we interrupt my dollar store crafting...

I have to post this doll who I have finally completed after at least three years. I had made her parts but I couldn't seem to position her head and arms correctly, and she sat in a box until this week. 

She is mostly a pattern that I can't remember the author of and need to look up online... but her head is my original creation.

Her name is Indigo... but she is also Oshun, the Yoruba goddess of fresh water, who is also related to Erzulie, the Haitian goddess of love.

She's in an inner tube, which is a representation of a dream I once had:

A street in the town I grew up was instead a river that flowed down a steep hill. It was night, there was a full moon, and I was tubing down the river alone.
At the end of the dream, I had this realization that it was a Friday night and I was alone, and that this was the best thing that I could have done for myself.




And now that she is finally complete... maybe she will help me do further creating.

More pics - a closer-up, and one with my cat Yeti for size comparison.

................................

Rambling about blogger code:
aaaaaaaand... I'm still being driven crazy by this blog formatting! I know how to get rid of these black frames around the images, but not in an easy way, and I can't find what it is in the coding that's causing them, and the biggest annoyance is why on a post with no images, the writing has a different amount of space between each line. I've done lots of css, and html, and whywhywhy can't I figure this out? I feel so frustrated!
I guess I have to go back to my css studies. Blah.
And then I'll have to check it out in other browsers and on a PC as well as my Mac... I just want it set up right so I don't have to mess with it anymore! I'm making a list of everything weird that I can't understand in the posts. For instance, right now, there seems to be a space before the beginning of my first paragraph - for no reason!

(And I know that currently this blog has maybe two readers - someday when I'm a famous craft/art blogger, someone will look through my archives and be able to see what's in the code that I'm missing.)

i'm alive! ALIVE! and here are some pictures.

Two presents from patterns from other blogs!
I like that little blog connection even if these people don't know me.

These were presents for my friend Megan
who I've known online for ages and ages and who I first wrote to because I was so in awe of her beadwork.

The gingerbread man pattern is from Elsie Marley. I painted the icing on with acrylic because I didn't have rickrack.
The thread holder pattern is from The Stitching Room. It's so adorable! I thought it would end up being smaller than it was, because said it was for holding the cut off ends of your threads when you're sewing, but it ends up being several inches across.

This one was an experiment in color for me. I wanted to use the gold fabric because it reminded me of something Megan would use, but it is *absolutely* not something I would normally use and I didn't know what to mix with it, so it was the perfect opportunity to use my 3-in-1 Color Tool. I'm really happy with the final color combination, which I NEVER would have come up with by myself!

Busy busy busy

There is a lot of crafting going on over here, but I can't really SHOW it yet! Here is an older doll, I think from last year, for your holiday blog enjoyment.

Ok, I really have to get back to work. Things happening today are all coming from Instructables, for The Boy, things like a bike seat cover for protecting it from the rain, and a Cholula Holster (that one is sort of a joke, but only sort of), and maybe boxers made out of Patriots fabric I found at a tag sale, and I don't know what-all else.

And I want to decorate! And make little houses out of old cards!

All I want for Christmas is...

A Ravelry for sewing and crafting. Can't someone programming literate make a Ravelry-type website for sewing project organizing, pretty please? I have soooo many projects I want to do and I can't keep track! I like it that all the things I want to knit and crochet are at least in a list now, even if that list is, um, over a hundred things long.

Here's a picture to keep this post from being boring, even though she's from last year or the year before, I can't remember.

The next thing to work on with this blog is a list of links to other blogs, but there are so many that I read, it's hard to begin and I don't want to forget people I love.

too cute to poke!

This here doggie is a pattern from the awesome book Art Doll Adventures by Li Hertzi. He's a pincushion, but how could I possibly stick anything in this smiley guy?

I love this book - the idea behind it is to take images from other cultures and build them into new creations.... and do lots of playing and experimenting. This dog has beading, embroidery, fun fur yarn, an old dog license tag around his neck, and general wackiness.

I think (I don't have the book in front of me) that Li got the idea for the pattern from an African sculpture, and I just noticed that the yellow eye beads are beads that my uncle sent to me when he was stationed in Togo with the state department - how perfect!

A couple more views of him at my flickr.

This Little Piggy

Greetings if you are visiting me from Sewmama! My blog has never had very many readers and it is my goal for next year to build up some online blog community.

The Boy(friend) is obsessed with pigs - he told me that the only thing he wants for Christmas is a real live pig, which sadly wouldn't work out very well in our apartment. However, I made this one for him from the adorable (and free!) Wee Wonderfuls Pattern. He didn't want the whole pig-on-wheels-ornament, because he wants to pretend that it's his pet pig, so I'll just let him keep it like this. Although I think it need some embroidered nostrils, because the pig nose is my favorite part of the pig. Cute waving nostrils!

Believe Angel

I sincerely apologize that my camera isn't working, only my webcam, so you're not getting any nicely focused and bee-yew-tee-ful pictures right now, just whatever I can hold up.
I made this angel for my Boy's mom Jo Ann. It looks huge in the picture but it's maybe five inches tall. It has a little hanger on the back so it could be a tree ornament or hang on the wall or I guess even get pinned to her clothes or whatever - she's an angel fiend!