Around Our Home in the Woods
I’m not creating things or painting as much as in the past, but my eye is still drawn to things that are all around us. It’s easy to get photos of these things, so here are a few. As I was walking back from our woods after placing my trail camera I noticed how green our yard looks. After 42 years here I think I take it for granted, but others have asked how we keep it so green all year. I don’t really know other than the soil conditions must be just right for moss here in south Jersey. The green in these photos is from various kinds of moss that feel like a plush carpet underfoot and they grow year-round. Best of all, none of it needs mowing!
Spirit Doll “Boudicca”
When I was making Spirit Dolls using bead embroidery my daughter was in a graduate Irish Studies program. She requested a doll representing Boudicca. I didn’t know anything about Boudicca at the time, but research revealed she was a Celtic warrior queen with flaming long red hair. She lives in my daughter’s home now, and I think this is my favorite Spirit Doll.
“Full Cold Moon” for December
This is the last of my Native American Full Moon Doll series. I enjoyed making them for a full moon doll challenge some time ago, and I’m glad to still have all 12!
Art Figure Continued Again
This step added Creative Air-Dry Paperclay. It also added bulk and changed the pose of the figure slightly. I have an amusing idea for the final steps.
Here’s hoping it works!
Art Figure Progress continued
A ball of scrunched aluminum foil filled in the head and stomach areas, then papier-mâché was added in strips wound around the entire figure. It’s now drying. Next will be the addition of Creative Paper Clay for final sculpting.
Art Figure in Progress
This 6” reclining art figure was formed with the wire shown in the photo, then wrapped with blue masking tape. Next step will be adding papier-mâché before finishing off with a final layer of air dry Creative Paper Clay. I wanted to post a bit about the process, but it will hopefully look very little like this photo in the end!
Wet Felted Abstract
I spent a few hours yesterday working with wool roving, laying it out in layers in alternating directions on top of a sheet of small bubble wrap. After 5 layers I sprayed it all with soapy water to moisten through the wool layers. Then I rolled the bubble wrap and wool layers together into a tube of sorts and pressed down while rolling the tube back and forth literally hundreds of times (for at least 30 minutes) until the wool layers felt somewhat compressed. Unrolling the tube with layers flat was next and I then added different colored wool embellishments for design. Once they were pleasingly in place, I rolled the bubble wrap and wool layers into a tube again, and just kept pressing and rolling it back and forth, again and again and again. I made sure there was enough soapy water betweenrollings to help the wool fibers latch onto each other. Then I unrolled it to see what I had created, photo above. I like the result but I think I could have rolled it longer for more wool compression. However, I don’t think I’ll do this kind of wet felting again, it made me very tired!
Art Doll
I’ve spent the last couple weeks making this art doll. She started with a wire armature wrapped with masking tape, papier-mâché was added for bulk, and Creative Paper Clay was used to sculpt her final shape. I knitted her shawl from sparkly yarn I had spun from roving on a drop-spindle years ago, and her gown was sewn from some stash fabric. I wanted to add sparkle so a rhinestone holds her shawl together and Czech glass seed beads were sewn to her skirt. She has a whole body underneath (photo below), even a sexy leg-slit down the back. I think she’s more matronly but she thinks otherwise.
Spirit Doll
Being at our daughter’s home this week gave me the chance to see some things I once made for her. This beaded and embroidered spirit doll started with fabrics from an old deteriorating crazy quilt. It has the usual sage leaf inside and a Swarovski crystal hanging from its left arm, both for good vibes. It may be my favorite spirit doll.
Post Card Memory Quilt
We are visiting our daughter for Thanksgiving, and I’m seeing things in her home that I made for her long ago. This was a memory quilt made in the late 90’s for her bedroom. I used my left-over fabrics from her toddler dresses. The template was a post card, thus the name. Back then I was able to hand stitch so I quilted an “X” in each rectangle by hand. It took a long time to complete, but it was worth doing since traditional hand quilting is still my favorite. I never thought it would happen when I made it but now I’m getting to sleep under it!
Felted Wool Bead Project
This is the finished project using the felted beads I made a few posts ago. My idea was to bead them with glass seed beads and join them, then hang as a garland in a sewing room window. Being mostly oak trees we don’t have a lot of Fall color here. The trees go from green to yellow to brown, so this splash of color in my window is very welcome.
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