Posts Tagged ‘doll house’

Felt Grass Rug

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009

My daughter does not discriminate by species, her doll house has many animal residents, and we decided they deserved a grass lawn in the attic.

Grass Rug

We cut a bunch of medium and light green triangles and stuck them down on a dark green rectangle with the needle felting tool. Flexible glue would have worked just as well I expect. Then we ironed some light fusible interfacing onto the back to make it a little tougher, and trimmed the edges with pinking shears to give it a slightly more grassy feel. For such an easy project I think it came out pretty well, and now the cow has something to eat during the tea parties. And, um, the pigs might have a new toilet. We’ll have to see how that one plays out.

What is this?

Friday, January 16th, 2009

Pattern
Can you tell what this is? It looks a little bit like a fighter jet. Or if you turn it sideways it could be a city skyline…

Stitched
How about now? It’s sewn up, but inside out.

Chair
Oh, it’s a chair!

The other day we were having a tea party in my daughter’s doll house, and there were not enough chairs. Yes, it was tragic, but one of the four thrifted Kelly dolls had to sit on a couch. Shocking. Something had to be done. So I mentally unrolled an arm chair onto a piece of paper. That was the easy part. Then I had to find the time and motivation to do all the cutting and stitching and finishing. I think that took about three hours.

I’ve been wondering recently whether my life would have taken a different direction if all those aptitude tests in high school had been a little more thorough. I had great math and spatial relation skills, so I went into engineering and computer science, because those were the obviously salable things that I liked. But what if they had asked me whether I liked to sew? I don’t think I ever considered that I could be one of those people who created patterns. But it’s full of geometry and space folding and figuring out how to put things together, which I love. But it’s also one of those scary and unreliable artistic professions, and I’m often not very brave that way.

Would anyone want to make one of these chairs? Should I put it on my list of tutorials to do?

More Felt Bottles, Paraplegic Bear

Sunday, October 12th, 2008

More Felt Bottles, 3/4 Done Bear

Last weekend we drove down to San Diego for my brother’s wedding, (where I played official photographer, and now oh my goodness I have too much RAW photo post-processing work to do, I think I need a new computer!), which is an 8 hour drive with a toddler apparently, so I had a little time to stitch some felt, when I wasn’t being mesmerized by the monotony of I-5.

Actually I think I got half of this done the week before, I can’t remember now. I have Mama brain. Anyway, I got through the bottles, and then when I was trying to convince Rebecca to let me work on more of the kitchen, she told me she doesn’t want a kitchen for her new doll house. It doesn’t need a kitchen, it needs more dolls. Right. Most of what it has in it, collected from around the house, are dolls. Small bear dolls, small stuffed animals, some plastic pigs, some wooden little people made out of dowels and masking tape… I have a doll loving girl though. So I diverted from the kitchen project, which really is for me, I know that, I just forgot… to work on a bear. And Rebecca picked the colors, so he is red and pink. Thus I’ll have to call him aka-chan, which is what you call babies in Japan, and translates something like little red. I guess because babies are small and red? I’ve forgotten. Chan doesn’t mean ‘little’ literally, it’s just a diminutive that you attach to kid’s names or when you are trying to make someone a cute nickname…

Anyway, it’s done except it has no legs yet. I needle felted the face and tummy and ears, My first needle felting ever was some wonky Finnish flags for a swap I spent too much time on but mailed off October 1st, so that’s off my list. But the needle felting was a lot of fun. I need a real felting base, right now I’m using one of my daughter’s hair brushes, which tends to move around when I felt since the brush bristles aren’t stiff enough. I’ve given myself two really good needle jabs so far. I think he’s coming out pretty cute though.

I think this reads as scatter brained as I am feeling. Also today is my birthday! Not that that means much to me anymore. Time to go make/figure out dinner, the troops are restless.

Clay Doll House Plates

Friday, October 3rd, 2008

I don’t often work with real clay, but after all the weddings when things were calming down, and we were still visiting my husband’s mother Jennifer, Rebecca wanted to play with clay. Conveniently Jennifer has a pottery studio in her basement, and she gives classes there to kids, so everything is all set up for child created mayhem.  Excellent.

So Rebecca got some time to poke and prod sticky clay, and I got some time to hand build some plates for her doll house.  They’re a little wonky since they are hand built rather than thrown on the wheel, but they looked a lot better after I got to put lots of little dots all over them.  I was inspired by one of the bowls that Jennifer’s friend had decorated for their ‘Empty Bowls’ charity auction, which reminded me how much I like tiny dots.  The dots on the plates that I did first came out too big, I like the square cups better.  I hope they fire okay.

Dollhouse Plates & Cups