Fabric with Cling Wrap

A few days ago, Linda F on the FDA list posted a link to a tutorial she had found making fabric from scraps ironed between two sheets of cling wrap (tutorial here -
http://faerydi.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-i-made-my-cling-wrap-fabric.html




My local grocery store had two colors, violet and rose, so I tried the violet. I realized that I had a lot of prints in my mixture, which were only printed on one side, so when I did the second layer, I focused on covering the back side and obscuring the unfinished aspects. I think I want to try making one where I could experiment a little bit with folding/layering/pleating the cling wrap before ironing. If you try this, make sure you have the parchment paper over the whole thing, so you don't get cling wrap on your iron.

What Planet?

Linda F. posted a "what planet are you from?" test, and this is my result:

***You Are From Uranus***
You shine with brilliant creativity, and you're more than a little eccentric.You love everything unusual and shocking. You're one far-out chick or dude.Anything unconventional excites you - and you have genius potential.Just don't let your rebel side get the best of you, or else you'll alienate everyone.Your original thinking and funky attitude is all you need to be you.
What Planet Are You From?http://www.blogthings.com/whatplanetareyoufromquiz/

It's so funny -- I'm sure my DH would agree, he thinks I'm quite unusual, but I don't like to be around way out people. I don't like a lot of attention when I'm in public, so weird hair-dos and piercings kind of turn me off. But I hate being or having things the same as others. When we still had our gift store in NC, it about sent me around the bend when the other retailers would copy display windows, or source gifts from the same companies. After all, why would you WANT to sell what everyone else is selling? Why would you want to be the same?

I can't tell yet how I feel about this planet thing...I think they based too much on my sun sign (Aquarius). Mama always said I was one of the cuckoos of the zodiac! LOL.

Medusa is back

I can only post a little bit of what I'm working on. Actually, my main project right now is the Wish for the New Year Angel challenge doll and I can't post pix of that till the challenge is over (assuming I get it done in time!) but every so often, I take a break and work on whatever DIP starts pestering me.

This Medusa I started months ago. I was going to test the pattern, and got a little fed up with the omissions in the directions and had to take off on my own. I figured it wouldn't be a very good example for testing, so I set her aside.

So far, I've sewn two heads and haven't gotten the face right, so I painted them out with gesso, and started over. Wednesday night I remembered that I had these rather eerie, almost serpentine looking eyes that I bought from Barb at Joggles, so decided they'd been waiting for the Medusa. I've done the work on the face so far on the flat white of the gesso, and feeling it's just odd enough for the Medusa. Whaddya think? Kind of creeepy?

How Many of Me?

Well, this was interesting. One of the gals on one of the doll lists sent in this link. I knew that my first name has always been a PITA (the first name Susan is the 25th most popular name...there are nearly 1.2 million of us in the US!) but I also knew that marrying Gerry took me into the rarer aspects (there are only 630 people in the US with our last name). Turned out to be a great combo, for more reasons than one!

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 3 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Now...if I still had my name from my first marriage, it would really be a PITA...9,646 of 'em in the US alone.

Auditioning Fabrics

This was a new phrase to me, auditioning fabrics. One of the gals on the CPS list talked about visiting an artist's studio, and referenced being amazed as she watched the artist audition fabrics. That made so much sense, I just loved the visual...let's put you in here. Will you make the cut? Is there someone else better for the part? Can you hold my attention?

I'm contemplating a new doll. I sure seem to start a lot of dolls. I don't seem to finish very many, though! I have a new one buzzing in my brain, and what do I do? Favorite color (aqua blue), a little gold, and make mine batik.

I have a closet full of beautiful fabrics. Not as many fabrics as I had before the big move, but still a LOT of fabrics. Everytime I see a new doll, though, I go back to that little section in the treehouse, filled with batiks, and those mermaid-ish colors truly are the song of the siren for me.

Also, I've gone back to my beginnning M.O. While most doll artists whose patterns I buy have you put the whole doll together and then do the face, that just doesn't work for me. The face determines the personality for me, and so I have to do a face first and build the doll around it. I tried to change, I really did, and some of the dollmakers I admire most do the face last -- but perhaps they are a little more adept at faces. For the time being, I'm going to make lots of practice faces, and when I get one I like, I'll build a doll around it.

Christmas decorating

We decorated for Christmas this year. Last year, we were still so burned out from our years in retail, that we just couldn't face decorating. At the last minute, it may even have been on Christmas eve, we put up one of our artificial trees and put some spotlights on the house. We still were a little less than enthusiastic last year, but I just couldn't go with nothing.

This year we were feeling a little iffy, too. We're getting pretty bah-humbug-ish in our old age. A couple of weeks ago, we went through the Christmas decor department of a local garden center which had a bunch of beautiful designer trees. My husband happens to feel that Christmas should be red, green, white, maybe some gold or silver, and contain Santa and elves. Christmas is for children, not for high-buck decorators. But I said something about one day hoping to have a color coordinated, decor-type tree.

Yesterday we pulled out an artificial tree that we had as one of our "extras" from our NC house. We've decided not to have a real tree this year since we'll be traveling and not here to keep an eye on it. We then decided to make a trip to get all new, color-coordinated ornaments. I left the house thinking gold and green. We came back with gold and copper, feathers, and copper glittered twigs. Then I took the four foot tree out of the box and realized how small it is! Gerry had to leave to get new ornament hooks, rather than dig through all the boxes and try to find the ones we owned...and came back with a 6 foot artificial, pre-lighted tree! He said he just kept seeing the disappointment on my face when I realized how many ornaments I'd bought, and how little the tree is!

Here's a picture of the tree tonight. We had to go out today and get more of the garland, and we added a few more coordinated ornaments. I'm really happy with it. It may not scream Christmas in traditional colors, but it makes me really happy. I have more pictures at my picturetrail site -- www.picturetrail.com/windwhisper



Tonight, Gerry lit the house with spots focused on a large green wreath in the center of the house. I set up a lighted Victorian village. Feels good to get back into the mood. I was walking around, admiring how pretty everything was when I realized that Cosmo had left the first gift under the tree...unfortunately I'm not fond of dead mice.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Chris & Robyn came to visit for Thanksgiving, which was wonderful for us. We spent 3 1/2 days together, and did some good touristy stuff, and ate a lot of our traditional Thanksgiving foods. On Friday, we visited the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. You can't take your camera beyond the lobby, but they do take your photo as you enter. So here we all are...Gerry, me, Robyn, and Chris. We were all having a photogenic day! Gerry didn't get the memo about wearing blue jeans, apparently.

Chris is my oldest child and only son. His wife, Robyn, is a wonderful person, and I love her as if she were one of my own. Their visit made it a wonderful Thanksgiving. I am thankful.

Final Touches

My son Chris and his wife, Robyn, have headed back to Boston after a lovely Thanksgiving here with us in Ohio. I had a great time visiting with them, and we did some fun things like visit the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and of course, we ATE a lot.

Now that they are gone, and the house is still clean, I feel pretty good about spending time in my treehouse. Today I swapped out the fibers for we six participants in the CPS swap. I also finished my parts for a teapot doll swap on the FDA list, AND I finished my Inner Gypsy from Sherry Goshen's class...which I've tied to my Medicine doll work. More details later, but here are the end results:

Handles:

I also did some spouts:


Gypsy:

More details later.....

Triptych

I've had a couple folks drop me a line and say they want to see more detail on the triptych that is on my fireplace, so here it is:

This is three separate panels on board done by Olga Lipats, a Russian born painter now living in OK. I first found Olga through a friend, selling mystical/whimsical paintings on ebay. I now own several originals, used to sell her prints in my store, and would love to own a few more! She still sells on ebay, though many of her latest works are larger, abstract types.

At any rate, I love this painting, and bought it before I moved here, with this fireplace in mind.

It's certainly not art...

...but it may be artistic. I get great satisfaction from home decor work, and I think it's how I expressed any creativity I felt I had in my early years. We've been working around the house making it our own, and getting ready for my son and his wife to visit at Thanksgiving. When I moved here last year, I didn't bring any upholstered furniture from the house in NC, and the only seating my DH had in his apartment was second generation used that he bought from a young couple who got it from their parents. The sofa had lost its cover over the cording, so stabbed you in the back of the legs when you sat on it, AND one of the dogs had tried to cover the scent of the previous owner's dog.

All that is a long way of justifying why we got new living/dining room furniture. I'm delighted with how it looks, even though we haven't painted the walls yet. I do have to say that I love the way my Olga Lipats triptych looks on the black marble tiled fireplace. I think I will be doing a different fabric piece to replace the red one to the left of the fireplace. Eventually, we hope to have a window installed there, as we have NO windows on the west side of the house, and that looks out over the bulk of our lawn, and the new pond.

I also wanted to point out that I have the one thing I was most concerned with when we joined our home dogs and store cat -- a peaceable kingdom!

Buddy, our cocker spaniel is my constant companion now that his eyesight is so compromised. He looks good on the new rug, doesn't he? Though out of the photo, the other two dogs are on the floor directly behind where I'm sitting.

I played with Paverpol!

What a fun product this is. And to think I've been so fearful... I must have asked a million questions in the class before I took the plunge, and now I just want to dip everything I have.

I did two things here. I dipped an old, stained doily, and then tucked it into the "sash" and draped the front edge over a balled up plastic bag to give it the feeling of puffing out and hopefully looking like a swirling skirt. I'm pleased with that, and anxious to see it after I do the spray paint thing.

The other thing I did was dip a piece of used sari silk that I just adore, and draped it along the top and down the right edge, allowing it to smooodge off the edge, looking, to my eye, like a theater curtain. I was assured by Grasshoppa, and he was right, that the Paverpol would actually darken or brighten the fabric. I'm very happy with how this is looking. More layers to follow!

gypsy 2

Paper Dolls for Me

You've seen the lesser detailed photos of all those glorious paper dolls, but there was just no way to keep the swap somewhat orderly and get good detailed photos of all the work. Each participant interpreted so differently, and the detail and thought that went into the dolls was really very special.

What I can show you are the three I kept for myself. Each unique and each very special, as were all the dolls -- this was an absolutely delightful swap to host, as I could send each and every one with pride and delight. The ones I kept came from Saundra James, Jenny Rohrs, and Anne Chafee. Anne submitted six dolls (it was a 3 for 3 swap) and each were made in a similar style. They were made from advertising cards that she picked up while visiting France. It seems the parades of acting troupes, advertising their show, hand out these cards -- brightly colored and nicely finished -- and people just toss them away, so Anne gathered them up and used them for the bodies of the dolls. She also used paint chips for hands, feet, and heads, and a supply of vintage junk jewelry for the arms and legs. Very clever.



Saundra's doll was done as a grommet doll, with stamped papers and loads of artistic detail. Saundra had these so well packaged within the cellophane bags, I hated to take them out to photo, so I didn't know exactly what I was getting, but I loved the body shape. This is such a pretty doll. Here it is:



Jenny sent three similar Spring themed dolls. I haven't confirmed this with her yet, but I think the pouffy skirts are dyed coffee filters. There's stamping, embossing, vellum and all kinds of good "stuff."

Aren't they all fabulous??

Inner Gypsy

Well, it looks like this thing is finally working again!

I'm taking Sherry Goshon's Inner Child class on Joggles, and I'm tying it to Barb Kobe's Medicine Doll Class. Instead of an inner child, I'm working on an inner gypsy. This is as much as I have done so far, and I'm a little stumped for a number of reasons -- not the least of which is that I'm just kind of restless and disjointed tonight. My feet are hot. My jeans are too tight. My office is moving, apparently, and I'm the only one getting an interior, window-less spot. Numb tongue again. Sigh.

Anyway, here's what I have done so far, and I have some questions for Sherry before I go further. I'll, um, keep you posted....

Paper doll swap

I hosted a 3/3 paper doll swap on the CPS list. Counting my own cluster of 3, I had 20 packets of 3 to distribute...though two of them went to one person. Here are a couple of pix of them as they came in to me, all spread out on the guest bed. If you want to see each group of three by the various artists, you can go to www.picturetrail.com/windwhisper and see each of them.