Day of the Dead Couple

Day of the Dead Couple
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.

Una señora y un señor for a Día de los Muertos group show I was in last year. It was my first show since college, 16 years ago! They are small, about 4 x 6 inches, acrylic with buttons and string.

Crochet Baby Blanket Finished

Crochet Baby Blanket Finished
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.

The last 200 ends were worked in this week (see WIP posts here and here). Man, how I hate the very end of a project. One of the things that kept me from finishing sooner was that I didn't really have a good solution for working in the bobble threads — they're colored on a white background and were showing through in a way I didn't like. I settled on working them in as circles, sort of of mini sphincters if you will. This also helps keep the bobbles from falling through to the back.

At one point in this project I thought that the blanket would be too precious for our rather grubby family, but in the end I think it will work fine. It has a good weight to it, which I like. And, it is washable — Classic Elite's Bazic Wool. Hey, Alicia, do you recognize the edging? It's the Bella Baby Dress edge with a couple rows of single crochet.

Thank you my bloggy readers. If it wasn't for you I don't think I would have finished this one. Really, this blog motivates me to finish, where before I had many an unfinished project.

Coming up next: a Leftover Lamb Giveaway for all the wonderful comments and community.

P.S. I'll post more photos to my Flickr later, got to go.

Swap-a-roo and other mail, too

bird_atc
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.

Finally got my bird ATCs into the mail for a swap that the lovely Kristin has organized — looks like lots of good company. While I was at it I also mailed a little something to Claire and Renata. Phew! Man it takes a lot for me to package things up and ship them out with the kidlets around. Who am I kidding — I never liked to post things even before kids. Next up is a mini quilt swap with Jules, which I'm really looking forward to.

For the bird swap I painted six paintings of the same composition and color. I've never done an exercise like that before. I was thinking a lot about Diana from One Blackbird while painting. I just love her scratchy drawing in clay.

I Can Fly

I_can_fly
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.

i_can_fly_back
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.

I'm posting this one for Dawbis because I think of her every time I see it. It's a Golden Book by Ruth Krauss, pictures by Mary Blair, originally published 1958!

Personalized Paper Dolls

cowgirl
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.


witch
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.

princess
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.

In the olden days of yore,* like early 1990, I learned to use a computer and do graphics at the same time on an Apple IIci or something like that. I had PageMaker, Photoshop, and Illustrator; two fonts (Times & Helvetica); and the world's slowest scanner. I used to write ad copy and do the ad production for a small local record chain. It was a fun job (lots of free concert tickets and cds), but not especially creative. One of the first fun things I did when I got a grip on the pen tool was make a set of paper dolls for a coworker. It was definitely not a hip thing to be doing straight out of college, but it was soooooo much fun. I drew her a mermaid, a cowgirl, an elf, and a witch costume to dress a photo I had scanned of her as a little girl. That was the first and last time I made a paper doll until recently.

Now, I'm not much of a doll person. I didn't really have lots of dolls like my sister. I preferred to make stew with poor Barbie's parts instead of putting together the right outfit for her night out with Ken. But, paper dolls are a different story. Actually, truth be told, I don't want to play with paper dolls either, but, I do want to make them. I picked up this book the other day and it got me itchin' to make some more, it has been eighteen years after all. Eighteen years! Holy shit, how did I get old all of a sudden. Anyway, since it is preschool/birthday season I had the perfect excuse to buy the book. We had a birthday party we were supposed to go to Friday, but missed because of preschool/cold season. I did manage to make a gift, though, of some personalized paper doll outfits made to fit a photo of the birthday girl. I drew another cowgirl (what I wish I was wearing), another witch (thought of you Alice — the hair, not the witch part), and the requisite princess — seems I don't change much.

I made the doll outfits in Photoshop, using lots of layers, but could just as easily have made them in Illustrator. I was thinking about using scanned images of fabric, but didn't have time to explore that option. I printed out the photo of the birthday girl and Super77ed her to museum board, then cut around her with an Exacto knife. I printed out each outfit on an 8.5 x 11-inch page. I would have liked to add some themed decorative elements to the background of each outfit's page, but didn't have time for that either. Then, I burned all the images onto a cd so that the family can print out additional copies as needed.

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*Blaize claims this to be any time before 1992.