Saroyia

This is a mermaid I designed she stands 28" tall.

Cat

This is my cat again in another piece.

This elephant piece was fun to work on. It is framed by wrapping it around a canvas frame.

I so love to play with fiber arts.

Tranquil Egrit

This is a piece I just finished and had framed.

MF Machine Felting a Giraffe

I have been working on this project for some time.

The watercolor I did in 1978.

The background is handpainted and 60" X 64"













When combined they are very impressive.

My next step is to machine quilt it for the show in May 2008.

ME quilt block

I know that I have not been on here in some time but I do stay very busy. The newist thing is a class in quilting with the Embroidery Machine. I thought I would add this to my blog for those who would like to see the process.

First of all I went into Illustrator and created a design to digitize in the software that I have for machine embroidery (ME)

After it is digitized and I stitch it this is the first step in making the block. I stitch the complete design in a contrasting color onto muslin so to help me in placing the different pieces.

*** The supplies for this project are as follows:

The first step is to assemble your fabrics and press them.

For each block you will need the following cuts:
1 = Triangle 2.5" (take a 3" square and cut in half for triangle)

2 = 2.5 " by 3.5" strip

3 = Triangle 2.5"

4 = 6.5" by 1.75 " strip

5 = 2.5" by 4.5" Triangle

6 = 8" square of muslin or stabilizer

Set the muslin and stabilizer into your 4" hoop and stitch all the areas on the design for a base for laying up your patches usinga contrasting thread. It should look like below without the
numbers.

Placement of each part is very important. The #1 triangle is positioned just so. Make sure you have a .25" seam then place the #2 into position as in the next photo. Always press the seams to set them then fold the fabric over and press then into position before working the next stitch.

Place #3 the second triangle on the #2 piece and let the machine stitch it into place.

This process is continued throught the block until you get to the last stitching that will put in the inner stitch to hold everything into position. I do not use the contrasting thread after the basic outline.

This is all done in the hoop and designed for a 4" hoop.

Trim the block to .25" outside the box so you can

put the pieces together into a quilt.

Enjoy the fun.

This pes file can be purchased from me for $3.00 at www.victorianbathdelights or by e-mailing me for instructions on how

to get the design.

Here it is another year close on our heels. Merry Christmas to one and all and I hope that all of you have a very Happy New Year in 2007.

I will try harder to put info into this blog next year. I am trying to do more journaling and keeping a record of what I do so that others can see the things I am up to as well as give hints and tips for those of you who want to do some of the same things I am doing.

If I forget and have not noted on this site in a while please feel free to note me to remind me to take the time to send you a note here. I get so busy learning new things that I loose track of time.

Ginger

It is late November where has the time gone?

I just looked up and the year is almost over. I get so involved in making dolls and things that I loose track of time. My year has been very busy. I hope to focus on one theme this coming year. “At the Beach” I travel there often and love all the peace at the ocean’s edge. I have begun by designing 2 dolls that are Beach related and sketched a couple of places I love to visit. I need to prepare several pieces for a show in the Spring of 2008 and thought that a theme might get me started in the right direction.

Several wall hangings are finished and I have 3 dolls I feel might fit the bill. With dabbling in Fabric Postcards and other fiber arts I hope to have 50 pieces for the show.

I grew up with a very talented Mother who loved crafts and was a great artist as well. My Father also was an artist in his own way so I have come by the passion naturally. The first big thing I remember doing was when I was 9 and Mother let me draw on one wall of my bedroom. Like all crazy people I went big. I mean really big. I graphed off the entire wall and proceeded to draw the last supper in life size on the wall. This was a help to Mother as it kept me very busy for quite some time.

I paint anything that isn’t nailed down and many things that are. Painting from fabric to stone is a passion. I use watercolor, oils, acrylics, various inks and stains on all sorts of materials that they were not meant to be used on. I also sew most anything. Basically if I have seen it and liked it I could recreate it. I hate to try and create something on demand. If it comes out I will work with it but I am not good at taking orders.

There are several places where a person can see they work I do and I will list them here so that those reading this can look if they like.

http://www.victorianbathdelights.com/

http://gingersdolls.blogspot.com/

http://www.picturetrail.com/glxmas

http://www.ancestraltracks.com/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dollssocool/

These are my favorites as they are my pages. My husband Cliff is so good at working on the web page design for me that I just play and he puts things up online.

Another Week Gone

I have played away another week here at home and most of it was running around to setup classes for the Fall at the local shops. Here is the lineup:

Sept 5th 2006 Polymer Clay Buttons and Mold making at A Common Thread qult shop 1:30 - 4:30

Sept 8th 2006 I am taking a class at Creative Fabrics in Wheeler on the Easy Elegant Lone Star and will post the photos later.

Sept 16th and 23rd I am taking a doll making class with Patti LaValley in St. Helens.

Sept 24th and October 14th I will be teaching Cross stitching with beads at Bodacious Beads in Reedville 12:30 to 3:00

Sept 30thand Nov 9th I am teaching again at Bodacious beads this time it will be beaded doll face pins from 10:00 to 1:30

October 21st I am teaching Polymer Clay at the Reigning Dolls and Bears Doll Club in St. Helens 5:30 to 8:00

October 26th Hillsboro Vac N Sew I am teaching the machine embroidery spiritdoll in a hoop.

October 28th will be Vac N Sew again for the 20" dolly in a hoop for machine embroidery people.

Nov. 18th Vac N Sew class on Spiritdoll in a Hoop 10:00 12:00

Feb. 15th 2007 MEOW The Mouse Connection I am teaching 3D machine embroidery

That should keep me out of trouble for a while.

I have designed Dottie which is a machine embroidery doll that can be made into a doll or used as a stand alone embroidery design for quilt blocks or just embellishments. Dottie is in 17 different outfits and I have hopes to design accessories for her like purse or even cat or dog for her to have along.

I made 2 Canarby Cat dolls for an exchange and 1 polymer clay face for another exchange. I really love making things to send away because this house is getting full of my play things :o)

I managed to get the last of 10 charity quilts quilted and put together a quilt "French Braid" and have it ready to quilt when I get back from vacation.

Along with all that I am getting the motor home ready for a week of fun and play.

My intention when I first set this up was to try to journal my activities but they are so much fun that I am too tired to type when it gets to be 10:00 pm or so and I just goto bed. I wake up at 5 everyday.

Serval in pes format

This is what I was doing today as well as creating the Autumn Leaves fabric that is on my Yahoo Groups site. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dollssocool/ I hope you like it. It is meant to be stitched in redwork style on an embroidery machine.

Edith

I have spent most of the day writing a pattern for Edith. She is a complete machine embroidery pattern for those who want to do something different. All her parts and sewn on the 5x7 hoop then assembled.

I hope to have the pattern finished by the weekend. Writing a pattern is harder than I planned when I set my goal this morning. I had hoped to just write one off of the Angel doll but found that I needed to take photos as I progressed to help the person using the pattern so had to make another whole doll. Now I have Edith.

Wedding girl

Saturday: I just finished the bride in colors and the last running stitch is off on part of the design so I will have to redo it. . . . It is finished. The black lines are for those that like redwork or what is called one color work. See photo at ( http://www.picturetrail.com/glxmas )

I'm sure my Hubby is happy that the machine is no longer chattering away.

Journaling

I suppose I really should start journaling in this thing.

I will start by covering the past two weeks. My home is very small and I have a lot of stuff. I cleared out a room (10 X 10) to free up area for my computer away from the sewing and crafting area. What a nightmare that was. When you have a room piled to the ceiling where does the stuff go?

I began by putting it on the patio under cover in hot weather. After I did that we got heat to 108 and I could only work out there for 3 hours a day. I did have this empty room so in the 3 hours I sorted out what should go back into the room for an office. Well that was a chore as well. After I got the room looking like an office (with some crafting items in it). I invited Geoff over to help me clear out the garage to give Hubby more room for his hobby.

Geoff found after 3 hours of hard labor that it was too much work so he called in two friends to help. Well I guess what I did I organized their work and set off to the computer and began designing a doll. With two at 15 and a 17 year old on the job it only took 2 more hours. NOW all I have to do is sort out the patio. Where the boys put the stuff from the garage along with my store room stuff.

For a week I spent 3 hours on the patio sorting and separating things in the mornings and then putting the things away that I brought in be for the heat hit in the afternoon, every day. It is 2 weeks later and I now have only a small amount of stuff to sort and put away on the patio.

This work only took up 5 hours a day so I played the remainder of each day. I managed to put the Embroidery doll together and paint her after teaching a class on fabric painting that took up 5 hours of my day in the Lake Oswego area. One of my passions is teaching people how to play. I also designed and put together several Spirit dolls and while showing one off I was asked if I would teach a class on the spirit doll so now I need a pattern and instructions written.

Another afternoon writing the Spirit Doll pattern and I am ready to begin. On Monday this week I received a call from a friend that she needed some embroidery designed for a girl's 15th birthday so I put together a few ideas and she came by. They were okay she said but she wanted something a little different and could I make something that looked like the invitation? I agreed and proceeded to make the bride design she had shown me. I worked up a prototype for her. Also another friend called that afternoon asking if I could print off 100 invitations for her 50^th anniversary.

Tuesday I began to make the angel doll. This is a rescue doll from the Goodwill store near me. She had a soiled body and one broken foot. She came with no hair and was a fright to see. I love a challenge so I tore her apart and disposed of her old body and leg. Now I have a fresh canvas in which to paint on. I designed a body and legs for her and upper arms. Instead of having her standing as so many of my dolls do I wanted to be different so I thought she should be flying. The easy part is making and stuffing the doll. The hard part is embellishing the doll and figuring out how to hang her. You can view all the photos at my site on Picture Trail. (http://www.picturetrail.com/glxmas )

It took all day to design and stitch the wings. I began by drawing one wing in ink so that my scanner would pick it up. Next I scan the drawing. Then I bring it into the software for the embroidery machine (Palette 6.0) and convert it to stitches. This may sound easy but I really have to re-draw it in the computer software so that it has no broken lines. Then I have to create a running stitch of the complete wing so to have one that I can use as redwork and then another with the satin stitch so I can use it for appliqué work if I need it some day. Why do it twice. The next step is to create the fill stitches for the wing to make it look more 3D. After all this I bring each step into the main program in the size of hoop I desire. As a designer I make it in 4 sizes ( 2x2, 4x4, 5x7, and 6x10) that way I can have it available for any size hoop. The stitching takes 4 hours per wing because I placed two parts together and glued pipe cleaners between the layers to make them bend and stay in position. Now I have stitched 2 sets of wings and glued them. I mane a mirror image of the wing to create the second one so they look alike. That took up my day after my 3 hours of sorting on the patio in the morning.

I printed out the invitations and called the lady on the artwork for the pillow for the 15 yr old and managed to get those orders finished on Wednesday.

I got up on Thursday, mixed and poured the plaster casts of 4 doll heads so I could try a new method of Felt doll making. Then I cleaned off my quilting machine. I had found 4 wall hangings that had not been finished, while sorting the patio so now was the time to stitch them, and out comes the thread and batting and I work them up. One piece I did up months ago looked rather plain so I laid it aside for further thought. Not a bad days work after sorting more stuff on the patio.

On Friday I got up and painted that wall hanging I had not finished on Thursday. It is called Illusions of Shore Birds and I quilted it on Friday. What with errands and shopping my day was rather full.

Here it is Saturday and I am stitching out the bride in colors. Pics will go up when she if finished. Hubby is home today so heaven only knows what we will manage to do today. I still have some sorting to complete.

Next week I have a Quilt and Textile show in Tillamook where a dozen of my dolls and one wall hanging will be seen.