So now she’s done.
She didn’t turn out in any way at all like I first envisaged, I saw her as a more contemporary type of art doll rather than the elegant lady she turned out to be, but sometimes that’s where the process takes you; to places you never intended or imagined, and all you can do is follow along.
I could do more embellishing to her jacket, but I think I’ll leave it as it is for now.
Previous: The Story of an Art Doll: The Jacket
I’ve finished the underskirt for my art doll and I really like the way it turned out even after all the challenges it posed.
So now on to the jacket … red silk dupioni for the jacket, with a front lining of rich gold thai silk – she has expensive taste!
One of my very favorite embellishments – a yo-yo with bead dangles – to pin back the bottom front of the jacket.
For the sleeve edges, the same distressed art lace as on the bottom of the jacket.
She’s looking more pleased with herself with each fitting.
Still have a lot of work to do, but don’t want to rush it.
Previous: The Story of an Art Doll: Embellishing
My art doll still doesn’t have a name yet. Maybe after she has some clothes she’ll tell me what it is.
The embellishing of the underskirt begins. First adding some art lace edging to the bottom of her skirt using water soluble stabilizer to support the decorative stitches.
Then a piece of machine needlelace; lacework machined on water soluble stabilizer. This will be a bib for the front top of her underskirt and will be a decoratively embellished piece that will be visible once her jacket is on.
Then … disaster ….
Washing away the water soluble stabilizer from the bottom of her skirt I expected a small amount of color run-off, but my heart started sinking when I saw that the color continued to run.
With my usual “fabric printing” printer out of commission, I had used a different printer to print the fabric for the underskirt. I made sure to use pretreated fabric that was supposedly washable and permanent. But it didn’t work completely and the underskirt is faded and ruined; for this project anyway. Although I could use it as a lining maybe for a purse.
I can’t do anything about it. Except wait for my replacement printer to arrive so I can start again.
Waiting, waiting, waiting. Days of waiting.
The printer finally arrives so to begin again. This time I know that the results will be better. However this time I also decide to make the art lace first and then attach it to the bottom of the skirt by hand. Not because I’m afraid of washing the printed fabric; I did a small test first so I know the ink is now permanent. But I wanted to make the lace edging a little more distressed.
I like it much better already.
And it begins to look amazing once the beads are attached. So perhaps the disaster was just an opportunity in disguise.
Once embellished with beads, the bib is looking beautiful also.
Now that she has some clothes, she looks a little pleased with herself, don’t you think?
The jacket will come next.
Previous: The Story of an Art Doll: The Fabric
Next: The Story of an Art Doll: The Jacket
I recently began working on an art doll and you can see where I began here.
Now, lying amongst the silks and satins on my cutting table, sometimes she looks dejected …
… sometimes she looks hopeful …
She has a strong personality despite her SpongeBob Squarepants body shape. But she’s waiting quietly while I take the time to design and tailor her clothing.
I had always planned to design and print the fabric for the underskirt, so using photoshop to blend multiple layers of texture and color I finally end up with a fabric design that looks like rusted antique lace; nothing like what I had first envisaged.
But the visual complexity and texture seem appropriate; she seems to have ancient wisdom and knowing in her eyes. A fabric to reflect her spirit seems appropriate. It prints out beautifully onto habotai silk; no rough cotton for this little red headed girl.
And so on to auditioning threads for the embellishments. Because this story is all about embellishing.
Previous: The Story of an Art Doll: The Face and Body
Next: The Story of an Art Doll: Embellishing
From time to time I like to challenge myself by creating new ways to use my favorite fabric embellishing techniques. For this project I chose to make an art doll which is something a little out of the ordinary for me.
I chose not to draw or paint a face mainly because I’m not all that good at drawing faces. Instead I found a black and white clipart image of a woman’s face. I really liked her facial expression – very serene with just a touch of sassiness. So I photoshopped out everything except the main features of her face …
… and then printed the face onto a piece of muslin.
I then cut out the body shape of the doll which is very basic because she’s really just going to be used to show off her beautiful embellished clothes.
Then I sewed her, stuffed her, and added arms and legs. Yikes, she looks like ET in a Halloween mask.
Ahh there, she just needed some hair which is made from some beautiful decorative yarn. She’s looking much better now. I like her wild reddish hair but I’m not sure what sort of a “do” I’ll give her yet, so check back in a few days after she’s visited the hairdresser. She should have the beginnings of some clothes by then also.
Next: The Story of an Art Doll: The Fabric
… Continue reading
I mentioned the other day that my next book is going to be about fabric beads which along with machine wrapped cording, is one of my all-time favorite embellishments.
Usually I like my fabric beads kinda chunky like this …
… but every now and then I need a bead that’s perfect and plain like these.
(Shhhh, don’t tell but this is one of the embellishments my students will be making for next week’s lesson during my online embellishing class.)
There are a number of ways to get a perfectly round fabric bead, but this tip is too good to keep to myself. My secret for the quickest, simplest, most perfect round fabric bead ever ….
That’s right, double-sided adhesive!
All you need to do is cut a strip of adhesive and a strip of fabric the same size. Apply the adhesive to the wrong side of the fabric, cut the bead to length, usually around 1.5 to 2 inches.
Then remove the backing on the adhesive. But not all of it! leave about 3/4 – 1″.
Tip – I scored the backing paper with the back of my seam ripper.
Then wrap the fabric around a piece of dowel.
The adhesive backing provides strong support to give the bead a perfectly round shape. How perfect and simple is that?
You can probably find double sided adhesive sheets at your local craft store.
Friends, books, purses, fabric … and fabric beads! I only needed a few for samples for a photo. But suddenly a few turned into a few dozen, and poof! the day was gone.
However, along the way I discovered some cool new techniques which is always fun. Can you guess what my next book’s going to be about?
I know I’ve mentioned before about how messy my sewing room gets at the end of a project. Looking at a confused sprawl of cast off supplies and fabric scraps gives me a slight headache, an uneasy feeling and a strong desire to clean. All three feelings are a little foreign to me (particularly cleaning; housekeeper of the year I’m not) and something just feels amiss. Sometimes when I look at mess like that, I feel the same way as when I come to the end of a good book; kind of sad that the story has ended.
The act of creating is much like a story. There’s a beginning a middle and an end. There’s preparation and planning; sketching out ideas and trying new methods. And there’s always an internal dialog moving you, often in all sorts of directions; sometimes not where you expected to go. It’s all part of the process.
But there’s a difference between confused mess and organized chaos. Organized chaos inspires me. When I look at it, I can see that there’s something there just waiting to be created. This is what organized chaos looks like for me at the moment.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between mess and chaos and you might look at that photo and think it’s just a huge mess; a jumble of fabrics and bits and pieces. But the deciding factor is how it makes you feel when you look at it. For now I’m inspired and I have vision and can see so much potential just waiting there and not enough hours in the day to play with it all. I know there will be an ending, but it’s not today and I’m so grateful for that.
Almost everyone who knows about business will tell you that marketing your business through Facebook and Twitter and social media outlets is the smart thing to do; the sensible thing to do; if you want to grow a business. Last year as I began to make changes in my business, I set up a Facebook fan page as a way of connecting with my readers and customers, and as a way of sharing my work, and for the most part I’ve enjoyed the experience and met many lovely people along the way.
But about a month or so ago I set up an experiment, and decided to take the time I used to spend on Facebook and instead use it in other ways, so I took that time and invested it in doing things I’m passionate about …
I developed some new products for my store.
I built a website where I now offer my online classes for home study.
I began work on the project for my new online class.
And as the Facebook experiment comes to an end, I realize that I’d much rather be doing the things that I have passion for, slowly and with focused attention, than trying to run at a hundred miles an hour to keep up with the crazy world of social media. Life is already too fast and I refuse to contribute to that any longer.
You won’t catch me on the Facebook highway any more, but you can sign up for my newsletter which goes out weekly, or sign up for my blog email which goes out each time I post an article which is about three to four times a week, and if you want to connect with me, leave a comment on my blog posts, I *love* to get your feedback. 
Can you guess what my favorite embellishment is? I use it on most projects I make and I never tire of making it or thinking up new ways to use it. Can’t guess? Why it’s Machine Wrapped Cording of course.
If you’ve never heard of machine wrapped cording, it’s simply a piece of cording that you make using yarn, nice top thread, and the zig-zag stitch on your sewing machine. If you’re looking for the tutorial for machine wrapped cording, you can find it here.
Machine wrapped cording is a really versatile embellishment and can be made slim and elegant, or chunky and funky depending on what technique you use to make it. It’s best feature is that it can be made to coordinate with your projects in either color or texture or both.
I mention this of course because I have a new book coming out very shortly, all about machine wrapped cording. You can find more details here. But in the meantime, there are some of the ways that I use it…
I use it a lot on book wraps as a wrap-around tie …
For edging and wrap-around ties on my fabric journals …
I use it for edging and also to hide the joined edges on my fabric boxes …
As well as for more functional purposes as part of the closure on the lid of this fabric box …
You can also use it with the circular sewing attachment to edge circular applique blocks ….
And for decorative elements on art quilts …
If you haven’t tried machine wrapped cording yet, give it a try.
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I'm a full-time artist, designer and creative explorer. I wish I had time to explore all types of different art, but for the time being I'm content to work mainly with mixed media textiles and digital art.
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