Dotee with a fancy button

It's been over 5 years since I last made a dotee doll, or participated in a swap on swap-bot.

I don't know what brought me back to them, but I really enjoyed taking part in the "Dotee with a fancy button" swap.

I had a lot of fun in the details, including the beaded/laced bodice and weaving metal through the hair.

I also recently discovered a site called So Sew Easy, where I got a pattern for a nappy changing mat for a baby shower. There's also an active Facebook group, where I saw lots of people posting about a "teeny tiny mini zipper pouch".

I decided to make a pouch for the dotee doll, and found that using some of my 7.5sq in Japanese charm pack fabric was the perfect size, and I added some of the same lace used on the dotee's bodice when top-stitching the zip.

I had a lot of fun designing this, and I was so happy to see that people are still making and swapping dotees. I'm looking forward to making more! Flickr has lots of great inspiration.

Update on the Cheryl Lavon Memorial Quilt

{source - crochet.junkie}

Just a quick update on the progress of the quilt being made by swap-bot members to be donated to the American Cancer Association in memory of Cheryl Lavon. Crochet.junkie has pieced together all the blocks into a quilt top. You can see details of each block in the Cheryl Lavon Memory Group.

I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out after quilting!

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Related posts:

• First attempt at a quilt block: dancing dragonfly
  
• Dragonfly... or coconut tree?
  

Send some sparks of fun through the postal system!

Next time you send a letter, pause and consider the envelope.

If you haven't made the envelope yourself out of recycled pages, consider jazzing it up with a few scribbles or cut-outs... it makes receiving mail that much more fun! No doubt for the people delivering the mail as well...

These two envelopes were made for a penpal swap I hosted on swap-bot. The first was made with scrapbooking paper, and the second one is a drawn patchwork of vintage fabric.

I was inspired to start doing it more often after receiving a lovely map envelope from Communikate and many a hand-decorated envelope from bobberdilly (along with mail art & other drawings). If you have a moment, check out his blog - it is chocabloc full of amazing drawings.

In fact, this envelope was not just based on, it is pretty much a reproduction of one of the lovely pictures he sent me.

And this is an envelope I sent him... You can't tell from this scan, but the front of the envelope had just the face & the sea snail. And when you flip it over, you see that the face is attached to the body of a fish!

It's been fun, and I'm glad he's encouraged me to draw again (and not just copy other drawings & make collages). In turn, I encourage you all to decorate that next letter, or slip in a quick drawing you've done! Go forth and sending some sparks of fun through the postal system!

(Psst...If you're stuck on who to send to, or want to send out a drawing anonymously, don't forget about sendsomething.net)

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Related posts:

• Tutorial: envelopes from recycled paper
• Junk mail collages
• The envelope project
  

A gold monocle and a seedy moustache

Meet Sir Reginald Walter, the most eligible bachelor in the dotee world, created for The Bachelor Dotee swap on swap-bot. He has a seedy moustache and a gold monocle! His hankie coordinates with his stripey blue tie! He has a slick part in his full head of hair! He looks a bit like the Monopoly man! He is refined and wordly! And he brought flowers... I'm sure you can see why he drives all the dotee girls wild.


Unlike Dotee Dad USB, where I cut around the countour of the head, here I decided to have a background. I think it worked well. As an added bonus, I used up some cute scraps and a cute button I acquired from the local op-shop.

Once again, I felt compelled to have the back of the dotee mirror the front.

It took several hours to make, and I did the felt in layers. The final dimensions were: 4" tall, 2" tail, 2.5" hanger. Because of the small size, I didn't use real buttons, but instead worked the gold thread into french knots.


I sketched the dotee while having a coffee at my favourite local café. I set up a blank template & was happy enough with the first sketch to go with it. Sir Reginald Walter may have lost the walking stick, but he remained pretty true to the sketch!

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Related posts:

• Incoming: bachelor dotee
• Dotee Dad USB

Dragonfly... or coconut tree?

After my unsuccessful attempt at traditional piecing for the the dancing dragonfly block, I gave paper piecing a go.


I used trusty Inkscape again, this time to lay out the pieces for each quarter block. The program allowed me to print a very precise paper-piecing template.


Sue Beever has great instructions on paper piecing in her Dancing Dragonfly Quilts book. I followed them, but noticed a few things things:

• For pieces where the pattern wasn't symmetrical (so for the trapeze parts in the image above, and both "wing" sections), the mirror image of the piece was needed. So to get it to come right, I used the reverse side of the printed paper (where luckily I could still see the lines quite well).
• Sue called for running paper through the sewing machine, and trimming it with a rotary cutter. I've been so good with not using my sharp tools with paper that I cringed a little as I did it. I should really keep a separate "paper needle" for the sewing machine, and get a spare blade for my Olfa rotary cutter... but I had a deadline and didn't want to take any chances, so I just gritted my teeth and went ahead with it.
• The seam allowance of two joined bits of fabric both end up being on the same side. So you can't "iron the seams open" in the same way (except for the seams where I joined the four quarters of the block). Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the back of the block... but you get the idea. I also found that it made the joined pieces sit together differently to the ironed-open seam pieces... One side is slightly raised compared to the other (the side where the seam allowance is tucked under...)
  

On the whole, I found this method to be very easy and accurate. I got a nice 12.5" square pumped out in a matter of hours (I was pretty pedantic, carefully ironing before adding each new piece and having to unpick a bunch of seams I wasn't happy with or that were a result of my placing the fabric the wrong way around). I can't imagine making enough blocks to make an entire quilt!

Anyway, I'm really happy with the way the block turned out, and how the colours make you hesitate... Is it a dragonfly... or a coconut tree?

I'm really looking forward to seeing what the other swap participants come up with, and of course the final quilt!

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Related post: First attempt at a quilt block: dancing dragonfly

Incoming: bachelor dotee

It's always a thrill to get a package in the mail. Today was no exception... in fact the thrill was doubled because this package came all the way from Belarus!


He was created for The Bachelor Dotee swap on swap-bot. I love the look on his face... and he looks like he's all set for St Patrick's day!

Doesn't he have the most dashing of hats?

Lovely quilt used in the background courtesy of Geta :)

Thank you, LoyIvir, he's a cutie.

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Related post: A gold monocle and a seedy moustache (Bachelor dotee I sent)

First attempt at a quilt block: dancing dragonfly

I signed up for the Cheryl Lavon Donation Swap on swap-bot. The idea is for participants to contribute quilt blocks to a quilt which will be donated to the American Cancer Association, in memory of Cheryl. I have never made a quilt block before, but that didn't stop me. Swap-bot is a wonderful excuse to try new things.


I headed to my local library, and found Sue Beever's Dancing Dragonfly Quilts on the shelf (all of the "standard" how-to books had been checked out). I was rather struck by the dragonfly motif and decided I'd give it a go.

Luckily the book has lovely piecing instructions for a beginner like me (although a "beginner like me should" probably have tried something like a traditional 9-piece block for her first go). I'm tempted to buy this book sometime in the future, there are so many lovely photos in it!

Next I headed to Lincraft to pick out some fabrics. I had only a very vague notion of things like quilt colour wheels and appropriate motif sizes. So I ended up grabbing the first four FQ of fabric in earthy tones that tickled my fancy (two green, two brown; three dark, one light) just as I was being shooed out of the shop as it was closing time.

After browsing through the book, I decided I'd try block variation #3, and that I'd give traditional piecing a shot.

Next, I played around with colours in Inkscape and I settled on this layout. I like how it kind of looks like a coconut tree! In retrospect it would have been a good idea to play with colours before buying the fabric. But I wasn't that organised.

Inkscape would be a great program for designing quilt blocks, I may do so one day. (I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here!)

Now, being an impatient newbie, I was sure to run into a few stumbling blocks along the way. First of all I was confused about the size of the block. The book had dimensions for making a 12" block, but the swap requirements said a 12½" block was needed. It took me a bit to realise that they were one and the same - depending on whether you include the ¼" seam allowance around the sides of the block in the size!

The next headache was wrapping my head around the cutting sizes for a traditionally pieced block. The author said that "seam allowances vary with the piece's shape", which confused me as I thought the seam allowance was always ¼". I eventually worked out she was talking about adding an allowance to the length of each the side of the block, not about the distance between the block's finished size and the edge you cut along.

Once I worked these measurement issues out, I decided I want to start cutting RIGHT away, even though I hadn't ironed the material (the ruler squashes it flat!), and couldn't find my rotary cutter (but I have scissors and a disappearing ink pen!). Did I mention being an impatient newbie?

I used my A4 cutting board & 14"x4½" quilting ruler to measure out the pieces and used the angles in the ruler to double-check I had cut out the pieces correctly.

However, I was so busy concentrating on this that I managed to make a different kind of mistake: I cut out three triangles instead of two triangles and two trapezoids... it's obvious that I'm thinking like someone who does layered images, not flat ones! Appliqué, much? I salvaged what I could of the fabric by cutting one of the trapezoids out of the useless triangle.


Finally, I had all my pieces cut out. I gave in and ironed them.

And then I started looking at them, and trying to figure out how they would fit together properly....


Before realising that I needed to take into account the seam allowance... which changes the measurements quite a lot for angled cuts (which I don't usually have anything to do with... I tend to deal with rectangles or curves....)


My machine doesn't seem to do a ¼" seam very easily, so I just marked the seam with my disappearing pen...



... and followed the stitch line with the groove on my sewing foot.


All finished!


Here's a shot of the back! I did as instructed and ironed each seam open before adding the next bit of fabric.


Only one problem... it turned out to be wonky & the wrong size. The seam at the bottom was the worst offender, changing by ¼" from side to side. The right-hand side seam was simply ¼" too short.

I have since trimmed it down to a near-perfect 6" square. I'll think of something to do with it...

Not to be discouraged, I'll be trying again soon, using a different method. Probably the paper-piecing one outlined in the book. And I'll be ironing all my fabrics well before-hand.

At least this was only a quarter of the finished block, so I don't feel like I've lost too much time on this one!

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Related posts:

• Another tiny dotee (made for Cheryl)
• Dragonfly... or coconut tree? (Finished block)

Magazine Collage ATCs

Hot on the heels of my junk mail collages, I participated in a Magazine Collage ATC Swap over on swap-bot.

I spent a while poring over old Frankie Magazines to find inspiration, which wasn't hard because it's full of cute and quirky backgrounds, drawings, photos & articles :)

The process went something like this:

1. Rip out magazine pages with interesting pics
2. Carefully cut out around individual pics with an exacto knife & cut out various background prints
   
3. Spend an hour or so rearranging all the little pieces around on a blank ATC until happy with the arangement
4. Desperately try and glue all the pieces down whilst keeping them in place
5. Look at all the bits and pieces which didn't make the cut... and repeat steps 3&4
   

As you can see in the pics above, I actually cut out an ATC-sized piece from the magazine's cover to use as the 'blank' canvas.


And we all know I'm a sucker for coordination, so the card & envelope also had to be made from Frankie magazine cut-outs!

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• Related post: Tutorial: envelopes from recycled paper

Matryoshka nesting dolls (squeebles!)

These are the nesting dolls I sent to my partner for the Matroyska Doll Swap! on swap-bot, along with the accompanying note:

Squeebles are born colourless and with no way to express themselves. Their bodies are pure white, and their eyes are black pools , incapable of expression. Their only other feature is their black hair. To compensate for this, they dress in the most colourful clothes they can, they favourite colour being anything fluoro. Also they have no mouth, they express affection by forming nesting groups. Families are usually found in this conformation, similar to Matryoshka dolls!

I made them from fluoro felt sheets (the colours don't show up too well, the green really is obscenely bright!) and some small plastic flower decorations sent to me by Dot with a purchase.

The pattern for them can be found at Maize Hutton's site.

Here is a close up of the smallest one, because I love miniature things!


And here are the Squeebles, innocently surveying the chaos that brought about their creation :)

Sheep dotee

I made this for the Dotee Tag thread on the swap-bot forums.

The face is a simple embroidered felt cut-out.

After cutting out the two body pieces from white felt, I proceeded to sew a WHOLE lot of small white pom-poms to one of the pieces. It took longer than I originally thought, because I also had to sew them to each other so that they'd stay tightly packed.

On the plus side, I didn't need to put much stuffing in it

Incoming: itty bitty dotee

Meet Leonard! Isn't he adorable? He's the very first dotee I've received! I love the beading on his front. His body is made of fluoro green felt (front and back) & his face is made of white felt with french knot eyes.

He came travelling with me to a music festival & his face is a little grubby now, but still super cute :)

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• Related post: Itty bitty dotee fever

Another tiny dotee

After completing my last itty bitty dotees, I had an itching to do another one. There's something fun about working in miniature! Plus, I had a small piece of linen with a small bullion rose on it from when I was first learning the stitch which I wasn't sure what to do with.

This time I had no pattern, I just winged it. I played around a bit, using fly stitch for the eyes instead of all backstitch, and making a pointed bottom.

I had trouble working out how to differentiate the face from the body, as the colours don't contrast enough (although their textures do). I played around with surrounding it with beads, but they were too bulky for such a small dollface, and took too much attention away from the rose. I settled for some simple pink backstitching, which I could have achieved using blanket stitch, come to think of it :)

This was not for a swap, but was sent out to a swap-bot member who has severe health issues. There is a small heart dangling at the bottom of the dotee, which is a symbol other swap-botters have been using to show their support for her.

(I love the peachy colour of the back!)

Quote cards and postcrossing

I've been sending out so many letters and postcards recently that I rather wonder what the man at the local Post Office thinks of it all. I seem to be in there every day buying a stamp or two.

The two postcards above are ones that I sent to somebody from postcrossing. She mentioned on her profile that she likes all things Alice in Wonderland. The first postcard I sent her was a photo I took of some black and white stencil art.

When I came across the two postcards above, which are actually old advertisements for an exhibition at the State Library of Tasmania, I decided to send them on too. I like "finding a home" for things which I keep because I like them, but just sit in a box somewhere.

I bought some peel-n-stick postcard backs from the only aussie supplier I could find. They do the job, but they really are stickers and so offer very little support to flimsy photos & are thin enough to see through when placed over ads or other writing on a postcard. I'm still playing around with different ideas... one that works quite well is just collecting 'free' postcards with little advertising on the back and simply gluing your photo over the top :)

Another batch of postcards I send out recently Quotecard Postcard swap on swap-bot. It is a monthly swap.

I've been jotting down bits and pieces from books into a small exercise book as I read. So I went through (from the beginning) and chose the first three that I thought suited the three recipients based on their profile. Here's what I ended up sending out:

I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off this feather-bed of civilization, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints.

Alas, as we get up in life, and are more preoccupied with our affairs, even a holiday is a thing that must be worked for. To hold a pack upon a pack-saddle against a gale out of the freezing north is no high industry, but it is one that serves to occupy and compose the mind. And when the present is so exacting, who can annoy himself about the future?

-- From "Travels with a donkey in the Cevennes" by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1879.

Rachel is unlike any woman he's ever had before. To begin with, she's a respectable woman, his first; and respectability in a woman, as he's now discovered, complicates things considerably.

-- From "Alias Grace" by Margaret Atwood

Mary said I might be very young, and as ignorant as an egg, but I was bright as a new penny, and the difference between stupid and ignorant was that ignorant could learn.

-- From "Alias Grace" by Margaret Atwood

Incoming: vegan recipes

I received a handful of swaps recently, including this one. I loved the envelope - a splash of colour amongst a bunch of white ones.

When I opened it, and saw the colour of the recipe cards, I knew what was inside. I have been following Communikate's blog: founders objects. She is documenting a month's worth of swapping activities there, and had featured these cards.

They're so cute & the recipes look so yummy that I've scanned them in for your perusal. They are

1. The best chocolate cupcake recipe yet
2. African groundnut stew
   
3. Seitan / wheat meat
   

Click-through to read :)

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• Related post: Recipe swaps: vegan & scavenger

Flower person ATC

I must admit, I was a little stumped for this ATC. I took it as a challenge to myself - that's what I like about Swap-bot: other people think of the ideas, then you have a deadline to do them by. It's what makes the difference, for me, between thinking "oh, I'd like to do that one day" to "you need to do this now, and make it good because it's going out to somebody!"

Anyway, the swap stipulated the following:

The idea here is to use a flower, be it stamped, prima type, paper etc etc, and put a face in the middle and give it a body and have a beautiful little flower person.

I had some lovely flower stickers I wanted to use, but was a little bit apprehensive about the body.

In the end, I traced a baby picture from a book I picked up at Abbey's bookshop: Anatomy and Drawing, by Victor Perard.

Ideally I'll be drawing my own figures, but I'm not quite ready yet. So I traced the picture in pencil, and then went over it in a felt-tip pen. I wasn't sure how I was going to colour it - it didn't look right in b&w. Then I remembered how at school we'd make old-looking "parchment" by rubbing a wet teabag on paper.

So I wet a teabag in a small amount of hot water, squeezed most of the water out, and dabbed the picture with it. It made the felt ink run a little, which I liked - otherwise I could have done the pen outline afterwards. For good measure, I dipped my finger into the instant coffee jar and dotted them around the wet picture, which left little brown spots. To stop the paper curling, I placed it between 2 sheets of paper and left it to dry under a heavy book.

I recently picked up some blank ATC cards at Eckersley's Art & Craft store, which has made life much easier. For my last ATC, I used some cardstock I had lying around, but my cutting was a little wonky. Anyway, I used some green scrapbooking papers for the background, and... voilà! Not exactly Ann Geddes, but still!

Itty bitty dotee fever

In my last post, I mentioned that I was having to redo my doll for the Itty Bitty Dotee Swap on Swap-Bot due to fraying.

Well.... it's complete! Behold the complete wheat dotee! You'll notice that the hair changed completely from the original sketch - I still haven't worked out how to do yarn hair! I think the bullion ringlets are cute though, even though she now looks like she is called Helga and should be serving beers part of Oktoberfest! I managed to salvage the face off the first dotee, only redoing the french knots (one was loose)

The wheat is a little off-center, and the bottom a bit crooked - but it doesn't really matter!


Complete, Helga measures 4"... she has a 2" long torso (1 1/4" wide) and the hanger & tail measure about 1" each. I decided that that was not itty bitty enough! I'm sure my swap partner wouldn't mind, but I'm sending her an even ittier bittier one too anyway. It was so much fun to make!

I stuck with the nature theme again. Meet Lady Dotee Bug!


She's made entirely of felt (the ladybug is from a novelty printed felt square) and is truly tiny! She was much quicker to sew up, and I used blanket stitch around the edges. And she has french knot cheeks!

So just how much smaller is she?


She's about 2 1/4" tall in total. Her torso is just under 1 1/2" long (3/4" wide), her hanger is 1/2" long and her tail is just over 1/4" long.

Unless you count the pseudo-dotee pig, these are my first dotees! :)

So what's next? Not a dotee! For my next swap I have to make a flower-person ATC... we'll see how that goes!

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• Related post: Incoming: itty bitty dotee