first trunk show

i'll be taking part in @home's 1st trunk show, which is great, as it will be my 1st trunk show as well. i'm very excited and have been busy creating pieces to sell (which you may have noticed, as i haven't been adding anything new to my etsy page in awhile).

while goofing off

i have these two pieces of stitched fabric that i discovered in a scrap bin at school. the color mixture isn't something i would merge, as they aren't my favorites; but, there's something appealing about them.

awhile back i knitted gauntlets with this heavenly alpaca yarn and couldn't bear to toss the ends. looking at the stitched scrap i remembered the bits of yarn, and they went together so well that i had to find a way to merge them into something.

i haven't made a pincushion in awhile so that was the choice. i used some lovely striped tasmanian wool for the back, and sewed on some buttons from my collection. one of my favorite bits of cloth in this pincushion is the metallic linen; the sheen isn't captured well in the photos, but the button reflects similar qualities.

treasury numero dos

treasuries look like fun things, they're definitely helpful when looking for new creative finds. i just don't think i could make one; there are too many nice things on etsy to narrow it down to just a few. plus it seems like a game of timing and stalking. not so much fun to me.

luckily though, that doesn't stop anyone else from making them. i've been added into a lovely treasury, and it's very exciting when someone likes your work enough to include you.

coral colors

i like the print and color combination of this pincushion a lot; even though it's not overly complicated in design, quite simple really. it features some of my favorite textile designers, heather ross with her mendocino line, and an australian artist that works in water based inks and organic hemp, umbrellaprints. the softness of this particular color is very soothing, and it's warm without being too bright.

this is the largest pincushion i've made to date; it's too large for my scale actually and so i haven't listed it yet. i had to move my pincushions from the drawer i was keeping them in as i ran out of room.

purses, pincushions, fabric, oh my!

i adore and am constantly being inspired by the creative work of australian artist tara badcock. her pieces are not only quite aesthetic, tactile, and gorgeous, but entirely useful as her talent takes the form of pincushions, tea cozies, purses, and pillows. her embroidery pieces are divine, excellently crafted and oftentimes bare a deeper meaning of complex social and world issues that affect her.
i've had a photo of a colorful and zany pincushion she created saved on my computer for quite some time, and finally decided to ask the artist if she still had it. luckily for me, she did, and we struck up a wonderful series of conversations. ultimately this led me to acquiring not one, but two of her lovely pieces! i was also able to feed my fabric stash with many soft and cozy cuts of wool from waverley woollen mills of australia.

as you can see, it wasn't long before meiko decided she was going to help me sort. actually, help may not be the right verb here; sabotage or hide may be more apt.

they chose me!

i received a lovely email the other week from a person on etsy who chose to feature one of my pincushions on their treasury. needless to say i was very excited! this is my first (that i know of) and i took a screen capture of it. there it is on the bottom left; it's the first pincushion i made, after the rains. i'm such a proud creator to be included with all of the other lovelies.

girl colors and boy colors

i actually love pinks and blues. i didn't always, though. during my teenage years i absolutely hated pink; be it magenta, baby pink, rose, or any other name. i just kept thinking it was so stereotypical and very insulting to the female species; all i could see was the limitations that this one color imposed.
then one day i bought a pair of light pink kitten heeled pointed shoes, i was 22. they were soft like butta. they quickly became my favorite shoes, and i've had them for 5 years. i'll still wear them on occasion, but the poor dears are beginning to show their age even though they've been resoled once.

those one pair of shoes opened my eyes to a whole array of hues, to see them not as a wall but as a way to embrace and enjoy the creativity that the spectrum gives us. never see color as a limit, regardless of what society deems it. how you represent the color is what is important, be strong and hold up your love, dare to embrace it!

a small milestone

wow! i've made it past 100 posts. interesting; i wasn't sure that when i started this blog that i would stick with it, or even have all that much to say. i've surprised myself. well, happy me! i think this is deserving of a samoas cookie from my last box i've been saving.

i was initially going to post about my butterfly sonata pincushion, before i saw the post #. it's softer in hue from what i have been making. we have a butterfly bush outside my window and it is humongous! it's all covered in flowers now, and attracting quite a crowd of butterflies, bees, and other pollinators. the color scheme is inspired by that as well as the embroidery on the backside.

the brown spots fabric i have been saving for several years now. i kept thinking it would make really nice towels for the dollhouse bathroom, but unfortunately it's just too heavy to lay nicely. i may still use it as a bathmat if it looks okay. we'll see.
i know there hasn't been any updates about the dollhouse for a while now, there just really hasn't been any changes. i have a table in mind for the living room, but it's in charleston and i usually head up that way once or twice a year.
it's funny, now that all of the wallpapering is done, there just doesn't seem to be too much left unfinished. mostly small details and that gaping hole of emptiness in the living room where there'll be a dinette set. i'm still searching for the goods to finish that area.

there's something about packaging

i love buying something and receiving it all wrapped up prettily! it's always such a nice surprise when opening up a nondescript box to find the item you ordered all decked out. so when i decided to start selling my pincushions i knew packaging was important.

i wanted it to be inexpensive, but done nicely, in a way that was easily duplicated for every item. eco-friendly packaging is also important to me, so i decided to use recycled paper cardboard boxes, reclaimed packing filler, unbleached wax baggies (instead of plastics for water resistance) with a personal wax seal to close, and reused tissue paper. i also love ribbon, and there may be others out there who love getting it as well, it's such a nice touch.

i hope the receivers of my pincushions love the thought and effort that went into them, from their construction to their packaging!

rain, rain, go away

not that i don't love you, or see the great need of mother earth to have you, but it's been over a week and every day you've visited us. i miss waking up to the suns brightness, it's like my morning cup of caffeine; the day just doesn't go right without it. you've turned the road outside my door to mud, and that's just not fun to drive down. but you have been kind to my hair, giving waves where none usually reside. but still, enough is enough for now. please go away and come back next week, or the week after; my schedule's open then.

the above is my ode to strawberries, i'm calling it "strawberries from space pincushion". the printed fabric is just so quirky, it's like another planet, or a space capsule an herbivore civilization would make, all the circles and whirly gigs. i wanted fun bright colors that remind me of the sun setting on a hot arid day, and strawberries are definitely a sign of summer.

behind the lines

i'm at midstride on another pincushion, and being ever so slightly influenced by the strawberries i've been eating for the last two weeks. they are ever so yummy and red! i don't think i'll ever get tired of their taste, the glossy shine when you cut one open, the delicate linework and contrast of red into pink into white.
i would have been posting the newest pincushion at this moment, but i didn't have a particular shade of green in my thread collection. or much green thread at all for that matter. so, off to the quilting store i shall go tomorrow. before work. hopefully i will have enough daylight to see when i get home. and then i can photograph saturday morning. before work.

pincushion additions

i created another pincushion before work yesterday. i really enjoy blues and greens even though i have other colors to work with. i have to say that red is my least favorite color; but pinks and purples are very near the top of my favorite list. weird. maybe it has something to do with blood and raw meat. i get queasy when i see raw meat in the store.

this pincushion i called "algae bloom". the embroidery is reminiscent of kelp and sea plants and the greens remind me of algae against the watery blue. the olive velvet was a bit painful to work with, it kept moving even with pins in it. i think it has something to do with the length and fluidness of the velvet and its backing. so i had to hand sew it which was fine.

last week i made a pincushion from a variety of grays with a splash of icy blue and this lemony neon yellow silk. the color is just so luminescent and glowy. the herringbone wool and soft grays had me thinking "gramps" so i embroidered a mustache and pipe on the back side.

with every pincushion, i start by finding a fabric print that calls to me, and pair it with 7 - 10 pieces of harmonic fabrics. then i lay them out in a couple of patterns, put some fabrics aside, add others until i get a picture that i like. then cutting, piecing, sewing, and trimming. then i wait for an image or a word to pop into my head to embroider on the backside. i like doing some hand embroidery first, then some machine stitches. add a button tag, then assembly. the fun part.

i've gone to the etsy side

so, finally the day has dawned when i've taken that one small step to sell my artwork to the public. it's only been 6 years since i graduated college with a b.f.a.; procrastination is not the word for it. it's more like coming to a point where you have an idea and instead of running only halfway into it, you actually finish the race and make one thing, then another, and then there's three things. it's a gradual pace. will they sell? no clue. but i enjoy making them; and to me it's the creating of something precious from little bits of things that have so much potential that's the challenge and the goal.
please visit my new etsy store, the link is in the right hand side of the screen.

purple haze

i love purple; be it named mauve, lavender, lilac, violet, heliotrope, or any other. from the softest shade of purple tinged gray to the most intense color found in orchids, it is truly lovely to mine eyes. this is my pincushion ode to such an amazing hue.

and then it was may

where did april go? to work, with only three days off. it's like the little piggies, one went off to market, one stayed home, etc. except this one decided to work two jobs for a little bit. eh, not complaining, it was an interesting change of pace. but definitely one that would be hard to maintain.

well, in those three days off and over bits and pieces of evenings and mornings, i managed to create. i've been sewing, embroidering, stuffing, and pouring; those are the parts that were easy. deciding on which fabrics to put together was a little harder. the fruits of my enjoyable labor are two pincushions. they're from swatches i've been hoarding, along with hand and machine embroidery, bamboo and organic cotton batting, and glass beads. i wanted them to be as eco-friendly as i could.

the stuffing took a moment to decide on. would it be best to use something organic in nature such as walnut shells, rice, or sawdust? no. all i could think of is the time we got a family of field mice in the sewing machine drawers; they ate and destroyed everything that wasn't metal. what would look tastier to a mouse than rice? so organic materials was out. how about sand? too fine, plus what if there were buggies waiting to hatch? i know you're supposed to bake it first, but, eh, no. some websites suggested fabric scraps, wool (for the lanolin), or fiber fill, but there just wouldn't be enough weight to them then. i like a heavy, dense cushion that i can really sink my pins into. another material mention i came across was emery. nice and weighty, sharpens pins, and is a traditional material you find in that little strawberry cushion that partners the tomato. great for way back yonder when pins were expensive, rusted and needed to be sharpened frequently. but now with modern machining, needles have a plating that protects them from rusting, and because of the steel they're now made of they also don't dull like they used to. so using emery would be a guaranteed way to destroy your pin collection and cause them to rust; it's just way too abrasive.

so all this thinking led me to ponder the beanie baby. you know, that toy craze from the 90's? what is actually in those things? well, short of hunting down my mother's massive collection and doing a dissection on one of them (she would not be pleased by this i'm sure), i searched google for a little bit and came across glass beads that one would use as toy filling. glass is ecologically sound, non active, not abrasive, won't hurt the land when the cushion decays (i hope), and won't aggravate anyone who has allergies. yay, problem solved, and the pincushions finally have some body to them!