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I was an International Model

Ok, before you burst into hysteric laughter, I'll give you the whole story. When I was a kid, my mother and I spent about 3 years living in Mexico City. I was a reasonably cute (albeit extremely fair) blonde haired, blue eyed American girl. This had the tendency to get me a bit of attention because blonde hair was considered good luck. I was approached at my elementary school to see if I was interested in doing some modelling. It sounded great to me, as I would get out of school periodically to go do photo shoots, and I had a makeup man! Long story short, I ended up doing a shoot for a new housing development as part of a little nuclear family: father, mother, son, and daughter. Here is the full sheet spread (with apologies for the quality - this is newspaper that is over 25 years old and has been folded for a long time):

Yes, that's me pretending to fish:

me squinting my eyes on the speed boat:

and me playing ball with my "family" on the lawn:

I was too young at the time to understand the social/cultural implications of them choosing an extremely white, blonde haired, blue-eyed model for a Mexican advertisement. I apologize, long after the fact, for having been a part of supporting an unatainable physical appearance for most Mexicans - Barbie was bad enough!

So, all of this to introduce my submission for Loobylu's March's Month of Softies. She is based on the photo of me wearing that awful bikini (haven't worn one since!).

Her body is made of muslin, with embroidered facial features, worsted wool hair, and a cotton stripe bikini with green ribbon ties. Her arms and legs are joined with buttons and heavy cord, so there is some poseability. Here she is posing in a tree:

I have enormous admiration for doll makers after having attempted this. She was, without a doubt, the most difficult crafty thing I have ever attempted. I have definitely learned that my sewing machine, although a very good one, does not like to sew pieces of fabric that are the size of a postage stamp; rather, it thinks these are a snack and would rather eat them! I also wonder how doll makers stuff their dolls so well (Rosa: how do you do it?!?). Here is another shot of her playing ball:

Overall, she doesn't really look quite like what I had envisioned, but now that I know how hard she was to make, I'm ok with the end result. Things to work on: embroidery, sewing tiny things, better yarn hair. I'm most proud of the way her arms and legs were attached, because this was quite tricky, but they turned out great.

This 'n That

Hot on the tails of Denyse Schmidt, Jonathan Adler now has a line for Crate & Barrel. I've long been a fan of his designs, so I was pretty excited when I first saw the collection.

However, after thinking about it for a while, I'm not sure that I want to eat from dishes that have such a high relief pattern. Seems that all the food is going to get caught in the negative space between the dots or the ridges. I guess I would have made a border relief design, but kept the center of the dish flat. The patterns are great for chargers or for the outside of the bowls... What do you guys think?

This platter, on the other hand, is gorgeous. How is it that brown goes so well with any other color...

On a completely unrelated side note, those seeking inspiration need look no further than the New York Public Library Digital Gallery. The gallery includes over 275,000 digital images taken from its historic collections of books, photographs, and ephemera. The quality of the online images is good, and the breadth of the subject matter is impressive. You can also save up to 50 images for later viewing by adding them to your "Selections". After a very quick, random tour, I found gorgeous images like these:

I'll stop there, but let me assure you that there are hundreds more like this. And, I just picked from the graphic arts pieces... There are also lots of historic photographs (including a selection of NYC photos by Berenice Abbott), architectural documents, maps, science illustrations, book covers, etc. Have fun!

Fabric = Money

When I was in graduate school, back in what seems like a former life, I had the extraordinary opportunity to do research in remarkably remote parts of the world - areas very few non-locals will ever see. The first such research experience was in Madagascar, where I was conducting the pilot study for my dissertation. While there, I became fascinated with the clothing worn by the local women. They would take locally produced fabric, fresh off the bolt, and wrap it around themselves in the most ingenious ways (locally called a lambawani). Not only was the fabric functional as clothing, but also as baby carrier, food transporter, and overall multipurpose tool. I decided to snatch up as much of this fabric as I could from the small local markets.

The field study for my dissertation took place in an extremely remote area of the Democratic Republic of Congo (it was still Zaire when I was there), off a tributary of the Congo River. Here, the fabric was sometimes worn in similar ways to that in Madagascar, but it was also often sewn into blouses, worn with a simple piece of fabric wrapped to make skirt on the bottom. Again, the fabric was used as an extension of the body to carry and support various things. This particular region was so remote that paper money was largely useless to the local people - they had no where to spend it. A barter system was the primary method to conduct business, and the most valuable object to barter with was fabric. New fabric could only be purchased in larger towns, the closest of which was at best a 2 day journey by dugout canoe. Needless to say, the local women were thrilled when new fabric was brought to the village to trade for food and services. So, before we left for our remote study site, we stocked up on a wide variety of fabric in Kinshasa, the capital city. Once a week during my stay, the local women would come to our camp loaded with fresh fruit, vegetables, bush meat, fish, eggs, and anything else they thought we might be able to use. We traded our bolts of fabric for the week's supply of food, and both sides were quite happy with the exchange. Once again, I brought home some of my favorite fabrics from that trip.

Here is some of my collection:

I probably should have purchased some of the more garish fabrics so that I would have a record of them. African fabric is often used to convey a moral message (i.e., I saw many fabrics with a print of condoms promoting safe sex), advertise a product, or relate some other message - not too different from our ever-present t-shirts.

If folks are interested, I could try to dig up some of my photos showing the local women and how they dressed. Their hair styles were also very creative, often taking the better part of a day to complete.

Recent Discoveries

A day too late, I learn about the existence of Kinder Eggs (via My Paper Crane) - hollow chocolate eggs that are filled with cute little toys. I also found that you can order the toys by themselves (chocolate removed), and they come in a cute little egg-like capsule. We are trying to avoid candy as much as possible in our house, so the Kinder toys will certainly be making an appearance next year.

I also discovered two children's book illustrators who are new to me. Alain Gree is a French illustrator and author who published primarily in the 1960s and '70s. His work is really gorgeous and is in some ways stylistically similar to another of my favorites, Mary Blair. Here are some of the Gree book covers:

Russian author Eduard Uspensky and illustrator Leonid Shvartsman created the adorable Cheburashka, who later became a stop motion animation film star. Apparently, there is quite a revival of Cheburashka going on in Japan right now, as the character appeals to the kawaii culture. A search on Amazon Japan yields a couple of books and a dvd:

Those of you who pay attention to such things already know that Chebarushka was the official mascot of the 2004 Russian summer Olympic team. Now you can purchase all kinds of Chebarushka items as a result of the Japanese fascination with the little fuzzy guy.

Happy Easter!

Hope everyone has a wonderful day today, whether or not you are celebrating Easter! Here are some early images of our morning:

Brynne meets Poppy for the first time, and gives her a vigorous hello:

Here comes Peter Cottontail, hopping down the bunny trail:

Yes! I got the cupcakes made and the Easter eggs dyed!

We also made two types of deviled eggs (basil pesto and cilantro walnut), but they aren't very pretty, so no picture... Now we're off to the park to let Brynne break in her Easter "bucket" - the Easter bunny brought her a huge batch of sandbox toys! 

King Pod Rocks!

I got a great package from Amy at King Pod today! I had ordered a cute little bib for my messy nephew, and Amy threw in one of her beautiful wool felt needle cases and a beautiful Dewey Howard card.

I just love the fact that there is such a wonderful, friendly crafting community out there. I have to say that you're all a lot of fun to chat with, and I feel as if I'm making new friends for the first time in a long while. So, thanks for hanging out and having the patience to get to know me!

Take a Bite of the Easter... Cross?!?

Not sure what I think about this, but it's interesting to ponder at least. Apparently, Russell Stover is marketing the chocolate Easter cross in select stores across the USA. Here's the article. According to the article, the crosses are especially intended for the Latino community, with Spanish text being dominant on the packaging and the cross filling made up of dulce de leche, a popular sweet often made with goat's milk and sugar. Indeed, I spotted the chocolate crosses at our local Target store yesterday. (Let me know if you want one, and I'll go pick some up to share.)

So, we all have the opportunity to bite off the ear of the hollow chocolate bunny, or the stake of an oozing cross. Is this a good thing?

I'm late! I'm late!

After reading about several folks taking breaks, I'm tempted to do the same thing. All of a sudden, everything is coming to a head, and time seems an even rarer commodity than ever! I still haven't done anything for Easter - need to decorate eggs, make cupcakes, get Brynne's basket together, make deviled eggs, and go travel to see family in the valley (yes, the famous San Fernando Valley of Valley Girl fame!) on Sunday. I haven't yet started on my Month of Softies project, although I have all the materials, so I really need to get hopping (I know, bad pun!). And, weekend after this we'll be in Vegas to celebrate Jerry's grandmother's 85th birthday. In the meantime, I also have a couple of swaps I need to wrap up... Phew, I feel exhausted just thinking about it all. Plus, my work schedule is suddenly heating up a bit more than I would like...

So, all this to explain why this post is pretty short and simple. I just thought I'd share some fun fabric I've picked up in the past week. Not all of it has an intended purpose yet, but that will come! Here's what I grabbed from the eQuilter green color palette sale:

and here is some more fun stuff that I got from a great local fabric shop:

I really love this local fabric shop if for no other reason than I seem to be the only one who buys the contemporary fabrics! Perfect for me!

Another Great Mail Day!

Wow! I could really get used to mail like this! Yesterday, this arrived, packaged in a hand decorated envelope from Portugal:

 

Yes, it is indeed number 144 of Rosa's beautiful handmade dolls! I love the amazing Alexander Henry fabric (must find some...), and she's appliqued the flower eyes and a soft red heart. If you don't already know of Rosa's beautiful creations (and who doesn't?!?), please go check out her blog. Although it's written in Portuguese, the pictures of her creations speak for themselves.

As you can see, Brynne has already adopted her new doll and is showing her the love:

Now, we just have to come up with the perfect name... What do you think of Sophie?

Poppy is Here!

Poppy arrived yesterday, dreaming of California sunshine. Unfortunately, we have been getting hit with rain as hard as some of you have been getting hit with snow (this also explains the terrible photos!). Poppy seemed a bit down at first,

but when I told her that Brynne couldn't wait to see her, and that we usually have warm, sunny days, she seemed to perk up a bit.

Other fabulous goodies joined Poppy for the long journey:

awesome bunny sidewalk chalk, an Aranzi Aronzo postcard, a cute little drawstring bag, adorable kawaii stationary and pencil, awesome San-x food stickers, two pieces of wonderful vintage fabric, some vintage heart buttons and a kitty button, and one of the famous pincushions with custom pins! Whew! What a surprise of Wee Wonderfuls goodness! Thanks Hillary! Hopefully this is the first of many goodie swaps!