Playing in my studio with my doll dress pattern

I know I'm a bit late in posting today, but a funny thing happened on my way to downloading my pictures from yesterday. I had forgotten to take the card out of the drive in my computer. It's a good thing the batteries in my camera died, or I would have nothing to show for the day. I didn't know at the time I took these photos with my old camera, they would be the only ones I would get all day.

In my never ending effort to experiment, I decided to audition a few things for my doll dress. In my other camera, I showed a closeup of the pattern I used. When Patty sent me the pattern that Margaret had sent her (and later offered to send me), she told me the the shoulders were a bit wonky. I didn't really notice it until I began to cut the pattern out. I did a bit of rework and got it ready to go. Then I cut two images from cardstock and began to see what went with the lovely fabric I had chosen for this project. Don't ask why I chose fabric, I guess because it's a dress. I promise, there won't be a whole lot more fabric in the rest of the doll dresses.

You can see the plastic bags I dyed in hopes of finding something that will work on plastic other than the fabric dye that Alisa Burke uses. I will be playing more with that today or tomorrow, depending on Dana's schedule and show what I've done so far in another post.


I have narrowed down my choices for the clothes and put the rest of the supplies back where they belong.


You can see my choices and the two different patterns I made, which have slightly different sleeve styles.


As an aside, I want to comment on my mug. I think it is only proper, since "T for Tuesday," the brainchild of Kimmie at Art in Red Wagons, is today. Check out Kimmie's blog for other players and their blog addresses. Now these ladies drink tea, find ways to use it in their art, and display it in gorgeous cups.

I have some similar gorgeous cups. I could play, but I'm not much of a tea drinker, preferring coffee instead. And when I'm in my studio, in fact, all the time, I use this old nasty looking mug. I take it everywhere I go. I even left it in a convention room in San Diego back in the mid-90s and it was still there when I went back for it. It has gotten ugly and well worn with age. It hasn't grown old gracefully! But I keep it and take it everywhere, even though I have two other brand new ones like it. Kathy even tells me she thinks I should replace it, but I keep saying at least no one will steal it if I leave it somewhere. When I'm in my studio, I want something that covers the drink, I don't want to worry if I drop it, and I don't want any errant liquid art supplies getting into it. So, you'll often see it in my photos.

Now you have it. That's my one and only contribution to T for Tuesday. And yes, I had tea in it when this photo was taken: a black loose leaf tea. As soon as I had consumed it, I was back to drinking coffee.


Back to art. I decided these were my finalists for the front of my dress. The "ticking" is actually some gorgeous tissue paper I've been saving for "that perfect project."


I couldn't just do one thing. I tore some strips of red and white plaid and sewed them to some red material.


I'm not sure you can tell, but this and the heart tissue paper are on the orange side of the red spectrum, unlike the hearts and ticking, which are on the pink side of the red spectrum. If you aren't sure what you're looking at, use a full spectrum light or go outside to test the pieces.


Remember the 4" of material I bought on Friday? I cut the edge (not sure what that's called, but real seamstresses would) from the material. Why is this so important? This is the VERY FIRST TIME I have ever used a rotary cutter to cut fabric. I normally tear all my fabric, but I just couldn't do that with this material. It's amazing when you know how much this material costs, you treat it so very differently. Since I had such a small width, I didn't need to get out my large cutting board, either.


I've also cut the material to about the size of the pattern I've made for the bodice.


As I waited for the iron to heat (yep, it's old and stained from craft projects), I sandwiched the wonder under, which didn't have backing, between the material and the card stock.


I got a bit carried away. While the iron was out and hot, I also backed some lace, this time with pellon, which did have a backing.


I took this photo before I ironed the material, but you can see I have both the front and the back ready to go once I have the fabric bonded to the card stock and cut to size. As I started to put them together, I realized that I had drawn the pattern on the "right" side of the tissue covered cardstock. It turned out, when I flipped the piece over, it was not symmetrical, so I had to cover the other side with the same tissue. It worked out well, though, because any little bits showing from behind will be pink and more closely match the front than stark white would have. I also used the pink tissue under the ticking, which I think made the ticking a bit too dark. Too bad, I'm not starting over!

Today's blog fell into my lap. Literally. I won a giveaway at BrittanButterfly's blog which is called Little Owl Arts. Was I ever blown away. I don't even remember how I got to her site in the first place, but I was so impressed and stumbled onto the giveaway when I was checking out her blog as a possible one to showcase on mine. She is a mixed media artist, gardener, and fantastic photographer. Her art is totally different from mine. I was blown away by her generous giveaway, but I was most impressed by the hand spun yarn. She celebrates "Five Questions Fridays," and I'm sure she would enjoy your playing, too.