Friday, January 25, 2008

Valentines for the Troops















At their last meeting, Girl Scout Troop 1953 made Valentines for Troops in Iraq. They enjoyed playing with fabrics and fibers, buttons and beads. I was helping them earn their stitching badge, but we ran out of time and ended up using quite a bit of glue. The postcards were adorable, though, and sure to be appreciated overseas.

I'm always amazed the amount of work that goes into planning just one meeting with kids. My hat is off the the three women who commit to these meetings every month.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Vest to Jacket




Ok, A friend asked me (a year ago) to sew sleeves on her embroidered vest which she purchased in Saudi Arabia many years ago. She even gave me the fabric for the sleeves. Try as I might, even after many episodes of Project Runway, I could not find the inspiration to complete this simple task. I thought maybe I should add a collar with the same material so that the sleeves wouldn't seem too loud. But then again, maybe the patchwork look wasn't quite right. I finally decided to just put three-quarter length skinny bell sleeves on it so she could wear it over a turtleneck or collared shirt. The truth is, my friend is a tall, very slender, very hip chick and if anyone could pull this off it would be her! I can't wait to catch her wearing it. I'm returning it today, after looking at it on my mannequin for over a year. Yippee!

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Patterns



I think there is a quilt in my future. I keep coming back to the idea of making some patterns for fabric and think it would be fun not only to try to make a repeating pattern on Photoshop based on land views from the sky, but also to quilt some areal views of fields of crops. Who know if I'll ever get around to it, the way things go, but at least if I say it out loud or write it down there's a chance.

K and I are planning a trip to Chicago for a visit to the American Girl Store. I'll have to get K to take some shots from the plane window, since of course she'll get the window seat. As much as she is looking forward to this trip I think I can convince her to duck inside the Chicago Art Institute for a few hours and maybe a museum or two. I know there is a doll gallery in Chicago, the Hellman Gallery which houses dolls by some artists whose work I love. I've only seen most dolls in books and the internet.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting away with just my daughter. It's a bittersweet thing watching kids grow. On the one hand I loved them small and cuddly. On the other hand it's nice that they're getting old enough to travel. I hope soon we can take them around a bit.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Finally sitting down to my computer again!

Okay, that's a bit of a stretch. But really I haven't done any more than check emails and write press releases for my volunteer organizations since about my last post. So Happy New Year! I am updating www.jenmcgahan.com, which will now be my doll website exclusively. After cleaning up all the other crafty things in it, I decided to focus on just two websites, the first being that one because I have a lot of fresh new stuff to put in its galleries and also because it's really easy to update. If you are looking for a web building site I have to recommend itsmysite. Not only is it easy to use, but it's relatively inexpensive, you have a lot of options for customization and and I think it looks pretty nice once you get the hang of designing with it.

The next job i need to tackle is getting something up on Sweetboo. The craft shows last year were a lot of fun for me, but also a lot of physical work and time away from home. I'm hoping to get this stuff onto that storefront before too long and be able at least show it in a pretty way online. I think I began that website in the first place because I wanted a site which would support Paypal and a merchant credit card account, but also so that I could learn Dreamweaver and built a more interesting site. Ha -- here it is a year later and still no working site. My web designer has laid the foundations for me and my job is to play around with her building blocks and get something together myself. At least that was my plan. Beth has been a big help in that regard. She offered to teach me web design to get me started and I did actually make a page or two. I hope I haven;t forgotten how to do it. I've already invested a bit of time and money, so I should probably make that a priority.

I won't go into all my other new year's goals, but hopefully I can cross a few from my list.