Meet Beeple

After gathering a few scraps of fabric and some imperfect buttons, I decided to try to make my own "Alien" doll before trying to make one with my little nephew. For the most part, I just wanted to get a few of the dozens of mistakes I will be making out of the way before trying to look like I know what I am doing in front of a 6 year-old. Here is the progression of my little doll, made with no pattern, no instructions, no sewing machine, and a lot of lessons learned. Apologies for the poor photos, I am using my phone to take them.

I started out with a small scrap of  flannel, and  drew a little crooked smile. Pencils marked where the eyes would eventually go. I also used a blue Sharpie and colored the end of a Q-tip blue, then smudged on some blue 'rosy' cheeks. I have some liquid fabric stiffener, so I applied that over the face area with another cotton swab and let that dry. I traced a free-form alien blob on two different scraps of poly-cotton chintz fabric.  I forgot the like sides together rule, and cut around the shape, leaving a small seam allowance, then had to re-work things a bit so that it worked when I realized my 1st mistake.

My drawing only had one arm, not on purpose, I just was thinking of it as a drawing, and would have drawn another in front of the body. I added a second arm drawn on scraps and did the cut out, hand stitch, turn inside-out deal.  I did it with a pencil, forgetting I had a set of chopsticks in the kitchen. No cotton batting or Polyfil sent me off to the powder room to get a bag of 100% cotton swabs, which I pulled apart to make stuffing.

Next brilliant move, I cut a circle out of the front panel of the body and pinned the face piece behind it. I may do it differently next time. I hand stitched, in tiny stitches, all  around the face edge, you can almost see the row of white thread stitches below. I then went back with some matching embroidery floss and tried to do an "X" stitch pattern around both pieces, making it more secure and fray resistant.

Next step, I added two matching irregular buttons to the face where I had marked their placement.  I used the same embroidery floss, which made the eyes really pop.  You can see the face coming together nicely. 

Time for the big "sew". I placed printed sides together again, pinned, and then began the hand stitching around the line of the design. This took hours, particularly as I have some very bad Carpal Tunnel pain in both my hands. I took breaks and wore my wrist braces, but it was a challenge.

 I left a small, actually too small, hole on one side, and then turned the whole doll inside-out. Actually it was right sides out, but that is just going to confuse the matter. I used my chopstick to work on the "horn" and limbs, making sure they were fully turned out. They actually ended up so much smaller than I had anticipated. Lesson learned there.

It was now "stuffing" time. More time spent shredding cotton balls and then working the fluff into all the smallest parts.  This took quite a while, but I could finally see the doll coming into itself.

After fully stuffing the little critter, I started attaching the missing arm into place. I secured  it with tiny hand stitches in white thread first, then added more "X" embroidered stitches for fun.  I really like that the arm worked out to be the opposite pattern front to back. Closing up the last remaining edge and I was almost done.

Meet "Beeple 3", no idea where the heck the name came from, just popped into my head. Fully stuffed the horn curves over the forehead nicely all on it's own. The expression on his little face makes me smile too. This is my first complete "Art Doll" from start to finish with no pattern, plan, or guidance. I just dove in and went for it. I am likely influenced by the many amazing dolls I have come across in Etsy the last few weeks while writing my other blog Foraging For Fab.

When I was all finished, I noticed a tiny fraying hole in the back of Beeple. I decided to stitch, well 'darn' actually, it closed, and it made a great spot to place Beeple's ID tag. I made the tag from more stiffened flannel scrap, and then just wrote on it, punched a hole, and secured it to the back of the doll. I added an embroidery floss "bow" just to make it a little more polished.

I really like how my very first complete doll came out considering the fact that I faced quite a few challenges and forgotten rules. Not sure what I will do with him now, but he is going to go meet my nephew later today.  He measures 7" tall, so he is actually quite small, but since I had stitched the entire project, I think it was the right size to go with. Now I just need to make him some friends.

What Is Dolly Pieces?

[AKA The Post No One Will Read]

When I was a little girl, both myself, and my twin sister, would carry around small 'pieces' of a rag doll. It all started from, well, birth basically. When we were born, back in the very early seventies, we were born 4 weeks premature. At the time, twins were a rarity, particularly identical twins, so you can image the hub-bub on the Obstetrics Unit. Unfortunately, this all meant a very painful first few days for my mother, who wasn't allowed to hold us or nurse us because we were so small. I weight in at a whopping 4 pounds and 7 oz., my twin sister who followed just 3 minutes later was the winner with a weight of 4 pounds 11 oz.

In 1972, this was considered a reason to be placed in an 'incubator' [that's what they called them then. And to be bottle fed icky sweet formula in order to put as much weight on as possible. By the time my mother got to hold us, we were far to lazy to nurse, having gotten hooked on a fast flowing bottle, and she sadly had to stop trying after a few weeks, much to her dismay. While she was kept bed-bound on the nursing unit next to the other new mothers who were being brought their newborns at scheduled times for feedings, she received a lot of flowers and gifts for "the twins". One of these gifts, as I have been told, contained 2 cute little rag dolls.

And so we eventually were chubby enough to go home, and at some point were given these dolls to cuddle, and of course, bond with. Every child has some sort of security item, even if it is just their pillow, and for us these dolls were it. I am not sure what they were made of, but it was the 70s and they were decoration on a gift, so I imagine they weren't meant to go the full distance. Over time those dolls fell to pieces. Did my sister and I care, not so much as it turns out. Those "Dolly Pieces", as they were affectionately known, still filled our little hands at night and were tucked in with us at bedtime.

My Sister, Brother, Baby Sister, & Me at "Story Time" with my Mother. In My Sister's Hand [L] you can see a final remaining "Dolly Piece".

I have a vague recollection of calling for "Mommy" when one of these doll arms, or a leg, rolled under the bed at night. They simply had to be rescued. My sister and I carried around our own Dolly Pieces for quite a while it would seem. By the end, we had lost them, or they we soiled enough that my mother 'removed' them, but we would hang on till the very last piece was gone. We knew which ones were ours, and never got them mixed up, and I know we missed them when they were gone. Even holding a tiny piece of that doll made us feel good, made us feel safe, and that is why to this day I remember our "Dolly Pieces".

I have been dabbling in my arts and crafts endeavors ever since I was a child. My mother was a teacher before she had us, and she always encouraged creative play, lots of reading, using our imaginations, and we always had plenty of things to do with our hands. She made 'Baker's Clay' out of salt and flour and food colouring, today we call it "Play-Doh", but then it was an economical, homemade, green, cheap and easy thing to whip up and let your kids squish through their little fingers. My mother was always very artistic, as was my maternal grandmother, and actually turned down a chance to go to the Ontario Collage of Art [OCA] in order to follow her heart into teaching, and later, a speech correction, career. We always had crayons on hand to colour with, we finger-painted, we made things out of scraps of fabric, paper and boxes, we made our own fun. With four of us born in 5 years, I now had a brother and baby sister too, my mother managed to keep us all busy and happy with very little children's television available to her, a husband who was working 16 hour days trying to get a business off the ground, and most of her very small family living far away from Toronto. I really marvel at how she did that and still accomplished so much outside the home, more on that later.

When I got to high-school there was little surprise that art was my favorite class of all. I eventually managed to do well in almost all my classes, but I felt like my art classes [and drama class to some degree] was a place where it was fun time. Some of the projects we did were tedious and lacked creativity, but they had their purposes too, such as teaching us how to develop color scales in acrylic paint. When I got to some of my first summer jobs, I worked at a creative arts camp and eventually became the 'art teacher' at the camp. That basically means I was the one who planned all the art activities for up to 80 kids. I would order all the supplies, plan a range of activities for the five 2-week sessions for the summer, and never repeat a major project over the arc of the summer. Tie-Dye, Paper Mache, Candle Making, Beading, Macrame, we did all of those and dozens of other camp craft staples. I also made sure to do a little teaching too, though it seems silly now, showing the kids my own art or images from books on Picasso or Dali. I loved those summers, and the freedom of picking up any supplies I wanted and making anything I wanted.

I, too, had to make decisions about my future. Like my mother, I chose to forgo formal art training, and instead opt for a more practical and stable career in Nursing, my mother's reasons may be different but I was scared that I wasn't good enough to make a living off my art. I love my job, being a Nurse is the one of the most important things I have ever done, I overcame so many challenges on my way to becoming a nurse, I still face many in my life, but it was worth it. I may have chosen Nursing, but I never gave up my art. I had a small easel set up in my little bachelor apartment [read as one room]. I would work my shifts, and on my days off, I would paint in Acrylics or Water Colour. I needed a place to let things out, Nursing is a very stressful job, and the schedule is very intense. My work in particular, in High-Risk Obstetrics, was an emotional roller-coaster on a daily basis. It seems ironic, even to me, that I became an Obstetrics Nurse. I now know that 4 weeks premature for twins is pretty much the best case scenario, we consider it "Term" for a twin pregnancy. I also know that as small as we were when we were born, unless there was a clear issue with breathing problems or jaundice, that those "Incubators" [now called Isolettes], were not necessary, and keeping us away from our mother was such a cruel thing to do to her. The interference with her ability to Nurse us, giving us all that formula, was also something that would be unacceptable today. Hindsight, 20-20, need I say more?

One Of My 'Lady Portraits' Painted On Pottery. [awful lighting, I need a real camera.]

I would paint all sorts of pictures, most of them very personal and emotional, and they were all abstract portraits, always of women's faces. After several years, I became ill and wasn't able to work anymore, I moved out of the downtown area, back closer to my family, and in the process somehow misplaced most of my art supplies and any inclination to do anything much at all. I found other creative outlets, but I still would doodle all over my papers and notebooks, and any chance I had to do creative things with my nieces or nephew was a chance to get back into it. In the last while I have been re-connecting with that part of myself that needs to create. I have been crafting, teaching my nephew all sorts of things using my old art supplies, and back to putting my feelings into my work. I also use Polyvore to create Art Sets and Doll Sets, an online scrap-book of sorts, where you can create collages of items found all over the net with no need for paper or scissors. I find it tremendously therapeutic.

A Polyvore Set I Created, Entitled "When Pigs Fly".

Recently I recognized that something about working on a flat surface, just a piece of paper or canvas, wasn't giving me the tactile experience I wanted. I was visiting a local "paint-your-own" pottery shop and liked working in a different medium, holding a plate with an image I created on it in my hands was powerful. I can remember sewing a bit as a girl, maybe the early 80s. I would get those 'cut and stitch' pillow dolls at the fabric store. The ones that came on a yard of fabric, pre-printed, you cut it out and then stitched according to the directions. You stuffed it with some sort of foamy bits, and then viola, you had a doll. I can remember my brief time in Home Economics class when I was 12 years old, we were shown how to use a sewing machine and did basic seams. We also had an assignment to make a stuffed toy out of a kit, we could choose any kit we liked from a list. I must have driven my parents insane, asking for more money so that I could make 'another' one. I made a goldfish, a blue elephant, and a tan stuffed dog, at least the ones I remembered. I did them by hand because I was horrid with a sewing machine and broke dozens of needles in frustration. I was never able to pick up crochet, though I tried, and I can knit a very basic stitch, I can make a simple scarf of any length, but that is about it. My mother is a great knitter and can sew up a storm when she wants to, funny how I missed that gene.

My First Sewing Kit [Circa 1980]

I have been working on a new blog in the last few weeks, called Foraging For Fab, it features the work of other artists and some great vintage items too, and it is pure joy. I do love to write, and have a heck of a lot to say, apparently. [*scans up to the top of the post*] But looking for content for the blog has been wonderful for exposing me to the creative work of others. It made me want to see what I could do with my own hands too, and that is why I have started this little blog. I have started making, for lack of a better term, Dolly Pieces. It is just a start, the first night all I had in my apartment was a tiny travel sewing kit, a package of mens white cotton undershirts meant to be slept in but never opened, and a black Sharpie marker. I tried to make a doll's head. You can see the results for yourself.

My First Attempt At Doll Making. [Jan. 25/2012]

The next night I went to visit my parents and asked my mother for some sewing supplies, and she actually still had my original sewing kit from the early 80s. There is something very special about holding a piece of your art in the palm of your hand. When I showed a snap of that silly doll head to my 9 year old niece, she asked if I could make her a doll. How great is that? Tonight I saw my nephew, who at six tells me he is an "Artist" like me, and his mother [my twin sister], and my mother. He knows he has a talent for being creative, and I have spent so much time 'arting' with him that he really loves to play with all sorts of media and styles. We have plans to make 'monsters and aliens' dolls this weekend, also very cool.

Getting 'Arty' With My Nephew [Age 6]. With A Few Foam Plates And Tongue Depressors, Viola - Primitive Art Puppets! He Choose The Theme of "Zombie Circus Clowns", Is That A Great 6 Year Old or What!

So what will this blog be about? At this point, it's just a personal blog by a woman who has some time on her hands while she tries to get back into life. But it is something I want to do, I want to document my own progress, my ideas, and my evolution as an artist. So here goes nothing, or a little tiny something that you can hold in the palm of your hand and feel secure about. This is "Ketsy's Dolly Pieces".