those squares with multiple colors. That you have to weave in. In fact, I would say that working the loose ends into the project is one aspect that I have to have many TV episodes of a good series, say, Hotel Babylon, or Wire in the Blood, or In Plain Sight to watch while I sit and hide the ends in the crochet. (Some of my current series I've watched on DVD or streamed via Netflix). The other downside comes in having to assemble all the squares to make the afghan itself.

There are a number of ways to do this, and one of my favorites is to use single crochet to connect the squares to each other, sometime I will even use a contrasting yarn as a part of the look of the design. As you can see here, it makes a raised grid work pattern between the squares, which I really like as a tactile element.
For this blanket I had a lot small solid centers that I surrounded with s a variegated multi-colored yarn. Once the center was together I increased the size by adding some more rows of granny square around the outside.

One of my favorite aspects of this blanket was the soft variegated yarn that I started with as my blanket center. It was a wool, acrylic blend on sale and I just couldn't pass it up. So, I have to say that two of the following lap size/child sized afghans were the best of the granny square, without a lot of the downside. Two of the blankets are what I think of as the endless granny square. Instead of stopping at four or five rows per square, you just keep going. To create bands of color you do several rows in a row in the same yarn. Easy as pie. Which reminds me, we had a lovely Thanksgiving this year, a work friend came over, we ate pie and the turkey dinner, watched a movie, drank a little wine and were warm and cozy. I hope that you had a great Thanksgiving too.

My Ripple is done

2010-05-26T07:56:00.001-05:00

This is how it all started. I had seen some Ripple crochet afghans around on various craft blog and I loved the way the rows undulated across the surface of the blanket. After making a lot of prayer shawls I wanted to make something new for my queen sized bed. I also thought this would be a way to use up some odd, balls of yarn I had already bought. Then I found the perfect color scheme inspired by a piece of scraping booking paper I had and got the yarn I needed. My original plan was to follow the chevron blanket pattern from Vintage Crochet which I had checked out from the library. However, I kept having problems figuring out how to actually correctly crochet the blanket from the directions in the book, and this book only had text directions without a helpful pictorial stitch pattern (often when the written directions muddle me up the chart helps me figure out what I really should be doing).

Then I found the tremendously helpful tutorial by one Attic 24's blog. If you like colorful crochet check out her blog. Lovely pictures, great for inspiration, and she also has some very well done tutorials there. http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/2008/11/hexagon-crochet.html Once I discovered that the way you make your row of double crochet (or treble crochet if you are British) to ripple like the waves on the shore was to repeatedly increase and decrease your stitches then the light bulb in my head finally turned on and I could see what the directions were telling me to do. Then I hit another snag. I had been rippling away and then my sweetie looked at I was doing and mentioned that it seemed a very long blanket. "Long" I said, "no, that's the width". See I intended for the rippled stripes to run across the bed not lengthwise. Then the doubts crept in. Maybe it was a bit "long/wide"? I went to check it on the actual bed. It was hugely too wide. What I had thought was a good length with my starting chain was too too much. By this point I had crocheted a goodly amount. (See picture below)

Then I realized I had to start again. After some wailing and gnashing of teeth, I undid all my crochet. Then to get a proper width, I did something I felt rather smart about. I measured my bed. I measured the sample swatch of ripple I had made to learn the pattern (from the tutorial). My swatch came out at about 10 inches for two and one half ripples or as the ripple afgan is done in multiples of 14 + 3 for a turning chain my swatch started with 31 chain stitches (2x14+3). So to figure out my starting row of chains, I figured out the width of the bed (X inches) and I knew 31 chain stitches = 10 inches, so figuring out became Xinches divided by 10 equaled the number if times I would repeat my swatch. Then I simplely multipled that number by 31. By the end of this little math challenge I felt pretty wiped out. However, I tried it, crocheted the first couple of rows of the ripple blanket, took it and laid it out across the bed and lo, it was the right length. Then all the head scratching and fiddling with numbers suddenly became worthwhile. In fact, one thing I 've learned about crochet is that as you go along in making the blanket, the added weight from additional rows will stretch out your first row of chain stitches, and even make the later ripple rows stretch a bit to. So, if after your calculations the first two rows of ripple seem a little short (say no more than 5-7 inches) go a bit shorter and see if doesn't stretch out a bit as you go. At least that's what I did. However, your mileage may vary, so doing that intial guage swatch is really helpful in getting a sense of how many stitches equals what length.

So more about Attic 24's blog of goodies. Not only does she have a sense of color I totally groove on, but her crochet creations including the ripple afgan are very goregous. I may just have to make one of these a zig zag blanket with itty bitty granny squares much like she has. I'm thinking baby/doll blanket with this one.
So, now I have a new blanket for the bed and I can repair and retire the quilt we'd been using as some of the vintage fabrics are just not holding up so well. Even the husband likes it.

This picture's for you Mom

2010-03-18T12:58:00.000-05:00

Well, I've been away for awhile. So a quick up date is in order. Above is the teapot that I painted months ago when my Mom visited and which she didn't get to see after its final glaze, so at last here are some pictures of how it turned out. In terms of my crafting life, since Christmas time I've been doing lots of crochet (pictures of this soon) some thought about working on dolls, but no progress, and some work on two new scrappy quilts. One of which I started a while back, and the other a new project inspired by Bonnie Hunter's website. However, to show all of this off properly I need some more photos, so this is to come, soon I swear.

What I've really been preoccupied with is our latest project as a family. Dagon and I are in the process of becoming certified to be foster parents. We are interested in expanding our family, beyond the cats, to include a young'un with the goal of fostering to adopt. What does that mean really? Well foster parents are temporary parents to a child who has been put in their care until they are able to be reunified with their birth family. In the past foster parents couldn't adopt a child who they had fostered, if the child could not be returned to their family and the parents terminated their parental rights. Now the laws have changed and in order to help children find permanent families faster and with less disruption of living situations foster parents can adopt children who they've fostered if that child becomes available to be adopted. So now 70% of all children adopted from foster care are adopted by their foster parents.

So, what does that mean for Dagon and me? Well, when we feel we are ready to be foster parents, and have completed all of the licensing requirements and our home is set up and ready for a child we would work with our case worker to be matched to a child as foster parents. At this point in time, we are working our way through the class required as training for all foster parents and it has really be interesting and challenging to learn about how the system functions and some of the challenges we will face with any foster child. We still have a number of things to do before we will be ready to have a child in our home as part of our family. However, we are working our way through the process of licensing and taking it one step at a time. While it is hard to imagine our lives with a child in it, especially one who may or may not become ours permanently, I feel that we both have a lot to give a child and I want to see where this journey takes us. Ever since I stopped being a grad student, and dealt with the health disruptions stemming from my Graves disease, I have felt so frustrated about the fact that we don't have children (as much as I love my furry babies it’s just not the same). Now though I feel hopeful that one way or another Dagon and I will get to be parents.

Christmas Baking, Chocolate Crinkles

2009-12-24T14:08:00.001-06:00

While most people would have gotten their Christmas baking done before now, I worship at the temple of the Goddess of the last minute. So, today, Christmas Eve day to be exact, I finally baked the first of the cookies I planned on making weeks ago. Last night I made the dough for Chocolate Crinkles and baked some banana bread muffins. Today, I baked off the Crinkles and am planning on also making some Ginger Spice Cream cookies, complete with cream cheese frosting--I had a bit of a set back with the Ginger Creams in that I didn't have enough molasses or powdered sugar, but fortunately my husband is willing to brave some light freezing rain and grocery stores the day before Christmas for me. I am so lucky.
So, if you are like me baking at the last minute embrace sweet smells of chocolate cookies perfuming your home. Here's the recipe I used, that I got from my Mom, who as of the last time I talked to her had already made her cookies.

Chocolate Crinkles
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup salad (canola) oil
2 tsp. vanilla
4 oz. melted unsweetened chocolate (cool)
4 eggs
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup confectioner's sugar

Mix granulated sugar, salad oil, vanilla and chocolate together. Blend in eggs one at a time. Stir in flour, baking powder and salt. Refridgerate at least 3 hours, or overnight. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Drop dough by the teaspoonful into confectioner's sugar; roll in sugar and shape into balls. Place about 2 inches apart on a greased baking sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes. Makes 6 dozen cookies.

She went from this to This....

2009-12-24T13:57:00.000-06:00

A while back I broke out a previous started doll project. I had sewn and stuffed the head, and sewn legs, arms and a body. Then nothing. I just didn't get back to finishing her up. So I finally chose to get the pattern out, Etta Mae by Kate Erbach that I down loaded from http://dollmakersjourney.com/ for free.

While the pattern has really clear directions and says that it is for a beginner doll maker, I found that sewing the head together correctly so that it was a nice round ball shape, instead of a strange flattened pumpkin shape, a bit of challege. Add in the fact that the hands have individual fingers, and I would really say that this feels more like an intermediate level pattern unless you have prior sewing experience. I wasn't in love with the fabric I had chosen for the body or arms any more, so I dug around and found the fabrics pictured here.

One change from the orginal patternI made was to use two fabrics for her arms/hands. I sewed the hand fabric and the sleeve fabric together and then laid out the arm pattern piece so that the seam would hit just at the wrist of the doll. After sewing the arms and stuffing them, I added some lace to hide the seam at the wrist. After sewing a new body and arms, I finally put her all together. Sometimes all it takes to revive a dollproject that has long been lanquishing is some different fabrics. I think one of my favorite things about this doll is how well her face turned out. I think if I were to make this doll again, I might have a go at applying her hair with paint and or, sealing the head before painting the features on. Overall, she is great fun to make. If you are looking for free doll patterns, check out the dollmakers journey website, as they have quite few available. In addition, they are great site to buy supplies from. Every time I've used their services, I've been very pleased with the service and the site is well organized and easy to navigate.

First Christmas Tree

2009-12-18T13:02:00.010-06:00

Hard to believe that only 11 years ago this was the first Christmas tree my husband and I bought and decorated. The year was 1998, and we had only been married for five months (though we'd been together for the previous four years). We were still living in El Paso, TX as the time. Dagon was in school and I was Teaching Freshman composition at the time. We had two new kitties, Faye and Aeysha and they were also impressed by the tree. I was looking through some photo albums and I thought I it would be fun to share a bit of history with you all. Dagon and I just this past week bought our Christmas tree and already I can smell the piney freshness from it. We didn't get it decorated this week, but we did get it up. After I get back from work we will be decking it all pretty like. Below is a picture of Aeysha looking trying to look like she wasn't up to anything. I remember that we had to re-hang a bunch of oranments up higher because the cats thought they were the greatest toys ever.

Christmas in Crafty Land

2009-12-09T20:20:00.002-06:00

Okay this is the story, when Christmas time rolls around I have a renewed interest in being crafty about the house. How you may ask is this different than any other time of year? Well let me tell you my children, it is. The rest of the year I just make things based on either whatever whim I feel like following (for example this past summer I did a lot of collage and made soul collage cards) or I work on whatever quilt project seems fun, or sometimes I even try and finish an older project or make something for someone else. I am terrible with deadlines. I have tons of projects in the works, and love (like many crafters) to start something new, often in response to whatever cool magazine I'm reading, or book I've checked out of the library.
Recently the things I've been finishing have been crocheted prayer shawls that I work on a lot when I'm at work. The nice thing about simple crochet patterns (and usually by about row 8 of a shawl I have the stitch pattern mostly memorized) is that your hands can be doing, but since its a repetitive action and one I practice a lot I do it without having to engage my whole brain. Also, since I make simple projects with simple stitch patterns for the most part, I can set my work down whenever I need to do something else or work with one of my clients. So, in this season of televised cheer and news reports about economic doom, I feel compelled to stray from my normal way of doing things and throw myself into making handmade things for the holidays. If nothing else, my focus turns a little bit rapid when thinking about all the cool decorations I could deck my halls with if only I made a few more things. Of course, I also have increased need to bake cookies from scratch, make fudge, and fill the house with home-made goodies. In fact for the most part, my dreams for all the stuff I could make would require a lot more money, time, and space than I really have and it wouldn't hurt to have the staff at the craft studios of Martha Stewart Living, or HGTV's various craft mavens to help me out. So I start off with big dreams, and then have to scale them back.
So this year I decided I would try and finish a project I worked on about say, six or seven Christmas seasons ago.
I was going to make a bunch of these.

It involved printing out a lot of Victorian Scrap clip-art, which I had already finished. Then came the part where I was to assemble the pictures of Victorian girls with bits of ribbon to made them into fancy paper dolls to be hung as ornaments on the tree. So I knew I had all the supplies(ribbon, fabric scraps, glitter, glue), the paper bits were all cut out already, I just had to find the Martha Stewart magazine with the directions to make the dollies. Thusly, I was this past week digging through boxes of my magazines looking for one particular issue. . .which of course I could not find. Of course, I decide to start this search for this magazine at midnight, while my husband is sensibly asleep so I couldn't search the bedroom. Then I think, oh, I'll bet I can find in online from the Martha Stewart website. Many hours later, after looking through lots of other cool Christmas craft ideas, I still had come up empty. So I gave in and went to bed. It wasn't until the next day that I finally tracked down the issue I needed. Next step, was to get the paper cutouts and gather all the other materials. So of course even though I was sure I knew exactly where I stored said partly done project, it wasn't there. I then looked other places, still no luck. Finally, I was forced to come to realize the following things:
1. My house is really messy, in part not helped by my pulling things out looking for the missing items.
2. I'm not as in love with idea of a Victorian styled Christmas tree and so starting over from scratch to do this project (should I never find the original paper cutouts) was not terribly appealing.
3. My crafting space is in need of some serious straightening and re-organization.
4. I have a lot of supplies, lots I've never even used. Some I don't remember how long ago I bought them or exactly what I planned on making.

And lastly, Why am I making myself so crazy about this now? So while I do want to make some handmade Christmas Tree ornaments, I am not going to try and complete all the different ideas or projects that I feel like I should get done to decorate my house or that I should finish to give as presents. After, if I'm feeling driven or stressed out by crafting, I'm missing the point. It is a hobby. Something to do to relax, to work with my hands, to enjoy being creative. So in that spirit I say unto you, make what you have the time and resources for. The rest can wait for another year.

A cool doll with patchwork skirt.

2009-09-04T01:41:00.006-05:00

I came across this particular photo over on Wisecraft, a lovely blog and just had to share it. I've been thinking about doing some rag type dolls and this one as well as this one from a older doll book I have. The top doll is from Patchwork Simplified by Alice Timmins, circa the seventies. The little prairie girl below is from a Better Homes and Gardens book, Cherished Dolls to Make for Fun, copyright 1984. I also have drawn a face for a rag doll based on this cute little matches container I saw online quite a while ago. I'm thinking about doing a simple rag doll, just to get back into sewing dolls again. I love doing the more complex bodies and the needle sculpted faces, but just at the moment these simple beauties are calling to me.

Mimi Kirchner's Handmade Portrait

2009-08-26T23:49:00.004-05:00

I have been reading Mimi Kirchner's blog for a while and find her dolls really interesting. I haven't posted a lot about my own doll making, in large part becasue I've not made any new dolls in a while. However, Mimi's work was recently featured on Etsy in this short interview and I thought I would include it here. One of things I find most interesting about her dolls is the very tactile quality they have with their carefully hand embroidered faces and wool and cashmere bodies. In particular, I think the tattooed men are just such an inventive and great idea. This is why I love to see what other doll makers are doing, because they see possibilities or pursue certain ideas in a way I wouldn't have thought of. I have learned so much both by making dolls from other peoples patterns and seeing what they are making and learning about what they are passionate about.

Soul Collage Cards

2009-08-10T15:16:00.005-05:00

I started a project earlier this spring based on a book called SoulCollage by Seena Frost. Due to some changes in my workplace, not necessarily bad changes, but new challenges I was feeling a bit stressed. I also was starting to really feel good health wise and starting to think about what I wanted to be doing as an artist. For example, while I love making dolls and in fact have three promised to make for other people, I haven't taught doll making or even really worked seriously on doing more than planning new dolls since around Thanksgiving of 2008. I've done lots of other crafts, crochet, making lots of stuffed felt bird ornaments, and returned to working on a number of quilt projects that I hadn't worked on regularly for a while. However, I like to have goals, I like to sort of know where I'm going and get things done and I was feeling a need to figure out just what my goals were, both on a deeper personal level and in terms of my crafty life.
So, I was feeling a bit in the need to be a bit self-reflective and while reading other blogs came across the lovely book Style Statement. I started doing some journaling using the prompts in the book, which was quite enjoyable to me. I have always alternated between being more a outward focused person to be being all inward focused. The periods of my life when I am most mentally healthy have been ones in which doing some introspection allows me to look at my life and what's going on around me and inside of me, without being overwhelmed with a grand sense of disaster. I am very good at dealing with stressful life stuff by running away via, distractions such as excessive t.v./movie watching, napping, generally trying to ignore my feeling of being overwhelmed. So, to try and counter this tendency and also looking for some spiritual renewal as well, so that leads me back to using art in a therapeutic way.

Writing has always helped me clarify things for me. I wanted to try do do some collage and see what that would be like as well, hence this ongoing project. The book Soul Collage is a bit new-agey, crystal gazing, mystic, tarot reading divination in tone, but I think that the therapeutic aspects of doing photo-collages to represent parts of my psyche can be of value. I also, admit, I have a bit of an inner hippie chick in me (not to be confused with my inner child who loves chocolate chip cookies, and believes it would be cool to have ESP). I do believe that imagery has power, why else would pieces of art speak to our emotions, our soul. So, I chose to shelve my critical thoughts about how goofy some aspects of the cards seem to me, and just make some. The author Seena Frost is a collage artist and psychotherapist who teaches people how to make the cards and holds group workshops as well as training others to be facilitators for others learning to make soul collage cards. I came across her website some time back and finally inter-library loaned the book just to read more about the process. I then copied the parts of book I wanted, and set about making my own cards using the book's basic framework.

The book sets up four categories of cards, or suits (sort of like how a tarot deck as four main suits) and one Source Card. The Source Card is basically, a card to symbolize the interconnected nature of all life. It is really card that is to try and represent the unrepresentable, i.e. "The Oneness Beyond Dimension" or what in religion would be seen as God, the Good, the Tao, etc. One of the aspects of the book I do really appreciate is its openness to people of all faith backgrounds, and basically the author tells you to define the source, with the image that speaks to you. She doesn't, except in the Companion Suit--give a specific spiritual direction and even then you could simply chose not to create those cards. The four suits are as follows:
"The Committee Suit- your own internal voices. Examples: the shy one, the teacher, the inner critic, the caretaker, the judge, the happy child... The Community Suit- those beings in your life who support you. Examples: your spouse/lover, your friends, siblings, parents, an author who has touched your life, current or past pets, ancestors…. The Companions Suit- a companion animal, one for each of the seven chakras. Examples: wolf, octopus, eagle, skunk, dragon, squirrel, dolphin, bear, honeybee, otter... The Council Suit- Dream figures and archetypes who guide you in your daily life, or who have guided you in the past, or those you wish to receive guidance from in the future. " Anne Marie Bennett, SoulCollage Playground, http://www.kaleidosoul.com/

Anne Marie Bennett's website is a great resource if you are interested in making SoulCollage cards and has some nice color photos of her own cards. Senna Frost's website also has lots of examples of her own cards and ones made by her students. http://www.soulcollage.com/ as well as lot of other information about her book. So far I've only made a handful of cards and made plans to make more as time goes by. For me this is a long term project, but I'm not daunted by the scale. It is also nice as I enjoy looking through the magazines I have to find images that could be combined to represent my ideas and the many parts of myself.

This first card is what I call the Busy Mind card, or Creative Mind--Committee Suit

This one is called The Caregiver--Committee Suit
The Performer--Committee Suit. I made this one to represent the part of my personality that loves to be the center of attention, to be performing, and to entertain. I especially love that hula hooping little girl with the crazy hat on.

The Lovers--Council Suit.

Summer Reads

2009-07-30T16:22:00.001-05:00

For me much of summer-time is spent indoors not being hot and sticky. While it has been quite nice, overall for summer in Kansas--some cooler days, and more rain than I'm accustomed to--overall its still hot enough that staying where there's air conditioning is my preference. Its been two weeks since Bob (Bobd'cat) came to live with us. At this point we are planning on keeping him. He is currently exploring the house while the two others hang out with the husband in the bedroom. He is looking much healthier and is such a sweet guy I have a hard time imagining who would ever have wanted to abandon him. (We know he was some one's pet before he found me as the vet estimated that he was between five to seven years old, and a neutered male in pretty good shape i.e. has all his teeth, and is well socialized to be with people).

So along with treating Bob's minor ailments, I've been hanging out reading lots. I finished the three Tiffany Aching novels The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky and Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett. More or less great young adult books, but very funny and with a fresh take on what it takes to be a witch (its not so much about doing magic as it is being nosy, thinking about things, and caring about others.) I also just finished really great book by Susan Palwick call Shelter. Shelter is near future science fiction novel filled with a society that views excessive altruism as a mental illness, is grappling with whether or not AI should be considered alive or person's (with the same rights as humans), and the effects of CV ( pandemic virus where instead of getting just one virus individuals fall ill to a whole train of them at once.) The main characters, Meredith Walford and Roberta Danton both are survivors of CV and while strangers to each other are brought together while trying to help Meredith's adopted son Nicholas (who survived CV in utero) and was damaged by both the virus and being born into an isolation unit. What I found so compelling about this novel, which in some aspects reminds me of Connie Willace's Doomsday Book, is they way that characters try to go on with their lives even after terrible traumas. Ultimately this novel is about forgiveness (which doesn't erase past harms done) but allows individuals to move forward with living. This novel works on a lot of levels and while there's more I could say, right now I need to think about it some more first.

I've been away

2009-07-10T11:04:00.004-05:00

So, It's been a while since I've written for you oh, my sad little blog. However, I sense your time of being neglected is almost over. I have lots to write about since my lovely vacation with my nieces in Iowa City, and finishing a quilt in time for it to be in my guild's quilt show. There are other projects a foot, some quilt, some paper and photos to be taken as well. In the mean time I will give the following reading recommendations.
For a funny and fast fantasy read try Tanya Huff's Summon the Keeper series (book two and three are titled the Second Summoning and a Long Hot Summoning). In the non-fiction arena I recently finished It Sucked and then I Cried (How I had a Baby, A Breakdown, And A Much Needed Margarita) by Heather B. Armstrong. Pretty much the title says it all, but really this is her account of choosing to get pregnant, having her daughter, and then being devastated by post-partum depression to the point that she hospitalized herself in order to be able to be the mother her anxiety and depression wasn't allowing her to be. I came across this book via her website http://dooce.com and so liked her sarcastic take on life that I requested the book from my library to read and then gobbled it up in a few short days. Currently I'm reading Made from Scratch, Discovering the Pleasures of a Handmade Life by Jenna Woginrich. While I don't think I am going to pursue any of her DIY farming ideas (I personally don't want to own chickens, grow a vegetable patch or raise rabbits) I do enjoy reading about her adventures trying out these things. So, there's a bit of a snapshot from my bookshelf. What are you currently reading? Is it any good? I'll be back with more soon.

More about storybook cottages

2009-05-22T10:53:00.014-05:00

There are lots of sites that feature some lovely photos of the Storybook Cottages, particularly those built in Carmel by the Sea in California. Many were designed and built by Hugh Comstock, the first one being a house he built for his wife Mayotta whose successful doll business needed more room. I love the fact that he built the first cute house called Hansel(pictured here), as a showcase for her "Otsy Totsy" dolls that were crowding their home. From what I've found out Mayotta Comstock's dolls were rag dolls made out of felt and were very popular. I've found one photo online that shows here with the dolls, but no close up shots so I can only speculate about how cute they are. One site that has a lot of information about storybook style homes, that cropped up in various places in California and elsewhere is http://Storybookers.com
Also on Flick there are a bunch of great photos of cottages in general, but http://www.flickr.com/photos/from_linda_yvonne/ has some great shots of the exteriors of many of the homes Hugh Comstock designed as well as other cottages in the storybook style. One of the things I would really like to find is more pictures of the interior spaces of these houses. I suspect that while they are not very large inside, many of the details that make the exteriors so interesting and enticing could make the interiors charming and cozy as well.
Another website with a few nice pictures is JUST COOL-adventure in design: architecture :: the storybook cottages of Carmel

Of Journaling, and Storytale Cottages

2009-05-21T12:27:00.022-05:00

I've been away from the blog for awhile. However, I've become slightly obsessed with this style of house, the Storybook style or Tudor style cottage. Let me back up a bit in telling of where my current fascination with these little homes came from. It all started when I got the book Style Statement, Live by Your Own Design by Carrie McCarthy and Danielle LaPorte from inter library loan and started journal ling in response to the questions in the book. I came across the book Style Statement on Artsy Mama's Blog and her journal pages looked so interesting I had to check out the book too. Basically the book is to help you understand your own personal style and get in touch with your authentic self. So the book is designed to help you discover your style statement because,

In a world where authenticity is in short supply, a Style Statement is a tool for genuine and, therefore, more effective expression. From your love to your living room, your talents to your promises, communicating who you are in all you do is very powerful stuff.

Not that I believe I'm not in touch with who I am as a person, but I like to touch base with myself sometimes and think about where I'm going from time to time. In addition, the emphasis on understanding why certain things aesthetically appeals to me and the journaling exercises in the book seemed like fun. Along the way one of the questions asked me to write about my dream house. This of course led to me looking around on line so I could be more precise in describing my dream house. In my hometown of Lawrence, KS I've always loved driving by the little cottages that to me look like the are from a children's book, circa the 1920's or so. There are a number of them and some even resemble this picture which is of plans you could order to build your very own cottage.
What I find so appealing about these homes is that they are whimsical, little places that evoke the magic of Mother Goose illustrations and children's fairy tales for me. In fact what they are architecturally is a Tudor style English cottage, made over for the American home buyer who wants some of the charm of the older European style homes. In fact, cottage style homes have long been one architectural style of home that has long appealed to people in large part because they evoke images of a home that is warm, cozy, simple, comfortable, and romantically evoke a more pastoral slower era. The cottage seems to be a retreat or a refuge from the outside world, and the storybook cottage even more so as it is evoking a time that existed primarily in childhood imaginings. I found a lovely book all about modern cottages called The New Cottage Home by Jim Tolpin. He defines the cottage house as having most if not all for the following features,

A modest sized (under 2,000 sq. ft.), a compact footprint that does not necessarily sacrifice a sense of spaciousness in the floor plan, A human scale entry that welcomes you home. An unpretentious and intimate interior--most often centered around a hearth--in which you instantly feel warm, relaxed, and cozy. An exterior that makes good use of indigenous materials. Well-crafted, sometimes quirky architectural details. The use of sashed windows--some diminutive in size--to reinforce the human scale of the building from the outside while giving a sense of security and protection to those on the inside. Thoughtful orientation of the building to the site and sun, relatively informal landscaping, and the presence of exterior "rooms" (porches, patios, decks)--all of which allow the house to respond to, and easily engage, its natural surroundings.

After some thought I realized that my own home, while its not in the storybook style, it has some elements in common with the Tudor Cottage and Toplin's cottage home. First off, its a small house built on a simple floor plan being a basic 1950's Cape Cod style cottage. It is white, with gray shutters and over the front door is little eyebrow overhang to protect visitors from rain. The yard has lots of older trees and our house is up above the street level and even has a vine covered trellis at the start of the front walk. The house being up above street level gives it some privacy as it is set back from the street and can't stare in our front windows, something I used to hate about the town house Dagon I lived in when we were in El Paso. In addition, the kitchen is nice a big, large enough for two cooks and my sewing area in the little dining section. I also love the fact that our floors creak when you walk and that the attic space is panelled in knotty pine by a previous owner. Since the bathroom was made larger it too works better. I used to think that my dream house was a big Victorian home, or a Queen Anne style house, all hardwood floors, lots of woodwork, and high ceilings. That house would be too large for me and my husband and our smaller home works for us quite well as all the main rooms are on one floor. Aside from wanting a bit more closet space and to complete some needed home repairs/decorating tasks, our cottage is pretty close to my dream realized.

A new spring block

2009-04-10T12:39:00.007-05:00

This is one of the quilt blocks that I've made recently. I love the fresh spring colors.

This was some of the fabric from a pizza box block exchange I took part in last year. Each person gathered together fabrics and quilt block patterns and then each month a different member of my quilt guild made one block, while I made one block for a different person each month.
It was interesting making the different blocks and I learned a lot about quilting from doing the different projects. This type of exchange is great if you want people to make blocks for a quilt which you then just put together and you can accept that some blocks will not be quite right. One person wanted to make a quilt with lots of the same block, and in this instance by using the pizza box exchange for this, she's had some of the work done for her. Another good thing about this type of exchange is that you get to know a bit more about the other quilters in your guild simply by seeing the fabrics they chose, the patterns, etc. However, I chose not to do it again this year for the following reasons: I found it very hard to complete the blocks on time, I missed playing with the fabrics that I had selected for my own box, and I found some of the blocks very frustrating to complete due to a number of factors, badly written directions in quilt books (not the guild member's fault) one box had no directions for complete a bearclaw block (which made me have to find directions) and so on. In my case, two people just chose blocks out of the book I provided instead from the list of blocks I wanted. Also, it turns out that not all the blocks in the book I chose are really all 12" finished blocks (having not used this particular book before I had no way to know this), so one of the blocks is significantly smaller than the other ones I received. However, I do have some very nice pinwheel blocks that were made for me and now I am making some more to fill out the quilt top I am planning.
I did learn quite a bit about myself by taking part in the pizza box exchange. First of all, I learned that part of what I love about the process of selecting fabrics extends into the actual quilt making itself. I love to play around with different fabrics configurations and simply choosing the fabrics for the box itself was not enough playtime for me. Also, it turns out that I can enjoy making traditional blocks as long as they are fairly large in scale (i.e. no itty bitty triangles and such) and I don't have to make too many of the same one over and over again. I am much better now about accurately cutting out the pieces for a block and using a consistent 1/4 inch seam allowance. From sewing a block with a Jacquard fabric that had to be backed by interfacing, I learned I never want to deal with overly tricky fabrics for a quilt (unless its a stitch and flip crazy quilt block). I also learned that if I want to put together a block correctly I have to lay out all the pieces and sew the parts of the block one at a time. I am not very good with chain piecing as I tend to flip things so they end up backwards and then I have to get out the seam ripper to correct things. So while I won't do this type of guild exchange/challenge again, the learning experience was well worth it.

Hey Mom, what'cher doin?

2009-04-06T11:43:00.012-05:00

What's on this side of the bed?

Sure I'll sit here for a moment.

Don't use the flash, its too bright. Washes me right out.

That's better. Aren't you going to pet me? I'm really cute.

This was me playing around last week with the camera, an unmade bed and two cats who were sleeping curled up together, but of course as soon as I sneaked into the room to get a quick picture they were up and staring at me expecting me to either chase them from what they see as their bed, or watching to see when they could get some petting action going on. No matter what I try, almost always Ayesha (the black kitty) looks resentful when photographed. She's not really bad tempered. In fact here's a quick shot of her head butting the camera operator.

Ah...can't you feel the feline love?

Spring is here, so am I

2009-03-27T13:43:00.002-05:00

I haven't been posting at all regularly. Not that I don't have things to say, ideas a popping around in my head, projects underway. However, I just haven't made time to 1. organize my thoughts, 2. take any new pictures to go with said thoughts, 3. write said thoughts down. However, never fear, things are afoot. I am going to work with the thought of making some jottings of ideas/plans for the blog and will be giving my reading public more in the coming days. In the meantime, I set up this cool site for my the Eudora Quilting Bees at http://eudoraquiltingbees.shutterfly.com so check it out if you want.

The Magical Afghan

2009-03-17T22:10:00.005-05:00

These are some pictures of my nephew, Lucas playing under the afghan that I crocheted for my sister's family as a Christmas present. I was so happy with the rippled pattern and how the colors came together on this particular project. Plus isn't my nephew just the greatest model ever? Looking at him makes me think of the phrase snug as a bug in a rug...

February Quilt Retreat

2009-03-13T10:46:00.014-05:00

Back a few weeks ago I went to the Eudora Quilting Bees Quilt Retreat. The retreat was held at the Barn Bed and Breakfast near Valley Falls, KS. This year due to some vet bills from our cats, I just didn't have the funds to go and stay overnight for the whole retreat which ran from Sunday, Feb. 15th through to Wed. Feb. 18th. So, I made arrangements with my friend Christine Yoder to ride up with her and Dee (another lovely member of the guild) on Monday. In fact, we enjoyed ourselves so much on Monday that we drove up again the next day as well. These are a few pictures from the retreat. This is Dee, who worked on finishing putting together a lovely top for the Quilts of Valor group (quilt not pictured and some handy shopping bags).

Jerilynn was working on one of the applique blocks for our opportunity quilt for (I think 2010). This is one where I love the colors and patterns. I have one of the applique borders to work on and get done before May.
This is Arlene sewing away and her husband who came along for moral support and do some wood carving.
While I was at the retreat I put together the background for my applique round robin group. My theme is inside the secret garden and my background is as if you are inside the walled garden. I loved the way the purple fabric has a brick texture to it, so that's why I chose it as my wall fabric. Then just above the wall you can see a bit of sky and below a bit of ground. I also used a lovely piece of hand-dyed fabric for the green garden door. It should be interesting to see what plants and flowers the member's of the round robin group add to the background. Each member gets the piece for two months and then passes it on to the next person. I chose to to just made the background, but not include fabrics that I wanted the round robin group to use, because I'm interested in what they might add that I wouldn't have thought of. The one that I'm working on at the moment is a chicken theme and I've been enjoying doing some chickens for her piece.
In addition to getting the background together for the round robin group I'm in (there are six of us in the group) I also spent a bunch of time making some more houses and more star blocks. This is not the greatest photo of them, but I was just trying out a different layout. I think I like having the houses in vertical rows rather than horizontal ones. I also think I need another row of some sort of six inch blocks, maybe more stars, or maybe something else. However, since the retreat I've not worked on this quilt at all, but rather been busy with my round robin project and another applique project that I've started. Also, I have made sixteen new blocks 12" for Quilts of Valor, and only need to make four more for the top to be about the right size. These were easy and fun to make as I was simply doing liberated log cabin blocks. I will have to get some photos of all of this as soon as I have the energy. This past week has been a get nothing done week as I've been laid low with a bad cold. Ah well, the joys of spring. So as soon as I'm a bit perkier I will be back with more photos and news.

Word in, Words Out

2009-02-09T14:16:00.004-06:00

Okay, I would like to say I'm super inspired, but not so much. However, I have been thinking about what it is I like about words. I like the action of typing on a computer, or writing notes, or just jotting down things, ideas. I even the other day looked in a really old journal of mine and noticed how my handwriting is the same and different from my handwriting now. I read some poems I must have written sometime back when I was in high school or maybe my freshman/sophomore years of college. Oh so long ago it now seems. Maybe this is a result of being forty, an age that when I was nineteen seemed terribly terribly old. But the thing about about language and words and expressing one's self is that they are all around us, just like air, we breathe them in and out all the time. It is so simple a process, once mastered, we read them, see them, talk them, they are around us all the time. Now of course I realize that not everyone has language just handed to them easily. For many people reading and writing is a excruciating labor, or something they've never had to master (living in a non-text based culture) and there are people who get along just fine doing as little with the printed page as possible. After all there are other languages/ways to communicate. My clients communicate with me all the time, even the non-verbal ones...but oh how much I really would like to get a better sense at times of their thoughts and feeling about things only to be hampered by the limitations of our communication process. Words are inexact things, but they are so much better than not having them. If I had to communicate only through visual means or body language, I would know some of the profound frustration that my clients deal with all the time. That they do so much with what they have makes me even more appreciative of what I have been blessed with. Anyway, I've been feeling my love of words and writing them so much more since I started this blog. I just wanted to share that with you all out there. Also, here's a poem I found last night looking through one of those old journal. I had forgotten I'd even written it, and in its own way I think its kind of good. So here it is a few words from my past.
The outside of the comp book is labeled 1986 Poetry and 1989.

count as you walk
1001,
1002
the sky blue
smoke stacks gray
almost beautiful
1003,
1004
river dark
tree shadows
black lace wavers
1005,
1006
walking
breathing
1007
counting
1008

Save handmade toys

2009-01-28T13:21:00.007-06:00

I haven't written much about this as so many other websites have much better information related to new Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act, which will effect both the makers of handmade children's clothing and toys and retailers who sell second-hand children's clothing. This law was created to protect children from toys with toxic lead in them. Unfortunately the law is poorly written and as it currently stands as of Feb. 10, makers of handmade children's products, toys and retailers who sell second-hand children's clothing would be required to test all products aimed at children 12 and under for lead and phthalates starting. Phthalates are chemicals used to make plastics more pliable.

The problem is that the law doesn't distinguish between items that might contain lead and phthalates, and those items which would naturally enough not have them in them, or which were deemed safe to sell to the public previously (i.e. used clothing) which many families depend on being able to get from thrift and second-hand stores to affordablely clothe their kids. For more information you can simply click the save handmade button which will link you to a bunch more articles on this topic and also places to advocate for changes in this law. While I don't, at the moment, sell handmade toys for children--the dolls I've sold are meant as art pieces for display rather than play, if I were to start making toys for kids I would have to comply with this badly written law or risk breaking the law, fines etc. Now, we don't know how strongly this law will be enforced, but the people who make and sell handcrafted toys, clothing and such for kids (from my own observation) do so with care to make the products safe for kids, even more so than big manufacturers would.

First layout of house blocks and stars

2009-01-28T12:53:00.004-06:00

This then is my first time putting these house blocks up on my design wall. These are a combination of blocks that I made and my mom made and sent to me at Christmas time. I have made a few more houses, some with cats in them, some with dogs, and a couple with women's faces. I also have made some of the liberated stars shown in this picture. All in all its great fun.
Now, after playing with these last night I have a sense of what else could be done. Last night I tried out the block with the rows horizontally orientated. I may try one with a vertical orientation next just to see how it looks. However, I do think I want some additional houses and some additional rows made up of smaller blocks to go between the houses. I really liked having the row of stars across the top. Also, I will have to work out filling in the gaps between the different sized houses, but that shouldn't be too difficult to piece in some additional fabrics to get the blocks to either a uniform height (horizontal orientation) or uniform width (vertical orientation). However, it is nice just to sit down and play with the fabric again. I was feeling sort of blue about not getting to attend the whole of my quilt guild's retreat (just don't have the money to spend this year) and but talked to a friend of mine and so I will go up for at least one of the days and I won't have to drive myself up there. Yeah...So that is something nice to look forward to. I think for the retreat I will get myself set up to have a bunch of things I've been meaning to do, such as binding off a couple of wall hangings and binding a couple of quilts that are finished except for the binding. It is always much more fun to do the stuff you don't enjoy as much with other people around.

As winter rolls along...

2009-01-27T11:43:00.007-06:00

Well, the days are gray and cold here which is to be expected considering time of year. Yesterday, however, what did a see out my windows but a whole flock of robins and other birds flying around my house, singing away as if spring were already here. I stepped outside to snap a few pictures of them silhouetted against the grey sky, but as soon as they heard the front door open they all flew off and it was too cold out for me to wait around for them to return to convenient photo taking range. The cats had a blast though, going from window sill to window sill, tails twitching as they planned how to get the birds (being as they don't really get to go outside no song birds were harmed in this episode). Anyway, just to have a little something to show off, I took some pictures of my first soft toy. Presenting, here on our stage for the first time ever. . . drum roll please... Monkey.

He was made using a scrap of upholstery fabric for the body, some brown velour type fabric for his legs and tail, and felted wool for the face and some of the same wool (not felted) for his arms. I embroidered the face on and used vintage fabric scraps for his polka dot ears and jaunty neckerchief.

Some of the things I learned in making Monkey. First, the upholstery fabric and fabrics I used for his arms and legs don't have much stretch and so the finished stuffed parts came out a bit smaller and skinnier than I thought they would. I do however like the curl I managed to get into his tail simply by cutting out the tail shape in a rough spiral, no need for a wire to keep the tail that shape. Secondly, I need to practice on sewing on the face shape with the satin stitch as my curves are a bit wonky. Also, the non-felted wool frayed a bit near the top of his arm and so I had to mend that seam a bit. However, I am proud of the fact that he came out so cute, and he would be safe for any age of kid to play with as there aren't any buttons to chew off (the limbs and tail are sewn into the side seams of the monkey's body and the face doesn't have button eyes). Also I love the texture of the felt on his face and was really pleased with how expressive his face is considering the minimal features. Here is one last picture. Silly monkey has a empty spool of thread perched on his head. I better watch out, who knows what monkey business he'll get up to in my studio when I'm not around.

Fairy Tale Princess Questionaire

2009-01-07T13:56:00.006-06:00

I came across this questionnaire via, good friend's blog PyschedOutSocialWorker and since I have a love of fantasy stories, fairy tales, and real sympathy for anyone working on a graduate thesis I thought I would re post her questionnaire, with my responses. Pallid Regina is looking for anyone willing to respond to the questionnaire and you can do so by going to her site at http:community.livejournal.com/princess_thesis/ or you can email a response to her at regan8or@yahoo.com.

So here is the questionnaire and my responses. She needs participants to respond by Jan. 19 th, 2009. So if you want to help a fellow academic out... do so.

1. Describe a fairy tale princess: what does she look like, what are her primary personality traits? She is beautiful, though often unaware of how beautiful she is. She has a fondness for animals or other small helpless creatures. Frequently she is told, don't do this one thing, which she then promptly goes and does (sort of like the girl who marries Bluebeard and then discovers that the one cabinet she has been told not to open contains the heads of all his previous wives.) She has someone (often a wicked female stepmother) out to get her. She often has curses or spells placed on her by an outside malevolent force. The sort of Walt Disney version, has blond hair, blue eyes, and flowing pink/pastel dresses and a crown. While she often is of royalty or wealth, she herself doesn't wield the power. Also, more often than not her mother (the figure most needed to educate her about the dangers of the world is dead or missing).

2. Describe any connection you feel, positively or negatively, to a fairy tale princess or fairy tale princesses in general.

When the princess (or in the case of the seven dancing princesses) are terribly passive or stupid seeming then I get annoyed and just want to bop the darn girl upside the head and say wake up and see the danger you are in. For example, Rapunzel's big claim to fame is that she has really really long hair, and is willing to let a prince climb up it to visit her (where is trapped passively bored out of her skull I imagined by the witch aka the only mother she's ever known).
Often the character that is more interesting is the one who has to go and figure out what the danger is or why the spell was cast in the first place and that's who I end up identifying (even though more often than not this figure is male). However, not all fairy princesses are alike. Beauty in "Beauty and the Beast" goes to live with the beast to save her father's life, unlike her more pretty older sisters who wanted fancy things (jewels, pretty clothes, ribbons) as presents from her father. She has her moments of selfishness (like asking for the rose in the first place and staying away from the beast too long when she knows he is suffering and ill) but overall she does the right thing. In one story I remember, the sister figure has her brothers all turned into swans, and in order to save them she undergoes a lot of hardship to free them and risks dying herself. She in this instance is terribly brave and as heroic as any of the "noble princes" that ride in to save the day in say Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. Generally the princess stories I liked the best were the ones where she undergoes a journey or danger to save someone else, where she got to be the hero.

3. Which fairy tale princess do you relate to the most?

The girl who goes to save her friend from the Ice Queen, Beauty from "Beauty and the Beast", and the Grimm's brother's stories "The Seven Ravens", and "The Six Swans", both of which have sisters saving their cursed brothers.

4. Please describe why/how you relate to this princess the most.

I related to the character of Beauty in large part because she felt that her request of the rose is what caused the Beast to threaten to kill her father and as she was responsible for his plight she went to save him. I also liked the fact that she was at first frightened and wary, but over time came to care about the beast not in a pitying way, but by being to see the inner person and his inner good. In the Grimm's brother's stories, the girls had to undergo hardship, and even possible death/physical pain to free their family from the curse and I wanted to be that kind of hero too. Cinderella, I liked because it was her kind nature that helped her get help to get around her step-mother (the birds who picked all the beans out of the ashes for her). I learned that one should be kind to others as it can be rewarded in unexpected or magical ways (i.e. the fairy god-mother).

5. What book versions of fairy tale princess stories did you/do you own?

The one Fairy tale books I had as a child included my mother's book the Giant Golden book of Elves and Fairies and I think a collection of Hans Christen Anderson stories. I did read lots of fairy tales from the library especially the Grimm's Brother's tales and the collected stories in the Andrew Lang's Fairy Book series (each book was a different color, red, blue, pink, olive etc.). While not quite fairy princess stories, I did also own the collected Borrower's books, by E.B Nesbit, and all of C.S. Lewis's Narnia books. I currently have by Robin McKinley, Spindle's End (Sleeping Beauty), Deerskin, Beauty; by Juliet Marrillier's I have, "Daughter of the Forest" which uses the Grimm's tale of The Six Swans. I own the complete Fairy Tales of the Brother's Grimm, which contains original versions of Rapunzel, Cinderella, Snow White (Brier Rose), etc. Also, I have Patricia A. McKillip's "Winter Rose" which is a greatly modified version of Snow White and Rose Red.

6. What movie versions of fairy tale princess stories did you see in the theatre?
Beauty and The Beast (as an adult) and The Little Mermaid, The Princess Bride.
Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty on the Wonderful World of Disney on TV as a kid as my parents didn't take us to movies much as kids.

7. What movie versions of fairy tale princesses did you/do you own?
none.

8. In what ways do fairy tale princesses represent positive female role models?
Beauty takes responsibility for her request of a gift and saves her father's life, and later the life of the beast. She learns to love beyond the outer surfaces of people. The girl's in the Seven Raven's and the Six Swans, undertake difficult journeys/tasks to save their kin from curses. Cinderella doesn't meet cruelty and abuse with cruelty and abuse. She remains a kind and loving person like her father brought her up to be despite her current situation, she chooses to not become like her step-mother and step-sisters. In Snow White and Rose Red, the two sisters vow to support and love each other always. Being kind, giving, and loyal to family are all values I think are worth a lot.

9. In what ways do fairy tale princesses represent negative female stereotypes?
Being beautiful, passive and being praised simply for existing and pretty. Also, there is the idea that danger to beauty comes from other older women (step mothers, wicked witches) who despise the princess for her beauty etc. Also, the idea that the princess must be saved by a prince of some kind, rather than by their own efforts, cleverness, strength of character. Even that it falls to women to sacrifice themselves or their own lives to save others (male brothers) privileges the life of the prince over the princess.

10. Would you/do you read fairy tale princess stories to your child? I don't know. I think that discussing the stories with kids could be really good. I really like folk tales and fairy stories myself and would probably direct my kids towards ones where the main characters aren't so passive, or that the story happens to them.

11. Would you/do you take your child to see fairy tale princess movies in the theatre?
Depends upon the movie. I have no problem with the Disney Beauty movie (in fact I love the music), and really also like Mulan. I would avoid Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty (too passive), but Cinderella I really like. Would let them see Ever After, the Princess Bride but when they are older as I don't think really young kids would get them. I also really like the first Shrek film as an anti-traditional princess movie though, probably somewhat older as the torture of the gingerbread man would probably freak out really young kids. My favorite movies at the moment for kids are more things like Spirited Away, or Kiki's Delievery Service or even the film Matilda (based on the Roahl Dahl book).

12. Would you/do you allow your child to own fairy tale princess movies for repeated viewing?
Maybe. I don't think that repeatedly watching any kind of movie/TV over and over again is all that great for kids (or adults) as there other types of play/activities in life that are more creative and good for brains and bodies.

13. Describe your first memory of Cinderella.
Seeing the movie on TV. I loved the singing mice.

14. Describe your current opinion of Cinderella.
I still love the singing mice. I also, like the fact that some of the fairy godmother's are more on the plump side and have magic.

15. Describe your first memory of Snow White.
She had brown hair like me. The dwarves were weird.

16. Describe your current opinion of Snow White.
How can she not figure out that the creepy witch giving her an apple doesn't have her best interest at heart.

17. Describe your first memory of Sleeping Beauty.
Boring story, except again for the idea of fairy godmother's to give gifts you.

18. Describe your current opinion of Sleeping Beauty.
Her parents screwed up in forgetting someone and she basically reaps the problem they made. She does nothing and still gets the prince which in my mind is sort of how society still rewards people based on how "pretty" they are.

19. In what ways do you think fairy tale princesses are still relevant in today’s society?
They are stories about women and how to deal with the dangers that the world presents to us in various forms. Also, they are ways of mapping expectations about romance, who do you fall in love with and how do you get the "happy ending".

20. What else would you like to say about fairy tale princesses?
The fairy tale princess shows up in all kinds of places not just fairy tales. For example, Princess Leah from Star Wars could be read as a fairy tale princesses who is "saved" by a prince, but really she is more than that. She is a rebel leader, a member of the senate, a political power, plus she can shoot a laser gun with the best of them. Another place that I see fairy tale princesses get a recasting is in character's like River Tam from the Firefly series, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

21. Would it be OK if I asked you follow up questions on your responses?Yes
Sub-questionnaire (optional)1. Do you identify as male or female? female
2. What is your age range (under 18; 19-25; 26-30; 31-39; 40-50; 51 & older)? 40-50
3. What is your ethnicity? white, suburban, Midwesterner.
4. What social class do you identify with (poor, middle class, upper class, etc.)? upper class though income wise I currently would be middle class.
5. What country do you live in?USA

Happy New Year

2009-01-01T13:12:00.001-06:00

Celebrating Life, originally uploaded by Majeak Ann.

Haven't been doing much with the blog of late, however, have been busy crafting away at home and enjoying some free time with the husband. Recently just joined face book, and have been reconnecting with some old freinds. Also have begun work on some new dolls. I sewed a bunch of head and some hands and am ready to start needle sculpting the faces. I also have some ideas about designing an orginal and simple rag doll. I came across this lovely illustration on at majeakann.wordpress.com and thought I would share this picture with you all. Check out her site, lovely children's illustrations. I am in love with her colors and the the hats on these kiddos heads.

Birds on my Desk, and the Winner Is...

2008-12-05T10:47:00.001-06:00

Well, as today 's photo shows, I have been making little felt birds as Christmas Tree ornaments, to be given as gifts (assuming I get them finished in time to give them). I started working on these over Thanksgiving, and have been busy with them --and recovering from a cold--ever since. I found the tutorial over on the wonderful site of http://meggiecat.blogspot.com so you should hop over there and check out all the retro Christmas stuff she's so generously posted. In addition, the give-away is over. So I am pleased to announce not just one winner, but two. There were so many comments, I was inspired to give more. The first winner will receive the little doll, plus some other goodies. The second winner will receive a bird ornament and some additional goodies. So the first winner is, Lola Jo and the second name I drew was Neighborhood Gal. I will be contacting you and as soon as I have your snail mail addresses and am not at work (I work all weekend so if you shoot me email don't be surprised by a bit of lag time in the response) I will get those things together to send out to you. Everyone else, thank-you again for all your nice comments and for checking out my little blog.

Give-Away Day, Dec. 3

2008-12-02T12:06:00.006-06:00

Well, haven't had much time to write recently what with traveling up to Madison, WI for Thanksgiving with my sister and my folks. But I wanted to make a quick post saying that I am busy busy with doing some holiday related crafting and also, that I am going to have a give away, here on this very site. Dec. 3, is Give-Away-Day coordinated by the lovely folks over at the SewMamaSew blog. To be a winner you simply have to leave a comment on my site by midnight Dec. 3rd, Central Standard Time, and I will chose a name randomly from a hat. Along with this little doll, I will also put together kit with materials for a fun sewing needle case and some other bits and bobs that would be fun to craft with.

There are so many give-aways over at the Sew Mama Sew site, that I'm going to extend this one until 8am CST, Friday Dec. 5th. So if you post by that time I will include you in the drawing for the giveaway. I am already amazed at the number of cool blogs I've come across and am loving having you all come by and visit me here.

This is a favorite quote

2008-11-14T12:55:00.002-06:00

P1020959.JPG, originally uploaded by naturalcourse.

This is one of my favorite quotes, maybe its the time of year but to feel that the warmth and joy of summer can live on inside us, even in the face of gray days and the general angst of life is a good thing. However, on a lighter note, this is another favorite quote, pulled from one of the funniest comedy sketches I've ever seen. This is from Monty Python's well known Dead Parrot Sketch. Man tries to return a dead bird to pet shop, only to be told that the parrot is pining for the fjords and not really dead. Then in a brillant moment of frustration John Clease spouts this beauty.

This is an EX-parrot!
"It's not pining, it's passed on. This parrot is no more. It has ceased to be. It's expired and gone to meet its maker. This is a late parrot. It's a stiff. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. If you hadn't nailed it to the perch, it would be pushing up the daisies. Its metabolic processes are now of interest only to historians! He's off the twig! He's kicked the bucket, he's shuffled off his mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible! This is an ex-parrot!"
John Cleese

So for every time you've every tried to complain about a bad product I leave you with this thought, at least its not a ex-parrot.

Happy Halloween

2008-11-01T01:34:00.001-05:00

the first one i made, originally uploaded by TwiSTeDNeeDLe.

Hope your night is as electrifying as this guys was. Came across this on flickr and thought I'd share. Husband and I are out of town this weekend at ICON, a science fiction convention here in lovely Iowa City. Anyway, we arrived yesterday late, and then spent the day recovering from driving and hanging out with my husbands' folks. This evening we went to the opening ceremony at the convention, said hi to all the old friends we've missed, and witnessed the chocolate ceremony (a ceremony after my own heart in its worship and sharing of chocolate). I will write more later, as now I'm off to bed.

This is something I never thought I'd like

2008-10-30T14:41:00.004-05:00

Sweet Potato Pie, originally uploaded by RumAli.

The humble sweet potato, served every thanksgiving that I can remember as a kid covered in a layer of marshmallows. I couldn't bring myself to eat it. Too weird. Then I actually had just plain old baked sweet potatoes with salt and butter. Yummy, who knew. Not me. Then of course came other ways to eat the sweet potato, sweet potato french fries, sweet potato pie, sweet potato's with garlic, and fresh lime juice to counterpoint the sweetness. Basically, what I have found out is that many of the foods that I couldn't bring myself to try as a kid are actually pretty good. I still am not a big fan of cheese unmelted and by itself. I still don't care much for the grainy texture of most beans (but will now eat them in the right context such as with Mexican food, or chili). I still turn up my nose at the Lima bean, but peas are all right with me now as long as they aren't canned and mushy. I think that one of the problems with me and certain foods is that I prefer veggies to resemble veggies, and not be slathered in cream of mushroom soup or cheese, or anything designed to cover up what they started out to be. Also, as I've learned to cook for myself from scratch (not using convenience foods like I did when I was in college), I've learned how to put foods together to make good flavors.

Another thing I didn't think I'd like was this movie. The other week husband and I rented a couple of movies to watch. He'd been wanting to see this one before the new Bond film was released. I am not anti-spy movies. I like a good thriller or action film, but the Bond films had never really done much for me. In large part, I think because they are male fantasy material. To be the cool guy, with the beautiful women, cars (whatever expensive transport is available) and escape all that danger, not so much my thing. Nor did most of the actors playing Bond do much for me as eye candy. They are too handsome for the most part, too assured, too invulnerable to be desirable. However, this movie was really well done. The action was fast, inventive, and didn't depend on lots of clever gadgets. The actor playing Bond really ends up in peril and in a position of real personal jeopardy both physical and emotional. In fact, the emotional danger for this Bond was what sold me on the film. In fact, this film reminded me a bit of the Bourne films which I've always liked.

This is my favorite film-s

2008-10-29T11:23:00.008-05:00

My favorite film, that's a tough one to answer. All the original Star Wars movies, but especially Empire Strikes Back. Love the Blues Brothers, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The Alien films, particularly the first one and the fourth. Monty Python and Search for the Holy Grail, the first Terminator film, The Muppet Movie. There are so many movies I really like, in large part because I am a film nut. These, however, are the ones that I will repeatedly watch and can in large part either sing along with, or recite most of the dialogue. I also love the Japanese anime films by Hayao Miyazaki such as Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle.

Recently, I have been watching lots of foreign and independent films checked out from the local library. The best of these have been Pedro Almodovar's Volver and the film Quincenera which won the 2006 Sundance Grand Jury Prize. This is the song that acts as thematic motif in the film and its all about a lost love, or lost person returning. The movie is all about family and lost or damaged relationships between mother and daughter, sisters, and how much like a miracle it feels when one of these relationships is mended or strengthened.

I also love the films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and , which include: A Very Long Engagement, Amelie, and City of Lost Children. Another favorite director of mine is Guillermo del Toro, best known for directing the big films Hellboy, and Hellboy II: The Golden Army. I also loved his Spanish language films which are a bit more personal, Pan's Labyrinth, The Devil's Backbone, and his first odd little film Cronos. I could go on for days about all the films I love, but for now these are some of my favorites.

Job searching

2008-10-23T16:10:00.001-05:00

Job searching, originally uploaded by Nick Mazur.

My resume...ack

2008-10-23T15:58:00.002-05:00

I am looking around at applying for a new job. This then is my current resume. If you have any comments, or suggestions let me know. I am feeling a bit stumped as to how else to organize/put forward myself. If this helps, I would prefer to have a job with a non-profit agency, or do something that uses my educational background, skills as a teacher, and/or lets me work with people. However, at this point, even a good paying clerical job for the right place might suit me. So here is my most recent resume... (minus the contact info)

LynAnne Smucker

QUALIFICATIONS
Used abilities to multi-task and strong leadership skills to enhance the daily operation of the Family Teaching Model home as the teacher in charge.
Displayed flexibility by adapting to different educational settings and fulfilling each department’s requirements.
Demonstrated my skills in writing by completing a creative thesis, as well as high quality research essays for my graduate work.
Displayed excellent interpersonal skills as a customer service representative and as a baker.
Type 45 wpm. Familiar with Microsoft Works, Microsoft Word, and Macintosh computers.
Learned quickly to use various company-specific computer programs.

EMPLOYMENT
3/2005 to present: Teacher: Community Living Opportunities: Lawrence, KS
Taught life skills and worked with a small caseload of individuals with severe developmental disabilities to maximize their independence at home and in the community. Used my background in the arts to enhance the recreational activities of my caseload. Provided active treatment by engaging consumers in age-appropriate, functional activities. Served as the Teacher in Charge to maintain and ensure implementation of daily schedules, appropriate documentation, and ensuring the safety and care of consumers in the home and out in the community.

10/2004-1/2005: Clerical and Receptionist positions—Corestaff Services: Overland Park, KS
Performed detailed fact checking for several clients. Used general clerical skills—answering phones, filing, photo copying, and data entry to meet the needs of Corestaff customers.

6/2004-9/2004 Mail Room Clerk and Data Entry—Kelly Services: Lawrence, KS
Opened, sorted, and processed incoming mail. Photocopied needed documents for archival purposes.
Prepared IRS filings for scanning. Entered corrections to scanned data, keying from scanned image.
Performed data entry of tracking numbers for correspondence.

3/2003-5/2004 Customer Service Representative--Pearson Government Solutions: Lawrence, KS Handled in-bound calls about immigration and naturalization matters. Provided information to customers on a range of questions with one of the highest levels of accuracy for my team in information captured and in information provided to customers. Navigated complex intranet database of information and maintained my knowledge as information changed.
5/1993-7/1995 Lead Baker—New Pioneer Co-op, Iowa City, IA Full time baker producing a full range of desserts and breads for the deli at New Pioneer Co-op. Helped double profits from catering due to the high quality of my catering desert and cookie trays. Won best chocolate cheesecake award in a local competition.
4/1992-5/1993 Youth Care Worker--Youth Homes Inc., Iowa City, IA Night Staff-- direct care worker in a therapeutic foster care setting for teenage girls. Caught up the backlog of computer records and maintained current files. Followed up on filing and necessary paperwork as well as critical household maintenance.
2/1992-7/1995 Temporary Positions in Data Entry, Clerical, and Test Scoring—Kelly Services, Iowa City, IA Entered data from application forms into computer database. Worked as a receptionist on several temporary assignments. Prepared documents for further processing. Holistically scored sixth grade writing tests.
Continued on next page

TEACHING EXPERIENCE
8/2004-12/2004 Adjunct Faculty, Composition—Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, KS 8/2000-12/2003 Graduate Teaching Assistant, Composition and Literature—University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 8/1998-5/2000 Part-time Instructor, Composition and Literature—El Paso Community College, El Paso, TX 8/1998-5/2000 Part-time Instructor, Composition—University of Texas at El Paso, TX 8/1995-5/1998 Graduate Teaching Assistant, Composition—University of El Paso, TX 8/1991-2/1992 English Teacher—St. Johns High School, St. Johns, AZ
*Revised my course design in include more material centered on popular culture texts to increase student interest and investment in learning. *Encouraged students to use the process approach to writing and aided students in writing essay’s that fulfilled the requirements of the assignment and used their own knowledge and interests in their essays. *Coached students through individual writing conferences and by teaching various techniques to increase their fluency, ownership, and confidence in their own writing. *Graded essays and provided students with information about how to revise their essays. *Used various teaching practicum’s to learn about different methods to teach composition such as auto-ethnographic writing assignments, group research for argumentative essays, different ways to use peer-review of drafts, and different uses for portfolio assessment.
EDUCATION
2000-2004 MA in American Studies, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS.
1995-1998 MFA in English, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX
1986-1991 BA in English and Theater Arts, University of Iowa, IA
PUBLICATIONS and COMMUNITY GROUPS
Stories of Oak and Ash. M.F.A. thesis, University of Texas at El Paso: 1998. Forcing Branches. Original play reading. University of Texas at El Paso: 1996.
Eudora Quilting Bees, Eudora Quilt Guild, membership—10/2004 to present.

October Sunflowers

2008-10-22T13:40:00.002-05:00

This weekend, while out and about with my clients, I stopped at a swath of native prairie that is planted along a main road in Lawrence, Kansas. I had been meaning to get some pictures in late August of the sunflowers growing along the back roads, the slower route I drive from Eudora into Lawrence, but never remembered to have my camera when it would have been a good time. Now that we are into October, there are still some hardy sunflowers lingering, but the ones that were in the fields have been harvested up along with the corn or soybeans they were stoutly growing amongst. I don't know why, but I really like the wild sunflowers. They are not as showy as the larger cultivated varieties, but have their own quirky pride. Now of course being October many of the blooms have dried and turned into seed pods. I like how this plant goes from glory of blooming, through to drying out and turning into food for the birds, and finally in winter, just skeletal dark branches and pods, to be reborn again in late summer. Being a perennial, they are a marker of the seasons, and I like watching them alter knowing while there is always an end to the golden glory, that from it there is also the promise of new life.

Friday Favs...

2008-10-17T11:47:00.003-05:00

This is one of my favorite songs...

Its raining, its pouring, the old man is snoring...

2008-10-17T11:17:00.002-05:00

Hi,
It is wet today. I can hear rain and thunder rumble outside my office window. I am getting over a cold, and feeling just a tad bit grumpy. Things are changing at my job. Due to the way state funding is shifting for adults with severe/profound developmental disabilities, the agency I work for is having some funding issues. Out of these funding issues has come the news that the very stable house I have been working at for the last three and half years, with four very lovely individuals I have gotten to know quite well, is going to be split up. As of yet there is no official word about who is moving, where they are moving to (i.e. what kind of living situation) and on a selfish note what is going to happen to my job. There is the possibility that my position (I work a 56 hour shift from Friday at 3pm to Sunday night at 11pm with time to sleep) may no longer be needed. If that's the case I don't know what arrangements my agency will have available to keep me employed. Basically, its all up in the air at the moment, not a really happy place to be. So, hence I a feeling a bit grumpy today before a have to go to work. I really don't want to change jobs, but that may not be within my control. Anyway, just felt like venting a bit. Maybe if it stops raining I'll feel better. This picture of my cat Ayesha glaring at the hated vacuum cleaner says it all though.

This is my current reading material

2008-10-16T13:22:00.004-05:00

I am partway into this book, Downbelow Station by C.J. Cherryh and also have on my reading list, her novels, Rimrunners, and Finity's End.
I am also reading very slowly, Meg Mateo Ilasco's Craft Inc. Turn Your Creative Hobby Into a Business and the latest issue of Quilting Arts Magazine.

Past sewing projects part 1.

2008-10-14T00:23:00.014-05:00

I was just looking around at all the wonderful purses over on http://curlypops.blogspt.com/ and then I saw the cool buttons being given away on http://bowerbirdz.wordpress.com/ site and thought I would go ahead and show off some older pictures of the purses that I made my neices a couple of years ago. Each girl picked a main fabric. Ms. G's was a green print with flowers and Ms. M's was a red print with yellow birds on it. I then made the purse fronts and back using a stitch and flip method I learned from Barbara Randle's lovely book Crazy Quilting with Attitude. I then went and embellished them with couched trims, beads and buttons and basically had a wonderful time making them. I was thinking of making some to sell, but haven't done much with this.

The part I enjoyed the most was doing the hand work to embellish the purses.

Stayed tuned for more from my craft project vaults. I also am hoping to get some more current projects photographed to show off.

This is my favorite craft store

2008-10-08T15:15:00.007-05:00

This is Sarah's Fabrics, one of my favorite stores to shop for supplies in, located in Lawrence, Kansas. Not only does Sarah's boast a huge selection of wonderful fabrics,a lot of the fabric they have is what I prefer for quilts and other fabric projects: bold, colorful, and contemporary in style. They also have on display these wonderful quilts.

I love the polka fabrics in use in this heart quilt. Just below it is their huge selection of Kaffe Fassett designed prints.

While the bright and the batiks are my favorite parts of the store, they also have a great selection of traditional prints, Asian inspired fabric, as well as some beautiful fabrics for home decor/garment sewing.

I have had great success finding ribbon and trims the right scale for use with doll costumes and the people who work there are friendly, helpful and just plain nice. In addition, who can't but help love a store that has its very own cat. Only wish I'd gotten a more in focus shot of the lovely Possum posing there on all those red fabric bolts, but she still looks great don't she.

On my Desk

2008-10-08T14:48:00.001-05:00

Today on my desk (aka my sewing table) is a selection of some new fabrics, and a book about blogging picked up at the recent library sale.

Also here are some of the other great books I'm looking forward to reading that I picked up at the library sale as well, Daughter of Exile by Isabel Glass, Wicked by Gregory Maguire, The Tower at Stony Woodby Patricia A. McKillip and two not pictured by Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword. I was going to go to the library today when I was in town, but alas they were closed for a staff training day. I will have to go again some other time. After all its not as if I'm lacking in stuff to read.

Eudora Quilt Show, July 2008

2008-10-03T12:58:00.007-05:00

I meant to write about this some time back. Our local guild's show was in July, but I just never got to it, but here are some my favorites from the show.

This quilt had amazing applique and the echo quilting was also quite lovely.

I also really liked this attitude of the duck in this block

On another random note, if you go over to http://dianobe.blogspot.com you can win a chance for a beginner Pysanky egg kit. Check it out, the eggs she's done are beautiful.

this is show off time

2008-10-02T22:59:00.005-05:00

Of all the dolls I've made, this one, named Delight, is one of the dolls I'm proudest of making.

She is my interpretation of a pattern from Patti Medaris Culea's second book,
Creative Cloth Doll Faces. I first scanned the pattern and enlarged it about 20% as this was the first doll I'd made with individual fingers. She is interesting in that I knew I wanted a wild look about her, but she came together slowly over a number of weeks. She is different than other dolls I'm made in that she has both eyelids and eyelashes. Her body fabric and the fabric on her left arm I made using a base lavender fabric, which was sprinkled with bits of other fabrics and thread and Angelina fiber, then I added a layer of netting. After zig zag stitching over the netting fiber sandwich I heated the Angelina fiber so that it would have a certain shimmer and iridescence. Her skirt is made of some altered tyvek which I painted with metalic fabric paints and the pink netting is from a bag of tangerines I bought at the grocery store. I used the black and white fabrics and checked ribbon to balance all the hot pink hair and shoes color. One thing that I don't know if it can be seen well, is that one of her eyes is blue, and the other is green (which I did to add to her quirky look). Overall she is everything I like best about making dolls, she has big hair, bright colors, and lots of personality. I personally think this chick could rock out with the best of them.

This is what I do with extra 10 minutes

2008-09-24T23:40:00.003-05:00

Hi,
I have a confession to make. I often have more than a few extra 10 minutes. However, sometimes even with time to do things I still don't seem to get things done. In the last several weeks I have been meaning to start sewing a new batch of dolls for sale, work on a doll for my Mom, start the dolls I promised to my nieces, bind a quilt I finished hand quilting several weeks ago. I could simply go on and on lamenting the list of various tasks I have been planning to do and not doing.
When I have a few minutes to kill, say waiting for a Dr.'s appointment, I generally use that time to make a new to do list or read some more of my latest book. At the moment, I am working my way through a series of novels by C.J. Cherryh. I had been meaning to read her novel Cyteen (orginally published in three parts, but now out in one large edition) and once I did that I was hooked. If you like suspenseful, and well written science fiction that looks at how society changes through genetic and psychological engineering and life in colonies far removed from as the books call Earth, the motherwell, then her Merchanter series is for you. Having read Cyteen, I am now into the novel Hellburner the sequel to Heavytime by Cherryh. While the novels are linked by being a part of the same history/universe you don't need to read them in order. The other thing I do with a few spare minutes happens mostly at my job, I usually sit down and do a bit more crochet or embroidery or handwork on whatever portable project I'm working on at the moment.
Sometimes though I think my cat has the best idea of what to do with an extra few minutes...napping on the couch.

This is...these are some of my favorite children's books

2008-08-29T12:30:00.011-05:00

These are some of the many books I loved to read as a kid: All the Famous Five, Secret Seven and Boxcar Children books, Trixie Belden books, the Anne of Green Gables books by L.M. Montgomery, E. Nesbit's The Enchanted Castle, Mary Norton's The Borrower's

, Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows

and C.S. Lewis's books especially, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, as well as countless others. In addition to all of this I really remember a big book on Greek Mythology for kids, all the fairytale books in various colors from pink to puce to green, and of course many of the books by Madeline L'Engle. However, from an even earlier time when I couldn't really read I remember vividly this book, The Giant Golden Book of Elves and Fairies,

in large part because of the pictures by Garth Williams. I have always wanted there to be magical creatures that are real just hiding off in some forgotten forest glen or glade. When my family would vacation in Colorado at my grandparent's cabin (really a nice ranch style house that my grandfather and my dad and his brothers built near Buena Vista Colorado in the woods)I would wander around dreaming about fairies and such and try to make little garden's for them from wildflowers I would pick and replant in empty coffee cans. Anway, I still love this book and was so happy when my Mom gave it to me. It had been one of her books from her childhood. So Enjoy looking at some of the wonderful pictures.

This one is from one of my favorite stories where a father makes his daughter special silver slippers, which she wears hidden inside her everyday wooden clogs, but here she is shown using them to get the strength to save the prince and his horse from a marsh and some nasty trolls. Eventually the prince discovers that his savior/princess is really just this very brave ordinary girl whose father gave her slippers blessed by good fairies to

Little slippers, go only on bright roads, only on good roads, only on right roads, if you dear child, go astray, sliver slippers will vanish away

. But while the slippers are magic, what really causes her to win out is her father's love and guidance of her as she grows up to be a brave and kind person. This is another one of the great illustrations.

Even the inside cover the the book is fantastic.

So with this book as much as I loved the stories from it, I was as enchanted by the illustrations of this magical world. When I get some more time I may try and show some more pictures from this book.

This is...a work in progress

2008-08-12T01:27:00.002-05:00

This is one of the things I've been doing while huddled inside with the air conditioning. I keep planning to work on making new dolls, but instead I've been making lots of granny squares. The part I hate most is weaving in all the little loose ends of yarn. I have most of these squares done and ready to go onto this afghan as a contrasting border. I totally love how the black yarn makes the squares pop and how bright the colors are. This is my first granny square crochet project with multiple colors and I am totally hooked (please excuse the bad crochet pun).

Too Cute

2008-07-29T20:27:00.003-05:00

Came across this little match holder on eBay after being inspired by an article in the latest issue of Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion about Holt Howard Pixie ware serving pieces. Not that I have to rush out and start collecting Pixie ware, which is both terribly cute and expensive, but that something like this stuff even existed just makes me want to laugh.

Collections - Holt-Howard Pixieware, originally uploaded by thomwatson.

This collection is too fabulous and the expressions on the faces are just too much fun. In fact, I would really like to make some new dolls with expressions inspired by these pixies.

However, I have many other things that I've been putting off working on to launch a whole new project in a different direction. Much of the last several weeks have been me watching old episodes of Dr. Who that my hubby recorded off of PBS back in the eighties, but which I'd not seen. In particular, I'd never seen any of the episodes with the seventh Doctor. Now that the series has its revamped look and the spin off show Torchwood (both of which have more adult content and themes as well as better effects and music) my love of the show has been renewed. While I'm watching I'm making many granny squares for yet another throw. I have a bit of an crochet bug right now, which considering how hot its been outside is quiet funny. However, crochet, much like hand quilting, or embroidery is one of those things that I can do at in the evenings at work and set aside as needed to assist my clients.

This is what makes me happy

2008-07-24T14:44:00.003-05:00

Things that make me happy...
Long conversations with old freinds, finishing a good book, seeing my kitties curled up sleeping together. Reading crafty blogs.
Being in good health. Organizing my craft materials, which I've been doing a lot of recently. Air conditioning on a hot July day in Kansas. Creating things, dolls, quilts, crocheted afgans. Bright colors. Butterflies alighting on the butterfly bush outside my living room window. Family. A good hug from my husband.

This is what gives me goosebumps

2008-07-14T12:55:00.004-05:00

Words, playing with words, and really cool inventive writing all gives me goosebumps. Also, coming across someone else's words that sparks a connection/idea that you felt or knew, but didn't know how to name it. Its that moment of recognition of something true, that happens when what you are reading connects to important idea from your own life/experience. For example, I was reading recently the book Quilty as Charged, undercover in a Material World by Spike Gillespie and I had one of those moments in the chapter where she has her interview with quilt artist Ricky Tims. He was talking about what quilting meant to him, and this paragraph hit home with me:

Quilting is so much more than cutting out fabrics, picking out fabrics, sewing them together. Quilting, when it comes down to it, is something that is so rich and so deep and so meaningful. We work through our greatest sorrows and the greatest joys of our lives--"Oh someone's getting married--we gotta make them a wedding quilt. New baby's coming..."
The quilt becomes a landmark in life, and it also dictates and says this is where I was in my life at this time. So as a quilter, if you make a series of quilts--whether it's five or fifty in your lifetime--people, once we're gone can just go back and chronicle our life in these sets of quilts. Whether they're utility quilts or art quilts or whatever, so much of who we are goes into that quilt. I understand that, and they [other quilters] understand that. That's what makes quilters so incredibly joined together. . .There's something about quilting that's so much different than any of the other textile art forms.

This idea that each quilt is a landmark of the quilter's life is idea that gives me goosebumps. If I even look at the ones I've made, and there are more unfinished than finished at this point, I can see both my growth as a quilter, trying new techniques, developing skills, finding out what aspects of quilting appeals to me, makes me enjoy it as an art form and I can remember what specific events were happening when I was working on a particular quilt. I can also see plainly that as an artist and person, that doing the finishing parts of quilting (binding, sewing on a hanging sleeve, labeling the quilt) are tough for me as they aren't as much fun as the sewing of the top, designing things, or even once the quilt is basted, hand quilting the quilt. But as I struggle with finishing things I've started, I know that I am not alone with this from the many conversations I've had with other quilters and so this sense of community does help me give myself praise when I do good, and forgive myself for being human.

This is (one of ) my most treasured childhood posession

2008-07-12T10:33:00.003-05:00

I only just came across this, but wanted to post about one of my most treasured childhood possessions even though we are onto theme number two already. I have been gaga for dolls for a long time and this little one, only 8 inches high, is my beloved Ginny doll that I played with lots and lots. I brushed her hair to the point that she is bald in a few spots and has terrible split ends from me washing her hair. At the moment she is trying on some new fabric on my sewing table waiting for me to make her some clothes as when my Mom found her and gave her back to me she was naked and longing for some new fashions to protect her modesty. I remember loving this doll more than my Malibu Barbie because 1) she had brown hair and brown eyes just like me 2) she looked more like me than Barbie i.e. no boobies 3) she seemed sweeter and smarter than Barbie, just like me...don't ya know. Anyway, I also remember making little outfits for her from scraps from my Mom's sewing and now I'm a grown up and still making dolls and doll clothes, though no longer just from scraps leftover from other projects, now I go and buy fabrics on my own to do this.

Trip to Iowa City

2008-07-03T15:15:00.012-05:00

Its been awhile since I've written anything. Back in May when my parents visited I had planned on showing off a picture of some lilacs that were in bloom. However, such plans fell by the wayside and its already July. As I type today I can hear the very enthusiastic fans of fireworks setting off stuff, which they have been doing for the last several days, though tomorrow is actually the fourth of July. I really wouldn't begrudge them their enjoyment of minor pyrotechnics and noise, if only they stopped before I was trying to fall asleep in the evening.
Anyway, what I really wanted to write about was my recent return visit to Iowa City, IA. The main reason for the trip was to see family (my husband's parents and his sister and her family). We left on a Monday to drive up, and came back the following Thursday, with enough time to get me ready to work all weekend. I love going to Iowa City, particularly in summer as it full of memories from when I went to college there and later lived there for several years, including the last big flood back in 1993. While we were there we ate out at some of our favorite places including the Hamburg Inn #2, and Lou Henri's where I got this fantastic omelet with Parmesan sauce, mushrooms, and avocados.
Also at Lou Henri's I discovered an interesting windchime made out of keys and some fun mosiacs in the ladies washroom made from recycled plates. Very hippy, which is one of the aspects of Iowa City that you can either revel in or hate, but never fully get away from.

We also found this cute little store called Home EC. Workshop. Their website is http://www.homeecworkshop.com
I wish I'd taken a picture of the front window and the inside too. They sell fabrics, vintage trims, these wonderful buttons from India and really beautiful yarns. Also, you can take classes there, and sit down and have a coffee and cinnamon roll too at their little coffee counter.
I loved the little bags they put my buttons in so they wouldn't get lost. These are some of the fabrics and trims I bought there. One of my favorite finds was this fabric with the fifties women doing the wash.

We stopped in twice, once when I first spotted it across the street from our goal of the Hamburg Inn, and then again the next day to really do a bit of shopping. Both my nieces went with us and they picked out fabric to be used for a doll that I will be making them. It was great deal of fun and I would have loved to buy lots of their cute Japanese imported fabrics, but in the end I bought things I'm more likely to use in doll making or a quilt. Now I'm back home and am trying to get things ready for our quilt show next weekend. The Eudora Quilting Bees show happens to fall on my tenth wedding anniversary and also on the opening date for Hell Boy II. If I actually get the weekend off, like I've asked for, then I will get to both help out at the show and go see the movie with with the husband which is our way of celebrating our anniversary. We are both such geeks. After the show I should have some new pictures of my finished quilts. Now that's its hot out, all I want to do is hang out where its cool and sew.

April Madness

2008-04-23T18:13:00.002-05:00

I haven't added anything new here in a while. Mostly due to being busy fixing my lower back pain (strain) and carpal tunnel symptoms brought on and exacerbated by my Graves disease. The physical therapy has been challenging, but oh so worth it as I now have improved abdominal strength and improved flexibility in my hands again. For the first time in over a month and a half I can hand quilt and embroider without numbness, pain or tingling in my fingers. Yeah! One other benefit of the PT has been a renewed interest in my part on becoming more physically fit/active. I must admit that I am rather a couch potato by nature, but I really have enjoyed seeing the progress I've made over four weeks of regular exercises to improve my core muscles and want to continue to improve my fitness in general. The activity is helping to balance out some of the depression and low energy I still have as I work on getting my Thyroid hormone levels up to where they should be.
In the mean time, I have been busy reading some rather good books. One that I loved is by Eva Ibbotson called Island of the Aunts which had my attention from the first line. To quote "Kidnapping children is not a good idea. All the same, sometimes it has to be done." The Island of the Aunts is a great tale of a special island and the sisters who with their elderly father have settled there and take care of the rather special creatures who come to the island as a refuge and home. The Aunts worried about who will continue their work once they are gone set out to find children who would be the right sort of people to take over for them once they are gone and hence the need for kidnapping. It is a very funny book, and is a bit easier of a read than say the Harry Potter books, but great for kid in you or a kid you know. On a entirely different wavelength is Jonathan Lethem's rather stark young adult novel Girl in Landscape in which fourteen year old Pella Marsh must cope with her mother's death, and relocation from a post apocalyptic Brooklyn to alien planet where her father is taking the family to start a new life as colonists. What I found most interesting about this science fiction novel is that while Pella is very perceptive about understanding some of the actions of the adults around her, she is not at all clear about her own motivations/actions as she moves from being regarded as a "girl" to being a woman in her own right. Also, the alien inhabitants of the planet, called the Archbuilders, are really interesting in their own right. Anyway, that's all the news for now. I'm planning on getting some more photos of my dolls done in the next couple of weeks and once I finish quilting the top I'm working on, will get some pictures of it up.

Enjoy your spring.

My studio

2008-03-26T23:41:00.007-05:00

I've been looking around and one of the things I've seen that always interests me is what different artists studio spaces look like. Well, My main workspace and sewing place is the "dine in" section of my kitchen in our little Cape Cod house that was built around 1947 or so. This first photo is a shot of my main sewing table.

This next picture is the wall where I have a lot of my fat quarters of fabric stored. I have more fabric storage in another couple of locations throughout my living room and upstairs in my attic, but becuase I do a lot of scrap style quilts and dolls use smaller cuts of fabric, I buy lots more fat quarters than larger yard cuts so I can have some variety in my stash of fabric to work from. The really big box on the left is my yarn and hair box for my doll making.

The kitchen is larger than normal because a previous owner added onto the house and expanded the kitchen to a normal size that includes an space for a table and such. My husband and I tend to eat at our coffee table and so he has allowed me to take over this area for my "studio" space.

This picture features my ironing mat that I made and under this is the self healing mat where I do the majority of my fabric cutting for quilts. Now I do have a normal size ironing board, but at the moment it isn't set up in this space as would take too much room. I am considering bringing it out of retirement and finding a good location for it where it can stay set up and not get in the way of normal traffic (walking around) patterns, but until then I will continue to make due with my smaller ironing mat. I've been doing some cleaning and organizing recently as due to some of the effects of my out of wack thyroid levels, my hands are a bit swollen and I haven't had much energy to do a lot of sewing and thus am trying to use my creative time to prepare for when my body is more back to normal. However, these are some of the quilt blocks I've made most recently hanging out on my new smaller design wall that I made out of an old bulliten board.

This is a close up of a simple wall angel I made who hangs in my sewing space. She is from a Pamela Hastings pattern I found in the wonderful magazine Cloth Dolls and Animals. My favorite thing about her is the pieced body and bright colors which are so me.

My Asian quilt top reconsidered

2008-03-07T11:09:00.006-06:00

One of the things I've always been fascinated by is how artists go from their first ideas to the finished piece and to this end I want to share one of the quilts I'm now working on again. I have been away from quilting for awhile due to having been diagnosed with Graves disease, which for the last six to seven months has played havoc with my energy levels and ability to concentrate on more complex creative tasks. Anyway, as my thyroid hormone levels have gotten back to normal, I've been getting back to doing the creative stuff I love. One of the projects that was left behind during this time was this quilt with these Asian crazy quilt blocks and blocks called hopscotch blocks (the longer runs of color with the irregular squares running down them). The Hopscotch blocks I learned to make from a wonderful book by Dianne S. Hire called Quilters Playtime Games with Fabrics.
So when I was at my quilt guild's retreat, I was looking at some earlier work I'd done, and some newer blocks which I had used a great 15" square ruler to square up. The contrast was striking in that the newer blocks have better quarter inch seams and lay flat so nicely and the older work is all a bit wonky. I thought about this quilt top, which is almost all the way put together, and how much I'm not satisfied with the quality of my sewing. In time away from quilting, I've had time to consider what I was working on so feverishly before. I have a tendency to sew too quickly and then struggle to have my quilt top lay flat. I have decided to take this opportunity of being not so passionately invested in finishing this quilt top, to take parts of it apart, i.e. rip out badly sewn seams, something I don't enjoy doing, and to put it back together the right way, i.e. more carefully, and also use this as a chance to improve the overall design of the quilt. Now when I look at my overall pattern, I can see clearly that one of the lady block has a bright purple that doesn't mesh with the other colors of the quilt top, Also I was trying to use the black and white blocks as punctuation, and now I'm not sure how well they work. In large part because I ended up grouping too many of them on one side of the quilt and not distributing them around enough. So while taking things apart is not going to be the fun part, I do think that considering my choices a bit for the fabrics connecting the sections up and redoing it will in the end make the overall design more pleasing.

On Northanger Abbey

2008-02-25T22:09:00.003-06:00

Recently I while I was at work I (I do direct care for adults with developmental disabilities) I was flipping the TV channels to find something of interest for the client still up and watching TV (he was engaged primarily in working on a puzzle but does look up and watch the TV on and off too) as the car racing he had been viewing ended. I came across the BBC series of Pride and Prejudice and left it there for a bit. I myself didn't care what was on, as long as it wasn't terribly loud as it was late and I was at the end of my 56 hour shift (I work from Friday afternoon through 11pm Sunday nights and sleep at the residence of the clients I work with). The other staff person working came through and made some off hand comment about how he doesn't like Jane Austen or the Brontes' writing much but was impressed that the did so much considering they were limited to the parlor/home whereas the male authors of the period had the whole world to explore/experience to inform their literary efforts.

At the time I couldn't formulate just what precisely made his comment seem so condescending to me, but after giving it thought here is my response. First let me make clear that my co-worker is male, college educated and is currently working on getting certified to teach high school English in the state of KS. I also am college educated, and have a MFA in creative writing, a background in English and Theater, and love reading novels of all sorts. Over the years I have read Jane Eyre a number of times, and most of Jane Austen's novels as well as lots of other British and American Lit from the 18th and 19th Century. First of all, I don't particularly feel that having a wider range of personal experience to you due to gender necessarily makes your writing better, more worthy of reading by a modern reader, or "important" artistically. Secondly I think that Austen is one of the best writer's I've ever read because she's sarcastic, funny, and observant of human behavior and relationships. She writes with very clear, economic prose, what might take another writer pages more to convey. Also, while I'm not a Austen scholar I don't know that her life was all that circumscribed, unlike the Brontes' who had the misfortune to die really young. What makes Austen still popular, I believe is that she writes about how little people really understand each other, how missperception based on seeing the world from ones own point of view limits the ways that we connect to each other. I also, don't know that to write about subjects such as romance, love, or marriage is a lesser choice of subject matter than to write about the pursuit of a great white whale. They are different choices. They may seem to be gendered choices, but is this really a limitation of the author, or a limitation of the edifice of scholarly tradition in western culture? Basically it comes down to the fact that I think it galls my co-worker that more people are still interested in the stories based on Austen's work than for example a novel like Tom Jones by Henry Fielding which he prefers.

So, anyway in addition to these thoughts about gender and subject matter and artistic merit I have been reading Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen and throughly loving it. While I do find the extreme naivete of the main character Catherine Morland a bit tiring, I also have to keep in mind that unlike some of the other Austen heroines she is only seventeen and as been reading far to many gothic novels and so keeps trying foolishly to have reality be like one of her books. Basically the modern eqivilant of watching lots of horror films or reading ghost stories and then seeing pycho killers or angry spectres around every corneer. Also they way in which Austen parodies and pokes fun at the conventions of the gothic romance so popular as a form is delightful. Much in the way that the Lemony Snicket's series of books, a Series of Unfortunate Events, subverts aspects of the gothic novel, so too does Northanger Abbey. If you haven't read it, I would reccommend it much the way a good freind of mine recently pushed me into reading it for the first time.

the questions with picture answers

2008-02-13T22:50:00.001-06:00

This is an meme I stole from a friend's blog. The basic technique is to ask simple questions which you post and then go to a place like google images and pick your favorite picture from what pops up. I, being in love with Flickr.com a photo sharing site which I love to just browse through is the place that I went to find my pictorical answers to these questions. The questions:
1. What is your age at your next birthday?
2.Where would you like to travel?
3. What is your favorite place?
4. What are your favorite objects?
5. What is your favorite food?
6. What is your favorite animal?
7. What is your favorite color?
8. The town where you were born?
9. The town where you now live?
10. The name of a past pet?
11. First name of a past love?
12. Best friend's nickname?
13. Screen name or nickname?
14. First name?
15. middle name- or in my case my dream/fantasy name?
16. last name
17. A bad habit?
18. College major?

Creative Writing 2

2008-02-13T22:46:00.001-06:00

Creative Writing 2, originally uploaded by Vitalphoto.

18. College Major

manicure

2008-02-13T22:44:00.001-06:00

manicure, originally uploaded by futuna.

17. A bad habit

J. M. Smucker - 1897

2008-02-13T22:43:00.001-06:00

J. M. Smucker - 1897, originally uploaded by Origins of Business.

16. My last name

leaping

2008-02-13T22:42:00.001-06:00

leaping, originally uploaded by panta rhei.

15. My fantasty name

D1 LynneAnne Teake

2008-02-13T22:41:00.001-06:00

D1 LynneAnne Teake, originally uploaded by Gert & Betsie.

14. My first name (almost)

Purple beauty

2008-02-13T22:38:00.001-06:00

Purple beauty, originally uploaded by dolphin_dolphin.

13. My nickname

a a a h h h ! ! !

2008-02-13T22:37:00.001-06:00

a a a h h h ! ! !, originally uploaded by Aelle.

12. Best freind's nickname

Sophia Loren

2008-02-13T22:36:00.001-06:00

Sophia Loren, originally uploaded by markoturso.

11. Name of past love

Quincy Rail Bridge

2008-02-13T22:32:00.001-06:00

Quincy Rail Bridge, originally uploaded by jimfrazier.

10. Name of past pet

Eudora's Library, Jackson, Mississippi

2008-02-13T22:26:00.001-06:00

Eudora's Library, Jackson, Mississippi, originally uploaded by La Fotodama.

9. Town where I live

...And the Statues Played Duck, Duck, Goose

2008-02-13T22:25:00.001-06:00

...And the Statues Played Duck, Duck, Goose, originally uploaded by Niemster.

8. Town where I was born

Something Is Fishy

2008-02-13T22:24:00.001-06:00

Something Is Fishy, originally uploaded by psmphotography.

7. Favorite colors

Pizza-----Douglas Adams The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

2008-02-13T22:23:00.001-06:00

Pizza-----Douglas Adams The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, originally uploaded by mquest foto.

5. Favorite Food

Cat stairs

2008-02-13T22:19:00.001-06:00

Cat stairs, originally uploaded by fofurasfelinas.

6. Favorite Animals

Just hanging around

2008-02-13T22:17:00.001-06:00

Just hanging around, originally uploaded by Immagina.

4. Favorite object

Heaven On Earth

2008-02-13T22:15:00.001-06:00

Heaven On Earth, originally uploaded by davebrosha.

3. A favorite place

Moreton Bay Fig Tree

2008-02-13T22:14:00.001-06:00

Moreton Bay Fig Tree, originally uploaded by ~Prescott.

2. A place to travel to

Venezia anni '40: omaggio a mio padre

2008-02-13T22:13:00.001-06:00

Venezia anni '40: omaggio a mio padre, originally uploaded by MarcelloDR.

1. Age at next birthday.

hung up a new calendar

2008-01-28T01:43:00.001-06:00

When I got home from work, besides kicking off my shoes and relaxing in front of the TV, I finally hung up the new calender in the kitchen. Most of January is already gone and I've not had much time to enjoy the picture of our guiding angels. Mostly I don't go for that sort of angel art, but this one was 1. on sale, 2. really interesting looking, not sappy, and 3. Made with 100% post consumer recycled paper. I am going to try and get a quick snap of it so you all can enjoy it along with me. I have been doing a bunch of embroidery on dish towels and have plans to make a cute embroidered border for some kitchen curtains I've been planning on making for. . . well since we moved into our house and I painted the kitchen green and coral read. I have the fabric that goes and everything, but have never done it. Well, here's hoping I can do something about that.

See this improve you enviroment kick was started because a friend of mine wants me to paint my hallway, (its needed it ever since the bathroom was renovated about in the fall of 2003) in exchange for some sewing lessons. So, since I'm getting that work done at last, I thought maybe I should do a few of the other things I've meant to do to beautify our home. Well that's it for tonight.

more to come

2007-12-18T21:00:00.000-06:00

Hi,
I started this back when I thought I would have more energy and be writing about my creative life and projects regularly. Well, that was then this is a different time. I still would like to do this but due to some health stuff, I've not had the energy level I normally have and many of my projects are mere ideas, dreams waiting to be brought into this world. I have made one small scrappy top, and have been crocheting up a storm, but when I think of what I want to be doing I get very frustrated. I'm sure other artists have gone through the same thing, but its not fun when its you. However, I am going to try and get some pictures of my crafty space/ and projects up eventually, but in the mean time here is a pic of a wall hanging I had in my guild's quilt show in 2006. Also, this a doll that I put in the silent auction that finally sold for seventy-five dollars, which was my first sale of any of my dolls.

June 12, 2007

2007-06-12T00:50:00.000-05:00

I wasn't planning on doing this, not that I'm all that shy, or new to keeping a journal, but mostly that's private writing. However, I am feeling the need for a new creative venture and after seeing other folks blogs, here I am putting the proverbial toe into the water. Right now my house is very quiet except for the occasional chirrup of my cat Faye who doesn't so much as meow as she has a plaintive cry for attention, which she has finally decided that I am not going to stop playing with the computer to pet her so she has settled down to sleep next to my elbow on the desk. Since it is late, and really I should be sleeping I will keep this short.

Tomorrow is my quilt guild's meeting day. I am currently vice pres of the Eudora Quilting Bees, which mostly means I'm the person who schedules speakers for our meetings. Tomorrow Reeze is speaking about EQ , the latest in quilting software programs. Since I don't own it, and have no desire to, this isn't going to be the most exciting topic. However, I need to have a sample of what we could do at the Make it and Take table at the quilt show in July, so tomorrow I will throw that together before the meeting. Also, I really need to finish the dolls that I have under way at the moment and figure out what quilts, I will have done by the time of the show. Ah, well...that will be a tomorrow after sleeping thing. So long, good night, and I'll write some more later.