Page - 3, really not that naughty

In the UK page 3 typically refers to the fact that the Sun has a topless model on its page 3 of the tabloid. Mine is a lot more decorous, involving a sparrow and a biplane rather than anything else.

As always I was looking at a fun way to reinterpret something pretty basic. Please don't ask how feathers connect to a biplane. It's just the way my mind worked.

The biggest challenge here was the fabrics. The basic background fabric was actually multiple layers of a very transparent cloth, and the plane was made out of some extremely stretchy fabric.

It rapidly drove me a little distracted as you had to hold it in place and there's a limit to the number of pins you can use on something so small, specially as the pins at the edges are just where you want to sew.

I really regretted not putting interfacing onto the plane which would have helped a lot in keeping its shape.

One of the other problems I face is that I don't own infinite colours of thread. When is started sewing down the plane I'd found what I thought was the nearest colour I had. I then found I had something much closer, so I sewed over the top to hide the other colour stitching

I then used a brown to create shadows and details. However, as you can see here the brown X of the wing behind the brown sparrow, even though they are different browns was too indistinct.

So, having used red for the propeller and the cockpit I added a bit of red to the Xs on the wings to make them more of a contrast with the sparrow.

The final problem I had was that the fabric seemed to be fraying at a rate of knots. So to prevent the fabric from disappearing I sewed ribbons over the edges to hem them .

The final page - "Der sperling feine federline" - the sparrow has fine feathers.

For interest I was watching a lot of Jessica Jones while making this page.

Page 2 - drunkeness and debauchery....maybe not

I may have been slightly tipsy when I started work on this page, and this may have been the cause of my initial mistake, although to be honest I'm entirely capable of making a mistake without combining alcohol and sewing.

I chose red for the basic colour of this page because it reminded me of theatres I've been to. I'm not sure which one in particular but somehow it said "theatre" to me.

First thing was to sew down the large white area of the box office, then I sewed down the head of the ticket seller and the mouse attending the opera.

This is when I made my big mistake, I placed the body of the mouse on the sheet from the front thinking I'd got it right or maybe I placed it while flipping from back to front, who knows now, I was tipsy, and I sewed down at high speed the furcoat of the mouse attending the opera. Having finished, I flipped over to see the following : the furcoat was on upside down.

Any sensible person would have undone the stitching and placed it again. I'm not that sensible, I'm also very lazy and fortunately for me the mouse's head was roughly equidistant from the top and the bottom meaning, as you can see below, the end result was the design ended up a mirror image of itself.

The only pain was resituating the writing on the reverse. Really all in all it was not a disaster, and although sometimes the design is meant to face a certain way, this isn't one of those designs. You may note that the words ticket office have disappeared, this is because it was just too small and I felt it was pretty obvious what was going on.

Photographing this page was its own challenge which I have not entirely solved. The fabric is satin-y. It means it reflects light all oddly when photographed in a way your eyes don't find problematic.

This photo is far too dark

This one, taken in daylight, has some areas more close to the real colour, but others are just not.

More pictures of more pages to come!

Page 1 - a snail of a time

With each of these pages my aim is to add some interest to what is really a very simple thing.

I started by working on the most difficult and most interesting part of the design - the snail's shell. As the design often shifts from design to reality I often start with the bit that forms the central part of the design and which, if it moves, the rest of the design can move around.

I traced the outside of the shell onto interfacing.  The interfacing is multipurpose. I wanted the flap of the shell to be a bit stiff and also as with the page, the interfacing gives me a way to trace the design onto the reverse of the fabric.

 

 When placement of the lettering is extra important I will often sew it from the back in running stitch as you can see here. In this part I have to be careful where the letters go so that they fit in a small space.

 

I then go back and fill in the gaps from the front as you can see

 

After that I started on the spiral.

 

As you can see in my discussion of the book's design, I always planned to have an actual little house inside the snail's shell.

However, as I started work I decided it was no fun to have absolutely nothing on the inside of the flap and added in some more details to that part. I thought I'd put in an aga oven and some other bits.

I had planned to use some applique but it was just far too small so there is very little applique in the design. Just the pillow and the main part of the bed and the aga.

 

Once these parts were all done, I sewed the back and the front of the flap together and turned it inside out and finished it off.

Then I sewed down the inside of the shell on the page, followed by the snail body.

 

Despite carefully tracing and cutting out the snail's body and shell the same size as my design, there's been some shift in size. You can see this from the back. Fortunately I'm really not picky about this so long as it doesn't look too awful. It's also not a big shift.

 

I then sewed the flap onto the page and we're done.

This is the completed page with the snail shell closed. The page text reads "Die schneke hat ein haus" - the snail has a house.

 

Here you can see the inside of the shell with the flap open. The completed aga, a little hand towel and some kitchen implements hanging up.

I've actually completed quite a few pages so I'm going to separate each page into a separate blog post just to avoid picture overload. I may add in a few more making of photos when I'm back at home.

It's been a long time, we shouldn't of left you

...without a dope beat to step to...

It appears I have not blogged since October. Good grief!

I'm going to throw you a few pics of some plushies I did  a while back.

These two dolls are the school uniform of the children at the school a friend of mine who is a newly qualified teacher. Apart from aiming to get the details right, I decided early on, one of the girls would be black because most of my characters are white and there are plenty of kids at that school who aren't, also she was a sort of homage to one of my friend's daughters who is cute and adorable. I wanted the smile to be clear and her mouth disappeared for some reason with black thread on brown even though her eyes didn't so I gave it a small white line to make it stand out

My friend was very pleased so I'm glad they came out alright. She gave me a book token and some chocolate. Bless.

I also made a Furiosa doll for a friend. The tricky bit was the arm, which I made out of pipe cleaner. I'm not very patient so rather than going out to get the right colour I coloured in with felt pens the yellow pipe cleaner to make it dark metal grey.

Similarly for her oil slicked shorn head, I coloured in for a looong time the pink fabric for her head. I really wished I'd used embroider but that would have been equally long.

The basic doll was made first then I sewed on her metal arm.

My friend and customer was very happy.

I have got some update on the Nursery rhyme book. WITH PICTURES, of actual sewing done. But I'm too sleepy to do it now.

Here we go!

I have shelved the car plushie for various reasons including lack of grey felt. I also was dying to start on the nursery rhyme book.

I showed you the designs a little while back for a book based on a German nursery rhyme that my Omi (grandmother) taught me as a child. It is a gift for my niece (good grief that was December last year).

Recently I started choosing background colours and then today I bought the interfacing to put the designs onto on the back which I use as a guide.

I have to trace it two ways, one the right way and one on the reverse as that is the side that will remain visible once it's attached to the base fabric for the page.

I'd previously spent some time choosing the fabric colours for each page and the fabrics I was going to use. This was a joint decision based on what was going on the page (e.g I wanted green for the snail to be in the garden) and what fabrics I had in the right size pieces. I wouldn't entirely be guided by the size of the pieces if I really wanted something I'd sew some bits together but it's a lot easier not to. I was also guided by making sure the same colour didn't repeat too much and if possible I'd have preferred no repeating colours but I have repeated yellow (two shades, one more orange) and green (one more yellow one more blue).

Once I'd traced the designs I then ironed the base fabric and ironed on the interfacing...except for page one where I'd accidentally traced the design on the wrong side - whoops. That one is just pinned in place.

This my friends is the only ironing I enjoy because it's quick and actually interesting...

And there's the pile of completed.

I love the reuse aspect of what this involves or any of my projects really. I love that the sky is made up of the same fabric as a Khaleesi costume, or that the butterfly's background is made up of an old duvet or sheet cover from home, or that the purple is left overs from making a picture cover for my Dad. I look forward to more reuse of fabric as I work on each page.

Where do we go from here?

I realised I never posted any pics of Babydoll mark 2

There aren't many pics but here it is!

She was a second version for the same person who wanted one for herself and one for her partner.

Anyway as mentioned previously I have been asked to make

• Imperator Furiosa
• 2 kids in a school  uniform
• Delorean - still no idea when I'll do that one
• I think I may have promised a Harley Quinn and possibly Rogue and possibly Scarlet Witch...

That's where we are on projects anyway

Doctor no 11....yes again

So glancing back at my previous posts forever ago I'm sure you're thinking where's my darn delorean, where's my nursery rhyme book for the niece?

And the answer would be I don't know I got distracted. Instead I've been asked for the straightforward kind of plushies and I've finally made one of them - the 11th Doctor. This is not my first outing with the 11th Doctor. The last time I made one for a friend's daughter.

I have just realised I left something out of my plushie this time - the braces! Ooops. Never mind can add those on top. Done it before.

Anyway, on my second outing I was thinking about what fabric I had to hand in the more or less right colours.

I don't use a lot of felt really in my plushies despite the fact that it doesn't fray and is therefore easy to use. I guess because I don't have a lot generally and I have a looooooooot of other bits of cloth. I was slightly excited this time to get a chance to use a fat square I'd bought ages ago on holiday that was faintly reminiscent of tweed but cotton for the jacket.

I confess I did some cursory colour research but then I just got stuck in. I had to slightly make use of some scraps creatively to create the hair as I didn't have enough of the fabric I wanted.

I probably should have taken more care of the lining up of the pattern of the fabric of the jacket but I like the way it looks.

The requestor had asked for a fez, which I hadn't done the last time.

The last stage involved me realising I'd mised out the braces, I sadly didn't photograph them but they were the same material as the bow tie which was a fun touch.

So there we are, he's done. I like some aspects of this one better than the previous version. Admittedly the previous plushie was much earlier into my odyssey into plushie making. I currently appear to have made well over 20 of the darn things!

I've got to the stage now where I quite like that things aren't perfect, that the legs and other parts aren't even and the fabrics vary so much. I like the challenges that each one brings, even when I make the same plushie again.

I've got a toughie coming up - someone asked me for Imperator Furiosa and I'm thinking about how I can make that arm. Sadly I don't have any more grey pipe cleaners. But maybe I can cover some ones I have of another colour.