I hired some Quebecois to do yard work.
After doing a bit of digging, they set a whole bunch of stuff on fire,
then they stood around to watch it burn.
Iris really took to one of them.
He taught her how to judge a good stick.
But aside from a few more sticks, our yard is a bog.
There is really very little to burn.
Iris, Joshua and Ben hang out on the boardwalk.
They run up and down and up and down and up and down.
Iris makes sure Joshua’s hood stays out of his face as he peers through the cracks with Ben.
Iris: “Eew! Joshua lost his boot!”
Iris: “I’ll get it back to him.”
Ben: “Don’t ask me to help.”
Joshua: “How did all this water get in my boot?”
Sometimes friends are very different people.
I made a dress for Megan! It’s a simple A-line dress that looks good backwards, forwards, & inside out. The shoulders fasten with hook & loop fasteners. I got the cute patterned fabrics from raiding Ari’s awesome fabric stash (Ari: anytime you want to go shopping for cute patterned fabrics because you have nothing better to do, I trust your taste entirely). Mom, purveyor of fine ric-racs and other sundries (happy birthday, Mom!), will be happy to know I finally found an appreciation for the notion. The ric-rac I used is rather large. Because of the way I attach it & do the bottom hem of the dress, I don’t think I could use ric-rac any smaller, which is a shame, as most of her ric-rac is quite a bit smaller. There’s some fine stitching detail on the green side that is not on the colorful side, which I’m proud of. The greatest difficulty in sewing the dress came in getting the correct tension on my Bernina, which is odd, because it was supposed to have been set by a professional. I just can’t seem to get the bobbin tension tight enough.
Iris got some skates.
Our incredibly wet yard has become the perfect toddler skating rink.
I have been spending a lot of time working on dolls & very little time photographing my family. So here we are. I really like this doll. She’s all my own design. She sits & stands & holds a paintbrush. I’m working on designing a very simple upscale doll for the toddler set. This shouldn’t be too hard, as there are plenty out there, but I want it to look as good naked as it does dressed. I was having issues with shoulder design and issues getting a nice tight seamless neck & chin, both which I’ve solved here. Her body is a very thick cotton knit & she’s stuffed with organic wool & her hair is all sorts of wool. I have some tweaking to do with the pattern— I think I want to make her legs get wider toward the bottom— but I’m pretty happy.
I’m really horrid at clothing design. I designed this little reversible A-line dress for her. This one is just made out of an old sheet, for which reason she looks like she’s wearing an old sheet, but it turned out nicer than it looks in the photos. Although I’m tempted to make it slightly more form-fitting, I think it would make it too hard for little hands to dress her. The dress will attach at the shoulders with velcro and it will look good forwards, backwards, and inside out.
I’ve spent the majority of my visit going through toys with Mom. I photograph and catalog them then list them on eBay and deal with customers and sales. She packs them and brings them to the appropriate location for shipment. It’s been fun in a good, cleansing sort-of way. I enjoy talking about all these things with mom and going through stuff and looking at things. I like the teeny, tiny voids created in various locations of the mom’s house. Currently, the voids created in one area have mostly been turned into clutter in other areas, but hopefully low eBay prices and efficient packing skills will solve that quickly.
Mom, packing.
A small amount of clutter surrounds her.
Iris is in charge of Peanut Management.
Dan cooks dinner.
Iris has spent a lot of time convincing Rudy that she is kind and gentle.
I like little pussy
His fur is so warm
And if I don’t mistreat him,
He’ll do me no harm.
So I won’t pull his tail
Or drive him away
And pussy and I
Very gently will play.
—Mother Goose
(one of the many, many rhymes Iris knows)
Today I put skin on the head.
I think it was more interesting without skin.
But I’ll see where this is going.
Now I need to design some hair and a body.
I’ve been wanting to design a small, relatively inexpensive, simple doll in the category of dolls that I’m interested in making (“Waldorf” or “Waldorf-inspired”), as I think that’s a relatively untapped market. I’ve been pretty lazy, what with Iris having a sinus infection then me having something resembling a cold. But today was the day. I was going to do it.
To prepare for doll-making, I need to clean the entire house, as Iris likes to take out all the batts of luscious fluffy wool and wrap herself up and roll in them: if there are any loose threads or gobs of dust, they get stuck in the wool. Then, as Iris anxiously waited for me to untie the wool bag, I did a bunch of geometry and came up with a simple pattern. And as Iris rolled herself in batts of wool and flopped around the living room, I tied a little woolen head, just the right size for my pattern.
Then I glanced at my newly-acquired felting needle. “Just a few pokes,” I said to myself. “I don’t have the correct size stockinette for such a small head, so I’ll just a do few pokes to firm up the wool.” Um. Well. I took a break after one hour of felting (lunch, nap, learn to use yet another new sewing machine, go for a walk) and resumed felting some time after five. Martin came home around six or so while Iris was on the toilet. I was sitting near her, poking away at the wool. Luckily there was plenty of left-over lasagna for dinner.
After about two hours (or so) of felting, the doll no longer fits into the category of “relatively inexpensive, simple doll.” I really have no idea where I am going with this. Although it is so tempting to attempt felt the entire doll body, I won’t. Not with this doll. Not yet. For this doll, I will just put some skin on the head, embroider the features, then design an appropriate body to go with it.
Here is the doll’s inner head, my second attempt at sculptural felting:
