be still my beating heart.

Belt buckle from maxine, dear - you really must see for yourself. A brilliantly conceived & executed use of a portion of the cover of Childcraft Art & Music. Really.

birdcage

no. 3

vintage button bracelets

Celluloid, mother-of-pearl, & bakelite, & buffalo nickel vintage buttons with glass beads.

Felt is always in style the third.

Here's an example of one way felted knits (sweaters) can be manipulated. I discovered this when I designed the costumes for a production of The Chronicles of Narnia. What fun! By the way; the thrift store is a costumer's heaven on earth.


In the book Second Time Cool - the Art of Chopping up a Sweater some recycled or restyled clothing is shown for inspiration. Japanese designer Jun Takahashi's ensemble includes footwear that looks just like birds' feet. Although the feet appear to be constructed of leather, I thought wool would work, so I made clawed feet for the two woodland birds in the play. I went from there; using wool for all of the character's footwear with the exception of Tumnus (who wore painted wooden clogs so he could make hoof-sounds).

below: birds' foot in progress

For the elf & troll characters I created footwear with pointed & curled toes. The elf wore red shoes with gold buttons, the Troll wore a brown calf - length boot. I used more felted wool for the Unicorn's horn, Tumnus' scarf, & the Troll's cap. Wool felt is so versatile; it takes dye well & can be embellished in any number of ways. Holes can be poked in it without concern about raveling. I can think of no other fabric so useful in creating dimensional effects while retaining movement (stretch).

Today it's burgundy booties, lavendar ric rac.

I've returned to ric rac flowers, & have a couple more pair of these booties in progress. I had forgotten how much fun they are to make & how quickly they are completed (when compared with knee sox for full - grown feet).
With the short row shaping on top of the foot, these stay on well . They are made on two needles & have one seam down the back of the heel & accross the bottom of the foot.

totable stories, lo-tech mostly.

The Science of Craft has three tutorials that grabbed me; 1) Creating the basic flipbook, 2) Basic flipbook with sound module, & 3) Flipbook with sound, (deluxe).

Related to this in some way; Vladmaster on etsy a very cool re-use project.

Oh, the link between them in my mind- that would be the story encapsulated in a nice portable format.

If you like little things, look at this




and this

I wasn't satisfied with this birdcage, so now I've fiddled around with it until I'm not sure whether it will be salvageable or not. Salvageable; as in ~it really looks the way I want it to~. I used a slightly heavier gauge wire on this one, & but that didn't really impact the work... Seeing it again in this state makes me wish I had left it alone, but it was missing something.

the Baby is ten -

Must See - BibliOdyssey

Here's an extremely interesting website; it pushes several of my buttons simultaneously, & in its subtitle it defines itself as follows -

'Books~Illustrations~Science~History~Visual Materia Obscura~Eclectic Bookart.'

I just adore the orderliness; how like things are grouped neatly. The tag cloud at the bottom of the page makes it simple to locate information topically.

The visual presentation of the site is lovely. At first glance, BibliOdyssey is predominantly antique imagery. But it is much more; posts are punctuated with fascinating links with more on the lengthy sidebar list.

A sampling of post topics includes: stilt walkers, wrestling in 1500, an overview of antique bookplate collecting, the history of color systems, curiosity cabinets of the Baroque era... & oh, so much more. While a good portion of the information is over my head, I'll have lots of fun at BibliOdyssey.

Granny's Party Shoes

These shoes belonged to my grandmother. They were purchased to wear to a wedding. They are a ladies' size 4 1/2. The shoes were worn with a silk taffeta dress in matching emerald green; details included fabric covered buttons & belt, velvet hat with net veil, gloves, & corsage (mother of the groom). Granny had red hair, so green would've been an ideal color for her. She presented a tasteful if matronly appearance.

My grandmother made many of her own clothes in part because it was difficult to locate clothing for a woman 4 feet 11 inches tall. I shopped for fabric with her many times. She liked Pendleton wool skirts in a simple, straight style, no waistband, darts, & a little split for movement. I can't imagine that she needed even a yard. For blouses she liked Liberty of London cotton. She knitted her own sweaters; cardigans always, with pockets for Kleenex. She wore little tiny coats cut in a fitted princess style. I remember one in baby blue, & one in navy. She wore scarves in the wind, but not the glamorous, flashy chiffon type (of course not!), rather the silk with a paisley or plaid pattern type. She liked tailored, sensible clothing. She was an anglophile, which is only mildly relevant, but if you like you may picture her drinking tea in the clothes I've described. She looked the same for at least the last thirty years of her life, although I think this 'look' may have extended back into the 1950s.

My grandmother had two sons (& a husband); together the guys created a paper tape dress-form for her at some point during the 1940s. This is still a viable option today for the very thrifty. Slightly humorous to imagine; the materials for this dress form were purchased in 'kit' form, through a magazine advertisement. Dispatched to my eagerly waiting grandmother were 1) an instruction sheet 2) a roll of brown-paper tape 3) a sponge for wetting the gummed tape. I have this project on my to-do list, rather high on the list in fact; but I've had trouble generating enthusiasm among my family members. I have not been able to portray a sufficiently appealing scenario to move them to action...
Most modern seamstresses use duct tape, but I; ever the purist, (+ in an apparent thrifty happenstance I acquired a big fat roll of brown paper packing tape for .50 not too long ago at my nearby shoppe) need to experience the real thing.

See Lanetz Living, a vintage sewing pattern site - over 7000 patterns searchable according to type, decade, pattern company, bust size, or holiday. Of course I only looked at a fraction of what is available, but patterns seem to average between $4 & $6 - quite reasonable.

Felt is Always in Style II

(Hi! I'm ridiculous.)

(Feeling humiliated)

The first time I tried sewing with felted sweater fabric I was pretty pleased with myself. The felted sweater was the result of an accident. I know I'm not alone in discovering that a sweater accidently put through the washing machine can be cut & will not ravel, stretches in any direction but has excellent body, & generally presents a dizzying array of potential uses.
This particular sweater was felted because I dyed it. The water got too hot or I left the dye pot on the stove too long...
Picture now; me, lamenting the reduced dimensions of my (felted) sweater, newly dyed a nice shade of green. I heard the familiar click click of doggy toenails. My focus shifted momentarily beyond the sweater in my hands to the funny little dog in the background. In that moment, it dawned on me; the zipper on the front of my felted sweater would fit right up the front of the dog's chest, & the collar on the sweater could be left in tact. I'd just have to cut off the sleeves & take the body in drastically...& you can fill in the rest. More detail here would only lead to drowsiness. After the sweaters were completed I sensed a need for a special beaded zipper-pull. But that's another story for another day.

(Fabio; blissfully unaware of his utter silliness.)