Friday, October 31, 2008

Spooky Black Cat

A nice, cool, leisure autumn day.


You said what!#*? WHAT! It's October 31st! I can't scare, it's not fair....
Maybe I can hide over there.
No, please no!
I can be scary just being a black cat!??

I don't like Halloween! It's not for me!
Must I.....!?!
NOOOOO......!
Panic and anxiety leads to hyper-ventilating which causes this dressed clown to pass out from fright! No silly matter but.... I'm reminded....
there is always next year....Happy Halloween! C&G Design.


Thursday, October 30, 2008

Towels + Washclothes

I'm keeping in tune with the recent stash I've found, I'm almost done with the box!
I can almost move onto another "Christmas" package full of projects!


These little beauties were together, folded one by one. I think they are part of a curtain as some sides were already hemmed and others weren't. Well my idea was a simple one, get a compatible fabric, something like terrycloth, and stitch the decorative panel to one side of a equal square! Wa la! Instant towel.
Hubby and I are very picky about a few things, towels and facecloths being on top of the list. We have held off for 10 months in getting something nice for our downstairs bathroom, my idea, it fit perfectly. I managed to find a durable thick flannel that didn't seem to require hemming. It is absorbent, soft, and best of all....white. I have four Angel panels and 4 quarters of fabric, just enough. Oh yes! Four matching washcloths.

I'm calling it custom. C & G Design.



Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Antiqued Ann and Andy

It had to come to a post on my antiqued Ann and Andy, I love the way these two turned out, kinda cutie, modern.



Andy wears a comic page hat and if memory serves me right, the newspaper date will be somewhere around 1996.


Ann has a necklace made from wooden spools and wooden beads.



Both have facial features embroidered with wool, legs striped with ticking, and hairdos with varied red color, hand dyed by myself. The outfit is Waverly remants, putting my pair "styling".


I think I need to switch the button heart to the other side though.


What was I thinking!?! C & G Design.






Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Rotary Cutter

By far, the most indispensable tool for quilting. As a fresh stitcher I tended to draw lines and use scissors to sash and block. A jump to a rotary cutter can be, in my opinion, compared to sliced bread.





I'm ALWAYS on the look out for the three pictured tools. Rulers are few and far in between and I've never had room for a large size mat.

Some rotary cutters are better than others, they remind me of a pizza cutter, essentially ....that's what they are, except much, much sharper.


I like the safety button and the squeeze handle. Both are a nice feature, letting go of the grip will activate the safety and then the button needs to be pushed every time you use it.



Such a time saver! Cuts cutting (pun intended) time in half. C&G Design






Monday, October 27, 2008

Ginger


A few weeks ago I did a post on "Littlest Angel" manufactured by the Vogue company and I mentioned Ginger, today's post is on "Ginger." An American beloved doll.



Jennie Adler Graves was the proprietor of the Vogue Doll company, her father died when she was 15, being the eldest of 4, Jennie gave up a education to help augment her family income. It wasn't until a "friend", who knew of Jennie's sewing skills, asked Jennie to sew outfits for dolls (she was giving to charity), that Jennie became involved in dolls. Unbeknown to the seamstress, who was inspired to dress German dolls, Jennie's friend sold the dolls/outfits to Jordan Marsh, a Boston Department store. Sometime there after"Ye Old Vogue Doll Company" began in Jennie's home. In 1948 when sales dipped Jennie developed a 8 '' doll called Ginny after Jennie's daughter Virginia. Ginny was designed with purses, hats and snap shoes, beginning as a fixed eye doll to a strung doll with sleep eyes to a straight leg walker with molded lashes, by 1957 Ginny reached over 5 million in sales and was a permanent fixture in the doll world. In 1958 Matel tried to purchase "Ye Old Vogue Doll Company" but negations fell through. (imagine no Barbie!) By 1960 Jennie retired and the company passed to Virginia, who made Ginny in vinyl. The next successor was her brother in law, then in 1972 Vogue was sold to Tonka. Ginny suffered many changes and restructure during this time, as did all the dolls including Barbie. 1995 saw a renewed energy when the rights were purchased by a well known doll maker, Wendy Lawton. The "new" Vogue Company wanted to reissue Ginny to her rightful place in modern doll history, the idea wouldn't become true until 2004.
These are my dolls and I cherish them as if they were the composition Ginger portrayed in the first picture. They are the reissued Ginny of 2004.
Ginny, a American icon. C&G Design.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Teenager's Art

I've posted before on Madame's art so now it's Babe the Bull's turn. This is really good Art for him, they are from last year's freshman's class. His friend's mother finally gave them to me, apparently my son left the folder in the trunk of his friends car, where it could of stayed forever.





I gather this was a ongoing project that combined reality with fantasy, the end result came out kind of neat.
Hubby and I teased our son about the "pink can!" The bull...insisted it was really hard! It's done with cray pas. The village looks unfinished, guess it was supposed to be.
This one is my favorite. Light, dimension and depth all in one.


C & G Design.


Saturday, October 25, 2008

Team Pink!

How Sweet the Sound posts all the Pink Saturday writers every week! If you would like to join the fun, click on over!
My contribution for Pink Saturday is my pink t-shirt. I had hoped to post good news but sadly my New England team lost in the seventh game of the playoffs and the Tampa Bay Rays are on their way to the World Series.



2004 brought a emotional year to the Red Sox team for they'd won the World Series breaking the Babe Ruth curse. Upon finding out he was traded from the Red Sox to the Yankees, with one shake of the finger, Babe Ruth vowed the Red Sox would never win another series, it had been 86 years.
Yep, packing the t-shirt away. There's always the other Massachusetts team...... C & G Design.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Goals


Okay.... starting NOW!


No, you haven't clicked on a stock car race update....You have clicked on my one and only thought.....get all the projects done.


I'm not sure how many things I have in the works, I just know....and feel...it's nice to have them caught up.


I'm setting a goal of one year...get everything currently in the making, done.


Try not to start too many new projects.....a reaaallly hard goal.


Move on something everyday!


Decide, make up your mind about miscellaneous pieces and parts, create and construct.


Have a inventory one can be boasting about!



It would be horrid if I had to get a real job. C&G Design.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

25 Piece Star Quilt

You know those items that get passed along, or you purchase a box lot, blindly? Kinda like a brief Christmas, when you get the chance to look at it all?

This is like that.....

Here's what I found......several different pieces of squares.

Thus I began a search on the Internet to see exactly how my pieces could fit together to make something beautiful. I'm not sure what the previous owner had in mind but with so many purple pieces I can only gather the plan was a crib quilt.

That's what mine is going to be, see the stitched piece in the background of the first picture?
Gee! My table is a mess!
Anyway, it's called 25 piece star, it's really 29 pieces because the points of the star are triangles stitched together to make the same size square.




The reason you see one star completed is, I needed to see if the star could be done! The cutter of my squares apparently did not use a rotary cutter, it was evident by the drawn lines on the fabric. No two squares were the same size, so no two stars would go together accurately, I got close, although less than perfect.
I began by train stitching my blocks together, you do this by allowing the feed dog of your machine to grab one pinned article after another.
It's kinda neat and if you can prevent yourself from overlapping your fabric, you will be able to work quicker and neater than sewing each one individually.

You could almost flip the rows together and stitch the other way, I didn't do this because my excess thread (where it needed snipping) wasn't that abundant. I sewed my rows together by pinning 3 and 2, then I stitched the two parts together. This is important in explaining the next photo.
Oops, I goofed! Part two (on top) needed to be taken apart. This was my second time doing this mistake.
But after stitching it together AGAIN! And placing it in the finished work area....I decided something didn't look right. Ay, iy, iy, my last stitching had another mistake that I'd copied from the one I'd finished before it! You can see little of the block in the other picture, at that point I really couldn't see this drastic error! I was careful using the little scissors, I made sure my aggravation with myself didn't effect me using my snippers, although.... I did alot of muttering while taking everything apart! LOL!
My squares made eight bigger block, I had only a few 2 inchers left over, grateful I could use them in case I needed to throw out a couple. I have only to iron and even my blocks up by trimming the sides a bit, A MUST for a square, non wavy, quilt.

On to the others.....C & G Design.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

How Raggedy Ann Came

I've written on How Andy came....it's only fitting I write about Ann and her introduction. I won't do the story justice but I'll try to capture the message while condensing the story.



One day Marcella was in her grandmothers attic playing with a spinning wheel til she grew tired of it, she curled up on a old horse hair sofa to rest.

It was quite dark back there, and in a old leather bag Marcella found a number of tin-type queer looking men and women in old fashioned clothes, there was a picture of a little girl wearing a long dress with pantaloons which reached her shoe tops. And then out of the heap she pulled out an old rag doll with one shoe button eye and a painted smiling face.

Forgetting everything else in the happiness of her find, Marcella caught up in the rag doll and ran downstairs to show Grandma.

"Well, well well! Where did you find it ?" grandmother cried "It's old Raggedy Ann! I'd forgotton about her. She has been in the attic for 50 years! Well! I will sew another button right away!"


Marcella watched the sewing while Grandma told how she played with Raggedy Ann when she was a little girl.


"Now!" Grandma laughed, "Raggedy Ann, you have two fine shoe-button eyes and with them you can see the changes that have taken place in the world! For Raggedy Ann, you have a new playmate and mistress now, and I hope you both will have much happiness together as you and I used to have!"


Then Grandma gave Raggedy Ann to Marcella, saying very seriously, "Marcella, let me introduce my very dear friend, Raggedy Ann. Raggedy, this is my grand-daughter, Marcella!" And Grandma gave the doll a twitch with her fingers in such a way that the ragdoll nodded her head to Marcella.


"Oh, Grandma! Thank-you ever so much!" Marcella cried as she gave Grandma a hug and kiss. "Raggedy Ann and I will have just loads of fun."


And this is how Raggedy Ann joined the doll family at Marcella's house, where she began the adventures of Raggedy Ann.





Special thanks to Project Gutenberg. C&G Design.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Folk Art-God's Eye

According to the Indians of Mexico, Central America, and Peru, "Ojo de Dios" or "God's Eye" will protect the home, all those who enter and keep away evil spirits.



A process of woven yarn on two pieces of straight wood, the Gods Eye was a craft I learned at summer camp.
Madame decided one rainy day, to seek and debark two long branches for her "God's eye." She brought a few smaller ones to school and even gave a finished one to the bus driver. Madame was asked to teach the Art class the ways to construct a "Ojo de Dios" or...as I told her, she could say.... AKA a simple "Cat's eye"
I don't believe the Art teacher didn't know what it was, but I'm glad Madame taught for the day....C & G Design.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Wax Dolls

My ultimate goal is to learn how to make dolls with mixed media, be it clay and cloth or wax over plaster, these characters become very life like.


My sister recently gave me a book on doll collecting, the first two pictures are from the book, specifically from the chapter on wax dolls. I don't find much information on wax construction and wax history so I was delighted to discover a whole chapter on the matter!
There are two kinds of wax dolls, poured and dipped. Poured dolls are the more expensive and the most beautiful. Wax as a medium gives rich, authentically natural skin tones with a translucent quality which cannot be achieved with bisque.
Poured heads are dated from the 18 century to early 19 century. A sculpture would be made, from which a mold would be taken, the wax was poured in the mold, sometimes taking 3 stages to get the right thickness. Lead and carmine was added for color (in fact I read the inventor of the wax doll died young due to lead posioning.) When the wax dried, the molds were removed and the finishing touches added, cut holes for inset eyes,and a slit head for ringlet curls.



Dipped dolls are those with a core, usually made from paper mache'. The body parts are dipped in melted wax thereby limiting the amount of wax. Both doll method had cloth bodies with half limbs made by the same method as the head. Dipped dolls were used on "pumpkin head dolls", those dolls with fancy molded hair.
I show you a somewhat blurry picture of the only wax doll in my collection. I purchased her as is, except over the time, as she sat on my entertainment stand, part of her face/hair fell off. You can see the crack to the right side. I glued the wax to the base and will eventually melt the crack back together. My core is chalk ware, making her a modern wax doll.
As you can tell, she has lower limbs of the same wax over plaster, but her torso is made of a flowered material and stuffed rather tightly. Help me think of appropriate attire for her!
She even has a molded wax necklace! I'm thinking a 60 ish outfit.
Being a soft medium, not too many wax dolls have made it through the decades, alot have melted or been desired by rodents.
I can attest to the frailness of my little lady, look what happened when I put my doll back in the hutch!


She snapped a high heel! C & G Design.


Drop on over to Kat collects, comment on her Pink Saturday for a chance to win some great PINK vintage ware!

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Little Drummer

I had to stick something in the set that was fairly easy to make (beside the candy cane). I like working with felt, it creates a clean, soft look, exclusive to the cushioning of felt.





My hubby had a shop towel roll that had a strong inner tube, that was my inspiration, little drummer was born.
It completed my series of six and I must say...these work together and we are very pleased with them.
These are my first, I still have four sets in stock.
And 4 sets of new ones. C & G Design.