Dotee Dolls

I belong to an online doll making club know as Dollstreet Dreamers. The Street hosts a friendly and helpful list serve, doll competitions and sometimes swaps. The Dottee Dolls above are made for a swap coming up on Dollstreet. They basic idea for the doll was started by Dorothy Christian (Dot) and the dolls have really taken a life of thier own. A pattern to make the dolls can be found on eHow. Or you can watch a video on Youtube. If you want to take part in a swap check out swap-bot, last I looked, there were 16 Dotee Doll swaps.
I really enjoyed making my Dotee Dolls freehand. I took some fabric scraps and just began sewing a little shape. These quicky projects really make one feel good and are nice in betweens. I took mine to the doctors office and handsewed the bodies of three of them right there! I did the stuffing and beading at home. I predict more of these dolls in my future.
Congratulations to Donna, she won the blogiversary giveaway. My son drew her name randomly from the list of commenters from his lucky leprechaun hat.

My One Year Anniversary Give Away!

Hey, I have been blogging for a whole year! To celebrate this milestone, I am doing a giveaway. That's right, post a comment on my blog in the next week if you would like to be considered for the book Cloth Dolls for Textile Artists by Ray Slater. This book is eye candy with beautiful photographs and simple patterns to get one started in dollmaking or just learn new fabric techniques. I will contact the winner for address information.

Mosiac with the Kids

I have mentioned in an earlier post the Takoma Park Mosiac project. I did not find that I could work on this project during the times available due to conflicting family schedules, however it did inspire me to do a mosaic project with my children. I have wanted to create a permanent piece of art for the house with my children for some time. My youngest son is very good with color and I thought a mosaic would be a great way for him to use this skill. My oldest son is very interested in birds and when I asked the children what the theme for the mosiac should be, they said bluebirds.
As a first step we went to Color Me Mine and each painted bluebird on a 4 x 4 in tile. We then ordered virteous glass seconds and colorfusion crystal glass tiles from Maryland Mosaics. In the first picture, the children and I have each placed our 4 x4 tile and then selected the colors of tiles to place around that tile on the wedi board backing. My four year old did the area on the left and 6 year old the area on the right. I did the midle area and the adheasive and spacing. Placing the tiles down was a pretty long process and so I did not include the children. My youngest did help with the grouting once the adheasive was cured.
The second photo is the completed mosaic project mounted as the backsplash behind our kitchen stove and shows my children and a neighbor. Great Job kids!

Samples for Fabric Painting Class

On Saturday I taught a fabric painting class. Above are several samples I made to illustrate techniques worked with in class. The second picture is a fabric painting my four year old son did. I just had to include it. My first exposure to many of these techniques was by June Silberman of the Ithaca Doll Club.
My class focused the techniques shown above: painting, scrunching, rock salt effects, heat effects, and gel glue resist (not shown, see Quilting Arts Feb/Mar 2009 for a sample.) The sun did not shine down on our group and we were unable to do a sun print. These techniques are all accomplished with Setacolor fabric paint by Pebeo. We painted on prepared for dye (unsized) Pimatex cotton. One doesn't need a class to purchase a couple bottles of Setacolor and do your own experiments.

A very good overview of many of these techniques on silk is found on the fascinating Canadian website Maiwa Handprints.