crafty mcgee

extra bits

I have lots of fabric critters left over from the ornaments, due to the way I set up my gocco screen:

Being a big fan of fabric patches (one of these days I'm going to make something with my collection - stay tuned), I noticed a perfect opportunity when I saw it. I was going to do some plain circles, but when I saw Mimi's  tutorial on her ornaments (I'm getting one - yay!!), I decided to go freeform. I love the color combos. I also printed these tags:

I carved a nice eraser image, but it went a tad wonky when I tried to stamp it onto the tag. I should have carefully removed the wire, stamped, then even more carefully replaced the wire. Yes, that's definitely what I should have done. (If you listen closely, you can hear the voice in my brain saying "Ha! Fat chance!") They needed a little more hand-drawn embellishment than I planned, but I still think that they are not without charm.

"....found at the the bottom of an old cupboard"

In an attempt to get back into the swing of things, I joined Round 2 of the Doll Quilt Swap. The phrase above is how my secret swap partner (I'm pretty sure she doesn't visit my blog) described the kind of quilt she likes. Also "not too keen on brights". So a challenge for me!

The quilt pictured above has probably spent its share of time in the bottom of a cupboard, but it's actually just a very old baby quilt that's been in my family since before my birth way back when. I have not manipulated the photo in any way, it looks exactly like this. I'm using it as a point of reference for my quilt. I don't have (and couldn't find) any suitably old-looking fabrics, so I used beautiful, vibrant Japanese prints from the great "Petit Pattern"  books (I'm the proud owner of the whole series), washed them out in Photoshop, and printed them on some Printed Treasures inkjet fabric. Here's what I made:

Another unmanipulated picture...you think they are pale enough? Here's a start of the quilt -

I have a few other cunning plans to make it look even older. It has to be mailed in about a week, so check back soon for the final product. I'm also really excited about joining Bethany's fabric swap, which also has to be done soon. And I'm still doing admin duties for A Month of Softies and this month's theme is "Outer Space"...so this space will be active at least during the month of July.

I tried to answer most of the comments, but I apologize if I missed anyone. Things have been kind of flaky lately.

Chamomilla, Flora and Herb

Since I am filling in as administrator for the Month of Softies group over on Flickr while Amy is on a maternity break, and I called the theme, I thought I should participate. The theme is "Plant Life" and here are three of my little plant pals. In the individual portraits below (which you can see larger versions of by clicking), Chamomilla relaxes with a cuppa tea, Flora spends some time in the sun with her cousins, and Herb is hanging out with his buddies from the Italian cooking class.

      

I had originally planned for four, but they took longer than I expected and I wanted to spend more time on my "Midsummer Night's Dream" stuff. You may have noticed a theme of little armed and legged non-animal or person things lately. I think it all started with this impulse purchase from superbuzzy:

Which I bought with absolutely no idea of what I'll ever do with it because it reminded me of one of my all-time favorite videos, Blur's Coffee and TV. What do you think the dude with the square blue head is? My current theory is an ice cube to help with the fire. I've been getting inspired by so many odd things lately that I'm beginning to feel a bit overloaded. I can't work that fast! 

Miike

Next up in my Asian directors series is Miike (pronounced 'Me YEK ee'), named for the Japanese director Takeshi Miike . Known primarily for gore fests and prodigious output (he once directed five feature films in one year!) I've never actually seen any of his ultra-violent films. In the horror trilogy film Three...Extremes his contribution "Box" was the only one I could get through, and wasn't the least bit gory...Anyway, it's a couple of his quirkier films that put him on my tribute list. The Happiness of the Kataruris  is a zombie musical - the stand out song being "Don't Be Discouraged 'Cause You're Dead" (sung to the zombies, of course). It's got lots of humor, and even claymation! Another of my faves is a lovely little film called The Bird People in China, a fantasy about a group of Chinese descendants of Scottish ancestors high in the mountains. I would recommended these two highly to anyone who likes unusual movies. He's even made a good J-Horror (what I refer to as "ghost girl" movies) called One Missed Call. The other films of his I've seen like Gozu, Audition, and Andromeda can best be described as "David Lynch meets Quentin Tarantino".  I don't think Miike is a great filmmaker. Not surprisingly, most of his films seem unfinished. But he's prolific, and always interesting. I tried to make the little monster reflect all of that.

A Garden's Octopus

It's Stormar, Scourge of the Slugs! If this guy looks familiar, it's because his incredibleness is all due to futuregirl. In addition to the amazing Sigmund, there are also a bunch of happy Octophrost Christmas ornaments about in the world. She is going to be selling the pattern on her blog, and asked me to test out the pattern. I highly recommend checking it out for yourself. Not only is it a great looking pattern, I guarantee you'll learn an extra trick or two to use in your own crafting. Thanks for the opportunity, Alice!

Back to Crafting

Right back to business with no real vacation update, except to say I had a marvelous time. You'll just have to take my word for it, because I forgot my camera!!!! I couldn't believe it either, but c'est la vie. While vacationing I worked on these eight tiny reindeer that I printed with my gocco before I left:

They are embellished with embroidery, and can either be hung, or stand (my preference) with the aid of the little cards. Five of them were sent of to Amy's fabulous ornament swap. I've got a couple left to trade for other ornaments, so drop me an email if you're interested. Gone already! You guys are fast! Amy was concurrently running a Christmas ATC swap, and here's my contribution:

I like to refer to them as "how to turn felt into cardboard". After I embroidered them, I printed the swap info on inkjet fabric, and glued them together with some watery glue. After a night on the heater vent they were nice and stiff. I should have tested it first, because I actually didn't know if it would work, but they turned out fine.

Thanks to everyone involved in and visited during our trip. It truly was a wonderful time.

Farewell to fall

It was great while it lasted, though it actually ended here about three weeks ago. It's already the wettest November on record, and it's looking to be the rainiest month EVER....in Seattle...I'll say no more.

This little set was fun to make. The branches of the tree are made with spray painted paper cups. They don't bend gracefully outward as much as I would like, but they take the weight of the fabric just fine. I was concerned that they wouldn't. The kid is another "stick figure" like the shark.

This is also a brief farewell from me. I'm off on my super vacation to New York City and Pennsylvania. I'll check in on folks and check my email, but I won't be doing any posting. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Akira

Alice (aka futuregirl) has created a set of stuffed characters based on great German film directors. Duly impressed, I vowed to create my own set based on my current obsession with interest in Asian film. Here's the first, Akira, namesake of the grand master of Japanese film, Akira Kurosawa. Kurosawa made films from the 1940's until the early '90's covering many genres, from his famous samurai films  Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, and Sanjuro; film noir detective stories in Stray Dog, The Bad Sleep Well, and High and Low; covers of classics like Throne of Blood (the best ever version of Macbeth), The Idiot, and The Lower Depths, and lovely slice-of-life films (Ikuru, Madadayo). All amazing, all exquisitely written and shot. Kurosawa made relatively few films in color, but in the ones he did make  the colors are almost painfully vivid, in vibrant reds, magentas, and turquoise.

I made my Akira a crow - since crows are sharp-eyed, curious, intelligent and mysterious. All words I would use to describe Kurosawa himself. Thus ends your first lesson in Asian Cinema 101.

The still in the background is from one of my favorite Kurosawa movies, The Hidden Fortress, which was a major inspiration for the subplot of Star Wars. The little guy is the master himself. Yet another reason to admire the Japanese - they make action figures of their artists!

it's....it's.....

the....pony....quilt...[insert sounds of gasping and sputtering here]. Geez! This took long enough - it's been hanging over my head like a big pink cloud all year. As you can see, I didn't follow my original plan at all. Not only did I have a heck of a time finding fabric, I got all inspired by Lisa's pillows, and then discovered that the printed piece itself was very uneven. I spent a while thinking about how to even in out, but about a week ago I decided to throw precision to the wind and just go for it!

I wanted to put a paisley on the back to suck up some of the weird quilting on the front, but ran into the color problem again. So I chose tone over color, and found this great seventies-inspired Amy Butler print:

It doesn't match at all, but it blends. The stitching and piecing are really wonky, but after seeing a mini Gee's Bend exhibit, and reading Kim's post, I don't mind that a bit. It's finally done, and I like it a lot. It looks like a fairy tale.

The blues, with some brown

The title is a fake, I don't have the blues at all, except colorwise. Here are the handmade items for this month's Brown and Blue Coloriffic Swap-o-rama. Brown and baby blue have been one of my favorite color combinations since I was a young teenager, when I had my first big hulking crush on a boy with brown hair and - you guessed it - baby blue eyes. It's still a combination that can make me all a-twitter. Back to the picture...in addition to the fab Denyse Schmidt fabric, my swappee will receive a summer ensemble made from this sweet Knitty pattern for her Blythe doll; a stuffed bird made from a pattern in this highly recommended book; and a painted Altoid tin decorated with one of my own drawings. But wait, there's more! It can all be seen here. It was tough for me to give most of this stuff up - hope she likes it.