leftovers

Here's what is left of this year's activities, in sort of chronological order...

This was the last softie that I made for Roz's shop. For some reason the child seems to have grown between the drawing and the sewing stages, maybe that's why each time that I open the fridge it seems to be a lot emptier than the time before :)Last Saturday, we delivered it (and the previous one) to the shop. It was such a pleasure to see all the softies on display... did I say all? Well, the tree was missing as it had already been sold. How cool is that??
The following day, we went to an advanced screening of "the tale of despereaux". It was amazing to see this film in a cinema packed with such talented people and their families, it made the whole experience much more interesting as people reacted in a different way to the normal movie audience due to having worked in it, clapping through out the credits and commenting on their own shots (my big kitchen shot looked impressive, I was so chuffed!).
It was very touching to hear one of the director's (Sam Fell) speeches, where he thanked the families for the great work instead of the artists, for their patience with the long hours, rants and the occasional sleepwalk. I love my job but, it is really hard not seeing bear throughout the day and home life gets a bit chaotic (and smellier) as the deadline looms. I can only imagine how hard it must be for the artists with children...
...and to wrap up this post here is the last softie of the year, a present for someone who really deserves it (and much much more). I hope that she likes it! This was my test softie, when I started braving the ways of the sewing machine and the genesis of my mother and child "series". It was left behind whilst I was preparing the softies for Roz , but I promissed myself that I would finish it in time for Christmas.

I hope that you all have a blessed Christmas surrounded by your loved ones and that 2009 brings the answers to all your prayers and dreams!

two of the same?!

As I (probably) mentioned before, I am a bit scattered when it comes to my artwork. My brain doesn't seem to be able to tell my hands to do the same thing twice, just look at the link for my flickr page on the right hand side and you'll understand.
So, I was completely caught of guard when, just out of the blue I started to draw this mother and child over and over again (yes, I caught MYSELF off guard, sounds odd, but it's true) and felt the compulsion to turn them into fabric form, luckely this kind of theme really suits the season... mmm, imagine if I had become obsessed with sub aquatic amoeba!
Here's the latest one, accompanied by the sketch that started it.
Hope that you'll like it!

the concept behind the madness

Oh yes, there is some (sort of) structure to my insanity, and I thought that it would be interesting to share it, so from now on I will be adding the concept drawings to the posts with softies. Think of it as a little trip inside my head :)So, here's how I started, just a little scribble on the side of my notebook at work (done whilst waiting for a render). I tend to only have two steps before making a softie, a quick sketch like this followed by a pattern made in freehand. The construction issues sometimes are solved during the pattern stage but, most often than not, I fix them while making the actual softies. I very, very, VERY rarely make prototypes as my work tends to consist only of one off versions. Sometimes it goes well, others, like a fish that was left half done and that is still waiting in softie purgatory, are left behind as I seem to have a very short attention span :P

... Well, here's the softie!

insanity thy name name is christmas tree...

... or "grão a grão enche a galinha o papo, part IV"... but, I got bored of repeating myself, and to be honest I really don't like repeating myself, so my work tends to be all over the place artistically speaking. I'm trying to be a bit more consistant as I would like to be able to make my work more sellable (note that I didn't say commercial).
So, here's a wool felt tree with a bazillion sequins that nearly drove me insane. It's a shame that the colour gold doesn't fotograph well! oh, well... c'est la vie!

grão a grão enche a galinha o papo - part III

So, after the robot came the gingerbread men... although, I think that the brown wool felt that I used, might be just a smidge too dark and instead of gingerbread my men actually look like they made of chocolate. Does this makes them less Christmassy?
I'm not sure how it is in other countries, but back in Portugal, there two things that it is guaranteed that everyone will get as a present, socks and chocolate. Oh yes, just like death and taxes, everyone is certain to get chocolates (most probably either ferrero roche, mon cheri, or the handy box with both) and socks. They're the generic itemd for the person you don't really know but, feel obligated to give a present to.
Any who... I had fun making these, even though I nearly hurt myself whilst trying to thread the ribbon to attach the men together, hope that you like them too!

grão a grão enche a galinha o papo - part II

So, after the underpant boy came a robot... mmm, I can see a pattern here.
Its made of silver.... sorry, don't know the name of the fabric, felt, buttons and glass beads. It has jointed knees and dangly arms and legs.
When I showed my fancy moo mini cards at work, the "boys" went crazy for it (maybe they felt represented), but the ladies that I showed it to didn't really seem that impressed :)
What do you think?!

grão a grão enche a galinha o papo - part I

Today's title translates as "seed after seed the chicken fill its crop", which I feel is really fitting for what I have been doing lately...
As I mentioned in the previous post, I conquered my terrifying fear of sewing machines and threw myself head first into some lessons that eventually led to my very first proper sewing machine (bask in its amazing glory here) and astonishingly enough to my first proper commission!
Roz, the lovely owner of Sew Much Fun, not only taught me how to sew (and convinced me to buy a bernina... for they are the rolls royce of the sewing machine world :P) but, also liked my toys enough to want to do a bit of a trial run and sell some christmas ornaments and toys made by yours truely.
In a state of shock, it took me a couple of days to recover and a trip to the knitting and stitching show to come up with this...... a xmas version of my underpants boy! The same character that rebooted my creative brain that had been laying dormant for the past 4 years.
This is the first of a series of little toys and ornaments that I will be sharing with you, kind reader (if you're still awake after all this rambling!) in the next few week up until christmas.
So, as the title says seed by seed, bit by bit, my little toys will conquer the world, bwa ah ah!
... just kidding... :)