Cool YouTube Photoshop tutorial re my blog's banner

I know that this may be getting a little meta here, but I wanted to share this awesome You Tube tutorial that my friend Mo made about how to create a blog banner.

She created my blog banner and she uses my blog as an example. Big Picture Workshops is a Seattle-based company that teaches folks how to use programs like Adobe Photoshop, After Effects and Apple Final Cut Pro.

I just love the voices that Mo gave to my aliens in her video tutorial!  It is a plush maker's dream to hear people get creative and playful with their little creatures.  At least, it is my dream.

Fingers are sore!

Yikes! My fingers are killing me from doing this long-and-short fill stitch on my German Do Not Enter embroidery - but the hand is done!

This is part of my hazard sign series of embroideries.  For this one I used two layers of fabric.  The top layer is Kona Cotton in white and I added a muslin layer behind it, which was recommended by my wonderful embroidery teacher, Rebecca Rinquist, from the Squam Art Workshop I attended last May. Rebecca was an inspiring teacher and I'm so excited that she has a blog about her amazing embroidery and other artwork. Check it out here: drop-cloth.blogspot.com/

For the big red circle around the hand and man, I'm going to try doing the fill stitch in back stitch. I think that will give it an unusual texture and will hopefully be easier on my fingers!

No radioactive material in these felties

Since I was a wee lass in New York City, I was always attracted to radiation signs and fallout shelter signs.  In fact, until I was an adult, I honestly thought that the fallout shelter symbol was an official symbol of the NYC public school system, because it seemed like every PS had this oddly comforting sign attached to the brick face.  Embarrassing, but true.

I often wear an embroidered radiation symbol button/brooch that I made and I'm working on a series of radiation and other hazard symbol embroidered pillows, so why not bring these happy little guys to my world of felt holiday ornaments?

I think that these are perfect for when elves and candy canes don’t fit your edgy holiday mood. I'm starting a collection of not-quite-right Christmas decorations.

I made these from a wool/rayon blend felt and embroidered them with a questionable “Ho” on each propeller, which sounds a little nastier then I'd intended. They are very lightly padded with quilt batting dangle from a string of black ric rac.

I like ornaments that acknowledge the darker side of Christmas... the alcoholic grandma, the brother-in-law with a secret, second family, the burned, inedible ham, the extra Valium a girl has to take to face her mother's magnifying glass... that kind of thing.

(My grandmothers had other problems, trust me, but they didn't drink, and they are long dead. As far as I know, my only brother-in-law has just the one family and I don't eat mammals, but you get the idea!)

UPDATED: These are now listed at my new etsy shop that I started with the hugely talented Juline, OJDesignsNC.etsy.com!

Also, OJ Designs will be at the craft market at the Durham Farmers' Market on Saturday, Nov. 13th.

Woot!

The Evolution of Christmas Aliens!!

Been playing around with wool/rayon felt, making a new set of holiday ornaments. These Christmas Aliens make me oddly happy.

Here is a little about their design...

It started as a very rough, random sketch in my sketchbook.

I made the first one with very similar proportions to the drawing, but I didn't like it. It looked too misshapen to me somehow.

So I redesigned the head and eyes to make them much larger and cuter.  I added a bow for the girl alien. I liked the way that these turned out.  Very cutesy and sweet aliens.

Although I really like these sweet aliens, my original intention was something more sinister and creepy, so I made the eyes a little smaller and less cute, embroidered humorless mouths and made them silver collars with red buttons.

Now these guys are the menacing aliens I'd originally intended!  I will continue to make sweet aliens and explore threatening aliens and various colors of wool/rayon felt and with various collars and accessories. I'm thinking purple and blue aliens, among others.

Next up: Create a radiation sign felt ornament!  My obsession with the radiation sign will not allow me to work on anything else until I at least make an attempt.

Hex Quilt Photos on a rainy day

It is dreary and raining today.  I took a few photos of the current state of my hex quilt.  Luna is always demanding to walk all over it.  I can't imagine making anything without her sticking her snout or paws into the scene!  Last night she pawed a baby sweater that I was knitting, causing me to drop a couple of stitches.  Monstrous beast!

I ordered some more fabric from one of my favorite fabric bundle sellers on etsy, starlitnest. I bought the charm pack of Anna Marie Horner's Innocent Crush collection.

They look so delicious and I can't wait for them to arrive!

Here are a few close ups of some of the hexes.

Back to stitching!

Just stitching

I'm working on a huge, hand-stitched hexagon quilt that I started in May 2010.  I expect to finish is in 2012, if I'm lucky!  I'm participating (in a very laid back way) in the Hexagon Charm Quilt-Along started by the blogger Texas Freckles on her blog and in the Hexagon Charm Quilt-Along flickr group.

My incredibly talented friend JC inspired me to try creating a quilt by making an amazing quilt from 1-inch hexes that she somehow managed to finish (including hand quilting it!) in just a few months.  You can see photos of JC's gorgeous finished piece here.

JC is a hugely prolific and wide-ranging crafter.  She makes adorable felt jewelry of cool things like 45 records and sews quilts and knits... just to name a few of her talents!  And her house is filled with the most whimsical, cleverly designed pieces that she makes and acquires.  Clocks with vintage milk bottle caps instead of numbers, coffee tables with maps decoupaged on top.  She is such an inspiring soul!

JC and I swapped fabric scraps and embroidered special hexes for each other's quilts.  Here is a photo of a radiation sign hex I embroidered for her.

My friends Lisa and Katherine also swapped fabric and sent fabric scraps.  I love that I have fabric from so many of my friends sewn into the quilt, which I hope to, some day, hang in my living room.

Strangely, I'm not in any rush to finish the piece.  I'm still collecting fabric, slicing up squares and paper piecing the quilt.  So far I sewn together over five feet of 1 1/2 inch hexes.  I have a design plan, including a charcoal stripe with embroidery and a black & white border, but I'm taking my time with it.  I'm thoroughly convinced that the stitching is healing me by forcing me to slow down and take tiny steps.  2010 has been a rather dreadful year.  This quilt is one of the few highlights.

I think I'll just post photos from the quilt over the next few days.  But for now, back to stitching up these addictive little hexes!

Mrs. Claus’ Date Night Handbag Ornaments

Making ornaments is one of my favorite parts of the Christmas season.  I’m calling these "Mrs. Claus’ Date Night Handbag."   It is a very simple pattern that I wrote up 2 years ago that I call Ornamental Joy Tiny Handbags.  I’ve made this pattern in all types of yarns and with all types of embellishments.  (I’ll post photos of the various versions over the next few days.)  Mrs. Claus doesn't always want to be a frump.  But she is a hard working woman, so she never ventures forth without her "Naughty or Nice" notebook.

Fortunately for those of us who are on the wild side, Mrs. Claus enjoys drinking rich, red, Italian wines (vino nobile di Montepulciano is her favorite) and, despite her ample frame, is a bit of a lightweight.  She is a happy drunk and after the first glass and a half, she simply adores every person she sees and we all get our names scrawled into the “Nice” side of her notebook.  

Forgive me for this hopping around among the holidays, but back to Halloween… Rico and I carved these faces into our pumpkins and presented them to my parents.  Mine is the friendly face on the left. (Looks like one of my creatures!) Rico’s is the deranged face on the right.

Today we roasted the seeds and OH MY, I’d forgotten how yummy freshly roasted pumpkin seeds are! We soaked the seeds overnight in salt water, let them dry for a day and then roasted them for 45 minutes at 300 degrees in a mixture of butter, salt and garlic.  Shazam!!

Happy Halloween, freaks and ghouls!

A quick shot of the pumpkin patch and a little needle felted candy corn brooch I made.  JC sold a bunch of these for me at an arts education conference last weekend.  Next Halloween I’ll have to make more! 

I’m in such a strange place… it feels like every day is Halloween in my life at the moment. 

Oh well.  Stay calm, carry on.

Toygasm Dream Video

Certain places are Mecca for the plush toy maker in me. If you’re lucky enough to be in the Seattle area and need to get your toy fix on (both handmade and insanely cool Japanese designs) get to Schmancy.

Rick, Mo and I went to the Plush You 2009 opening last October and it rocked my plush-making world to its core to see all of the inventive, playful and crazy plush toys from some of the most creative makers in the world dangling from every surface of the shop. (Check out their photos from the link above.) Who knows… maybe someday I will submit my work to a Plush You show!

Check out this promotional video from Schmancy. If you want to know me better, this is what my dreams look like.

And in my nightmares I'm trying to fit into a Barbie bikini.

Getting lost in my own gray town

Today the world was gray, rainy and oddly warm. The air felt like mushroom soup. I got hopelessly lost in a town that I’ve lived in for 10 years.  So profoundly lost that I wound up in a huge cemetery that I’ve never seen before and hope to never see again.  The sense of disorientation was almost overwhelming.

Imagine this: Instead of being alone and surrounded by muted grays of the tombstones and the clouds, you are awash in color, radiating red or orange or fuchsia from the core of your tiny body out, immersed in a sea of your vibrantly colored friends.

That is what these needle felted bulbs must feel when then roll around together.  Can you imagine their intense joy and sense of connection to each other?

Even adults need colors and toys.

What the heck is "stitch, stab & scrawl?"

I know... Stitch, stab and scrawl... a little odd sounding...

Thought I'd create a simple blog to collect my adventures in toy making and other creative endeavors! And to make my toys and other objects, I do a lot of stitching (sewing, embroidery, knitting), stabbing (needle felting) and scrawling (sketching designs, doodling, writing about the creatures I make).  See, not as fearsome as it first sounded, huh?

Here is an example of two creatures who I made with lots of stitching, stabbing and scrawling.

Meet Shabadoo & Shabadee, the demented bunnies of 2009.  They are sisters living on separate coasts.  Shabadoo lives with my friend Lisa in Portland and Shabadee lives with me in Durham.  Huge fans of The Beastie Boys "Hey F*ck You!" from which they got their names.

Shabadoo & Shabadee have knitted and felted bodies. Their heads are needle felted and ears are wet felted. They have various embroidery on their matching frocks and paws. And they sport art shrink paper images of their own skulls.  They are tough girls.

Two of my girls!