Thursday, August 27, 2009

Mimi Kirchner Handmade Portrait on Etsy!

Boy, I hope I've done this right! Mimi Kirtchner has a story on Etsy and it is just wonderful! Just gotta share. Just in case here is the link to the story: http://www.etsy.com/storque/handmade-life/handmade-portraits-mimi-kirchner-4405/
And if you love Mimi's dolls as much as I do, here is the link to her blog too:
http://mimikirchner.com/blog/

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Textile Tarts Summer outing





My doll club, the Textile Tarts, holds a luncheon in June before taking the summer off. We gathered at our president's (Bobbie) house and the weather was nice enough for us to gather out on the deck. Great turnout, excellent food and lots of fun.






Sunday, May 31, 2009

What I am up to.


Here is the doll that I began in Adele Sciortino's class a couple of weeks ago. Since the class I stripped off the heavy overskirt and gave her one with horizontal pleats and a dropped lace bottom. I also finished off the neckline and addes some ribbons and flowers. The flowers were taught to us in class and are great fun. They are very tiny, but fortunately, they work up very quickly. I've already placed about a dozen of them and have more to go.
This weekend I've been working on her boots. They are made from a soft pink suede with lace at the top and they will come up to the knee. I've been stumped on how to make the heel, but I think I'll just go with paperclay.

Monday, May 18, 2009





This past weekend was spent doing my favorite things with my favorite people; we had Adele Sciortino come to the Textile Tarts to teach her wonderful Creative Costuming class. An intense two days selecting colors and fabrics and trims (decisions, decisions) making flowers (more decisions), playing with angilina fiber and tyvek and Shiva paintsticks (yet more decisions), then draping and shaping and taking it all off again (I have committment issues - actually it is all those dang decisions!), and of course, running around seeing what everyone else was doing. Day 2 I was there extra early to begin anew and I was not even close to the first to arrive. Adele demo'd a number of really cool tools, which I HAD to own. I bought a tool to help make ribbon roses - in about half the time, a thread burner and a pleating mat - I've want one of those forever. Also some really cool material that, when sewed to your fabric and steam heated, shrinks and bubbles and textures the fabric in really cool ways. Yea, I'm sorry I'm not unpacked yet, but Adele has all these cool thing on her website (http://www.costumesandtrim.com/ & http://www.adelesciortino.com/)- at least she said she did, I don't dare go look, at least not until next payday! More pics below - enjoy -

So many tricks to make hats1
















Busy people making costumes!











Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Artistic Figures in Cloth







I've been remiss in getting my pics from Artistic Figures in Cloth up here. And when I went to post I realized I hadn't taken any pics of my own work! I'll get that resolved but in the meantime here are a few samples of 3 of the classes I took.
The conference was wonderful, inspiring, well organized and exhausting - in other words, everything you want a conference to be! Cindy Sieving puts together a wonderful weekend filled with all types of inspirational events, fun get togethers, opportunities to meet others, share ideas, shop and eat as well as learn from some of the finest teachers in the industry. My classes were with Susan Barmore, Cody Gooding, EPB, Kathrine Walmsley and Esther Bechler and everyone of them gave their all to help their students learn and grow. I'll post more later next week once I get some pics of my own stuff!

Thursday, January 1, 2009