Paper Dolls

Didn't you love paper dolls when you were a kid? I remember constantly making new ones, and loving those little shoulder and arm tabs even more than the clothes themselves. I made one with a set of historical costumes for my friend Jessica's daughter. She lives inside her closet with all her gowns.

The doll is composed of a paper head and wire body - wire, so you can move her arms and legs around to fit into more than one pose. The costumes came from here (I added pencil, various beads, fabric, and things, and Mod Podged for durability).

Happy Birthday!

Lara turned 1 on the 7th. One! Amazing. I love making her things, at least in part because she is entirely unaware of their provenance. Plastic red tube? Love it. Hand-sewn, hand-embroidered felt name book? Love it. Random piece of packing cardboard? Love it the most!

See all the pages on my Flickr.

GHOTI

So George Bernard Shaw once joked (apparently apocryphally) that spelling is so random in English that you could write the word "fish" as "ghoti" (taking the "f" sound from "tough," the "i" from "women," and the "sh" from words like "nation"). Discuss.

Father's Day

For Father's Day this year, I embroidered Fermat's Last Theorem on a polo shirt for my dad the enginerd. You can see the embroidered letters peeking out of the collaged box I made for wrapping the shirt (the letters appear logo-style on the left of the shirt when worn). For the sticklers - yes, I did leave off the "for all n>2" for space considerations... I was just so happy to come up with an idea for something handmade for him. Anyway, Dad loves it.

Mother's Day

Or, mother-in-law's day in this case. This is a lovely Freud applique I made for my fabulous psychologist m-i-l who is fond of commenting "Freud would have a field day with this!" whenever anyone's crazy rears its head. I basically free-handed the whole portrait, as I am wont to do, and then sewed it to a canvas tote from the Gap and embroidered the lettering (also free-hand). And let me tell you, something, my friends. Embroidering through stiff canvas? Not that much fun on the fingers. But all worth it for the conversation piece that this thing has apparently become.

Hello New World!

Hello new world!

In high school, my computer science teacher told us that the first thing you are supposed to write in any new language is a program that displays "Hello New World" on the screen. But this... maybe "Hello new blog"?

I've been more than inspired by all the crafty blogs I've seen around this "inter-net" and I thought I'd give it a go. Now I just have to learn to take beautiful photographs like of all these other amazingly talented women of whom I am constantly in awe!