Wednesday 30 January 2008
Little joys
Here are the two other rag dolls custom ordered with Malila, the native American. On the left is Sini, she is a Finnish girl of about 10 years of age and likes baking cakes and bread. On the right is the Chinese girl Chu-Hua (=Chrysanthemum). She learns foreign languages easily and she is energetic. She has one long braid of hair. The front hair is too short to stay in place, and I'm not happy with her face either. I'm not good at drawing, and these faces I make with a stencil with textile paints. When I was in third grade we made a rag doll at school. We had to embroider the face, and my poor doll ended up with pig's eyes and a mouth like a hooker's, and two dark red holes for a nose. Nobody can play with a doll like that. That's why I prefer the painted faces. The white doll is made of recycled sheets, the yellow fabric I have bought. All clothes are made of recycled or leftover pieces, including their underwear.
Yesterday was a good day. First, I received my first ever Etsy purchase, hand printed fabrics from Hollabee. Second, the February issue of Quilting Arts magazine was also in the mail. Third, my daughter Kaija found a new apartment she really likes. This is really the most important one of these, but they happened in this order. I'm planning to use my hand printed fabrics for shoulder bags I make for a local handicraft shop. Now is not yet the time, they are more like summer bags when I make them of linen or linen/cotton.
Monday 28 January 2008
Friendship Star
The squares between the stars are mainly leftover pieces from my other projects. I wanted to make this quilt the normal size 150 x 200 cm, but because of the thick wadding it is only 142 x 192 cm. I thought this would look nice with my oldfashioned lace sheets in my old iron bed. The only problem is that the bed is from the time before standards and it seems impossible to get a mattress short and wide enough. Of course there are other beds, and we even have a blue room. Maybe I make another blue quilt for the other bed there.
Sunday 27 January 2008
Hostage buttons are safe and sound
And so are the ones on the left here. In the third row from the left the two bottom ones you all know already, that's where this whole thing started. On the right are black buttons from by grandmother's fur coat and a big black button of glass.
And these are the final three beauties.
Can anyone really blame me for wanting to hold these? I mean, I have known these buttons since the time I started school, but they were not mine. I even know that my mother was most probably only pleased if I (or any one of my three sisters) wanted to look at them and arrange them, but it ist not the same. And I will be happy to see Kaija taking care of this lot, when the time comes. Just not yet. Not today, anyway. She will be the person who best knows how to appreciate the beauty and memories of all these buttons. And I think she will raise the future possible daughter of hers to follow in our footsteps in this question. I will, anyway. And I may even give something wonderful directly to her to keep, in a little over 30 years. When I'm a little older.
Thursday 24 January 2008
Hypothenuse
This is the new quilted shopping bag. The lining is the same green flower print as the middle part of the handles. The button is a wooden vintage button I have admired in my mother's button box since childhood. She gave them last autumn to me to give to my daughter. I didn't, but kept them myself, because I had liked them a lot longer. I let her pick the ones she wanted the most, and she will get the rest later.
I think I will give this bag to my mother next time I go visit her. She lives alone now since my father died a little over two years ago, so there is not too much shopping to be done. On the inside the bag has a zippered pocket for her purse and keys so that she only needs this bag to take care of. She is 91 years old now, and her memory is razor sharp. She is of course a little fragile and needs a walking support with wheels, but she can do her own shopping and "mind her own business". Last week when I phoned her she told me that she had been thinking of the hypothenuse. Why on earth that, I thought. Well, she needed to cross a square in town so she thought that the hypothenuse is always shorter than the sum of the sides of the right angle, so she decided to save some steps and walk from corner to the opposite corner for the taxi station. And then she needed to know which language this funny word comes from, and she checked it at home from her books. It's Greek. This little bag is also full of hypothenuses, I hope she enjoys them as well. And the beautiful button I have dared to use.
Wednesday 23 January 2008
Finished at last
The stripes have vanished. I have made other rugs with big plaids on the topmost layer and they look very nice, the pattern becomes a little blurred and beautiful.
Tuesday 22 January 2008
Houses
The tile coloured material I dyed myself with Dylon for this project, for some of the roofs and for the binding.
It was a little windy outside so the quilt refused to hang still. The edge is really straight and not curvy. When I put the quilt back on the bed I saw some stains, but if I don't tell where to look, you may not notice them. I will wash it someday.
Monday 21 January 2008
Little progress report
Today's picture is another Unicef doll custom made for my sister. This one is called Harri and his shirt is made of my son's old T-shirt and the trousers are a leftover piece of his anorak. The rag dolls are about 45 cm tall, just fine for small children to carry and hold. The idea is to make useful items at low cost, because the person who makes the doll will not be paid anything. The whole adoption fee goes to Unicef. The maker will receive from the buyer the postcard attached to the doll, so she or he will know where the doll has found a home. Usually the dolls are sold to strangers in Unicef campaigns or other occasions.
Saturday 19 January 2008
Räntää or wet snow falling
This doll is a native American and her name is Malila, "a salmon going fast upstream". I chose that name because my husband is a flyfisherman.The shirt is made of chamois leather, and I made a tiny woven pearl necklace for her. Normally they should not have any details which could be dangerous to little children, but this doll was another custom order for a woman in Germany. She wanted a collection of black, red, yellow and white dolls.
Thursday 17 January 2008
When you have too much material
This is how far I made it yesterday. More pictures after the weekend when I have more time to finish this little bedside rug.