handmade

I like to make things. As long as I can remember, I've liked making things.

Way back in the 1970s when I was a young woman with a toddler, I was what we now call a stay-at-home mom. (We didn't call them stay-at-home moms back then. But, that's a story for another day.) Consequently, I had lots of time to make things. I crocheted edges on sheets and pillowcases, baby blankets and tea towels. I embroidered pillow tops for the sofa and dresses for my toddler. I sewed, too, on an old Singer portable sewing machine that came from my grandmother by way of my mother. One summer my neighbor taught me how to macramé and I made plant hangers galore! Another friend lead me to the discovery of  bargello and I simply loved making pillows using some variation of the flame stitch. I think it was the rhythm of the pattern that I found to be soothing. I must admit that there's something about the texture of fabric and thread in my hands that makes me feel at peace with the world.

As a doll collector, I have long been intrigued by those who make 1/6 scale things for their dolls. I drool over the photos of the finished products on Pinterest and shop on Etsy for dolly things. Then, one day not too long ago, quite by accident, I stumbled on Simplystella's Sketchbook about 1/6 scale magazine holders. The photos on her blog were really cute, so I downloaded the PDF, printed them on index stock, cut them out and made little 1/6 scale magazine holders. I was quite proud of myself. Then, I realized I needed 1/6 magazines to put in the holders!

I searched for 1/6 scale magazines on Pinterest, but didn't particularly like the few things that I found, so I did a Google search for VOGUE and Vanity Fair covers (as I am a faithful subscriber of both publications) and I created my own little magazines!

My little magazines, pictured here, have inside pages, but they are blank and for "show" only. All the cutting, gluing and assembling seemed challenging enough without inside printed pages, so that was the path I chose for this little project. And, I didn't finish them all in one sitting either; it took a few days, working on them here and there.

Today I finished my little 1/6 scale magazines, put them in the little 1/6 scale magazine holders and took a picture! And, I must say, I think they're pretty good for a beginner!

I'm thinking I'm going to need bookshelves for my magazine holders, so, I'll be poking around in my husband's workshop looking for scrap lumber. Maybe I can get him to help me with that part of it.

I've decided that I will make more of these, and, perhaps the next batch of magazines will have inside pages.  It'll take a little more time, but it just means the fun will last longer. And, that's really the best part of "handmade," isn't it? The doing?

How many pins is too many?

Don't look at me like that.
I know it sounds like a really dumb question.

I'm talking about Pinterest of course. Pins on pin boards. How many is too many?

I was tooling around Pinterest today. I get a weekly email showing me boards I might want to follow. The message is assembled based on my pins and 'likes' on the site, and, I don't mind if they keep track of that kind of data. Considering the kinds of things I pin, I think it's pretty harmless. We're talking about art and fashion dolls, clothes and kitchens, favorite movies and Marilyn Monroe. These are the same things most every other pinner on Pinterest is interested in. I'm sure of it. A flock of folks obsessed with pinning. Why it has become a twenty-first century sport!

Sampler Blanket from Ravelry

So, you're probably wondering why I ask this question. Okay. I'll tell you.

Labores De Aguja. It means "needlework" in Spanish. A lovely needlework image was offered under the "Boards To Follow" section, so I clicked on it. The name of the board was "Labores De Aguja" and there were 9,572 pins. Nine thousand, five hundred and seventy two.

Holey mackerel! It would take two days to look through 9,572 pins!

This got me to thinking about my own pin boards. I'm not in a profession that would make Pinterest useful to my business. I simply love dolls, fashion and art, and any combination thereof. However, I had recently capped my board, "Lookbook As I See It" at 1,000 pins. I realized that was enough. I even considered that it is too many.

Then, today, while researching for this blog post, I saw that my "Type & Art, plain & simple" board has 1,098 pins.

Oh, yeah. Clearly, I need to sort through them and create new boards that are more specific. Maybe one for "Type" and one for "Art." I have one dedicated to "Watercolors" and it has definitely made it easier to find an item than, say, having to pore through a thousand pins. Yep. I think I'm gonna do that.

I don't know if other folks use their pin boards for reference. I often refer to my "Good Eats" board for those saved recipes. And, my board, "My Style & then some..." has been a lifesaver when shopping. I always have to show the stylist what I want at Supercuts because I don't always get the same stylist. And, I pin clothing purchases so I can refer to them when I'm shopping if I want to match color or some other little detail. I actually use them.

Who knew?

So, as I question my own use of Pinterest, I realize I must also edit my "Fashion Dolls" pin board. That one has more than 1,600 pins, and that's waaayy too many! How am I going to divvy those up?

Well, I guess you can figure out what I'm going to do during my down time today. Yep.

Sift and sort my doll pins. It's sort of like pulling weeds. It's an opportunity to bring order to something in my life, and considering there are so many things I have no control over, it's nice to be able to do this and see the results.

Enjoy your day!

And, hey! Thanks for stopping by!

I've changed how I use Pinterest ...

I am a doll collector. If you've visited this blog more than once, you may know that.

I started with Barbie.
Loved her as a child.
Love her as an adult.

Then I met the Asian dolls, Momoko, Misaki, Susie and Kana!

Which lead to Jason Wu's Integrity Toy Company where Fashion Royalty and Poppy Parker dolls are created in very limited numbers.

Not to mention the 16-inch dolls Gene Marshall and Tyler Wentworth.

Clothes. Accessories. Furniture to scale. Cars. Books and Magazines. Shelves of dolls. And, more shelves filled with my girls! A room dedicated to my hobby.

BUT.
You see, the thing about being a collector of anything is that you want to meet other collectors who collect the same kind of thing you collect.

Got it?

Doll collectors are an enthusiastic group for the most part. They enjoy sharing their collections and being with people who enjoy talking about dolls. Up until the turn of the century, we would meet at doll shows and club meetings and conventions, but today, the doll show has all but disappeared from the collectors' social landscape, doll clubs come with their own politics, and conventions are few and far between and very expensive. This change in how doll collectors congregate is a direct result of the internet.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, doll collectors began turning to ebay to purchase the dolls of their dreams. This online marketplace decimated doll shows and took away the most rewarding way collectors had to connect to each other. Then, just when we had adjusted and become accustomed to being lonely doll collectors again, social networking appeared.

It took a while ... but, we found each other again ... and, then some! Which was my answer to gaining "followers" on Pinterest!

I gain from 2 to 5 new followers a day now because of my doll pin boards. And, the movement is growing! Doll collectors have been sharing on Flickr for years, and, yes, you can create sets and collections with your photos. But, it's not the same. Somehow Pinterest brings collectors together in a new way.

Last year, shortly after I discovered Pinterest, I was, for reasons I cannot explain, obsessed with the site and the process of pinning. {I even write about it here.}

For nigh onto a month, I did it for hours each day. The Android ap wasn't yet developed, but I found a way to pin on my smart phone. {Yes, I was ecstatic when they DID create the ap!}

About two months into it, I created my Fashion Dolls board. I thought it would be fun to create a place where I could have stuff that I liked! A couple of months after that, I saw I had a lot of Barbie Fashion Model Collection (BFMC) pins, so I created a board dedicated to them. Then, Vintage Barbie & Friends followed, along with Momoko and Poppy Parker and, more recently, Barbie Basics. Just like a small child, I found the process of sorting these images and web site links very satisfying. And, it was free!

My most useful pinboard is "handmade."  I like to knit and crochet, do scrapbook and journal stuff, so Pinterest has become an especially good way for me to keep up with those crochet sock patterns I wanted to try and those journaling ideas I had admired and felt inspired by.

And, the time did I arrive when I actually USED my pin board as a RESOURCE! Over the weekend, I was working on a granny square afghan I've been making for forever. (Or, so it seems!) I had pinned several different methods for joining those granny squares, so, it was a pleasure to not have to wrestle with my 3-ring binder of patterns or folded sheets of paper buried in my yarn basket to find the one I wanted. It was right there on my "handmade" pin board.

I introduced my darling husband to Pinterest, but not because he's into fashion or landscape design ideas like me. Instead, it became useful when we were doing work on our kitchen. It provided me with a forum to share with him on line as we shopped for materials and design ideas.

He has since discovered it is a handy way for keeping track of recipes. He likes to cook and bake and he's always on the lookout for new ideas for the kitchen! He has a 7.5-inch tablet and sets it on the counter just as my mother and grandmother used to do with their recipes written on 5" x 3" index cards.

My how times have changed, huh?

So, where I used to be obsessed with how many pins and followers I had, today, Pinterest has become a genuine resource for me, and, I think, for others who share my interests. Especially doll collectors! We're a special breed and we've found a new way to connect! Maybe that's what the Pinterest people intended all along!

Creativity Run Amok: President's Day Project

I met "Alpaca Granny" through her blog http://northstaralpacas.blogspot.com/ and enjoyed reading about the daily challenges of a retired school teacher turned alpaca farmer. Eventually I was lead to her etsy shop, North Star Alpacas, where I couldn't resist making a purchase of 104 yards of hand dyed, hand spun Alpaca Merino Mohair yarn from Indy, the alpaca pictured below!

When the yarn arrived, I was in love with it. It came packaged in a glassine envelope with a lavender sachet tucked inside and a tag with Indy's photo on it and a complete product description. It wasn't a lot of thread, so whatever I was going to make with it would have to be inspired. I put it in my yarn basket and over the past year I have taken it out every now and again and felt the texture, inhaling the lavender, wishing for creative inspiration.

Then, President's Day 2010 arrived. I had the day off from work and bemoaned the continued chilly weather we've been experiencing here in sunny, south Florida. I do so love to work in the yard, but that wasn't an option this holiday. The weather report said it was going to be cold all week, with night time lows in the 40s. And, that, my dear reader, is "unseasonably cold" by Florida standards. And, it was this that inspired me to use the beautiful hand dyed, hand spun thread I'd purchased.  I was guessing when I started crocheting ... some might call it "designing." I had no pattern; just my knowledge of crochet to guide me. I used a size N hook, something I'd never done before! My! But, it's a big hook! By Tuesday morning, when I'd finished my coffee, I had a beautiful neck scarf to keep me warm for the rest of the week!

When I got to the office, I was once again inspired to take photos, and when I saw them on the computer screen, I knew they belonged in my blog!  This beautiful scarf is excellent at keeping the back of my neck warm in the harsh winter wind. And, the knowledge of where the fur came from combined with knowing who dyed it and spun it into thread for me makes my creative spirit feel warm as well.

Now, it's nearing the end of the week and the meteorologists are saying we'll see temperatures in the 70s by Saturday.  Meanwhile, I'm enjoying my hand dyed, hand spun, hand crocheted scarf!  Ah! The joy of creativity! Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!

Creativity run amok!

I was browsing blogs on Monday, January 4, hoping I might find some way to cultivate my New Year's resolution to be more creative and I stumbled on a blog that showed a calendar similar to the one I've started in the photo here. I was so inspired by it, yet I forgot to bookmark the blog. So! An apology is in order, but I don't know who to send it to! Whoever that artist is: THANKS A MILLION ZILLION! I'm really digging the daily 5 minutes to work on my calendar. It's definitely helping to cultivate my creativity!!

And, as if that weren't enough! With all this cold weather and sitting by the fireplace with its burning embers each evening, I've been crocheting granny squares from this wonderful Lion Brand Homespun (http://www.lionbrand.com/) yarn I picked up on clearance last year! I have enough for an afghan, so an afghan I'll make! I haven't crocheted an afghan in years! Oh! What fun it is to sit by the fire and crochet! The meteorologists are saying we're going to get yet another blast of Arctic air tomorrow, so, at this rate, I'll have it done in no time! Or, at least by spring!

Time for a litte fun stuff ...

Here's my first crochet project for my beloved Barbie doll. There is a crochet thread on the Barbie Fan Club Bulletin Board and patterns are shared among members. This turned out so much better than I imagined it would. After all, I hadn't done any crocheting in years!

Then, I found a dress pattern on the BFC board and crocheted it in white. I hadn't planned on it being usable. I figured I'd make all the mistakes so I could make a "real" one. Ha! It turned out quite grand, don't you think? I'm thinking about adding a crocheted flower and maybe a wide belt ... and, then ...

... these beautiful colors are for a color block dress pattern for Barbie that I recently found!

I had forgotten how much fun this could be!