The wall of drawers is completed! I’m quite happy with the results. Before, all of the fabric was living in stacked bins on the floor. So every time I wanted a piece, I would have to unstack them and dig through the layers to find what I wanted. Now, all I have to do is pull open the drawer for the color I want!
In each drawer, the fabric is folded and set on edge, so it’s like looking through a lateral file. This makes it much easier when I’m just trying to figure out what I want, or looking for a specific piece.
We have been using the p5.js Javascript library. Several p5.js functions take a color as a parameter. For example, you might call background(color) to set the background color, stroke(color) to set the color used to draw lines, or fill(color) to set the color used to fill in shapes. In our past examples, we’ve set various colors, but we haven’t always done so consistently.
So how do you set colors in p5.js? It turns out, pretty much any way you want to!
Even a snail gets to where it’s going eventually!
All the drawer units are built and put into place.
They’ve been cleaned, and there’s now room on the table to lay out the fabric so it can be organized and put into the drawers.
Guess what I’ll be doing all day!
Progress. Two more to go.
Studio 1 was set up as a classroom… until the pandemic.
Now, I am sewing and I need it set up differently to accommodate what I am currently doing.
We did some work on it a while back, and rearranged the parts that I had. But I needed a way to store fabric. I did get it sorted out by color, but I ended up putting in in a variety of containers and stacked them up against the back wall.
The pixies are coming… the pixies are coming!
Every mythology has some small, often flying little creatures. Sometimes they are a bit mischievous, and sometimes sweet. They live in forests, gardens, meadows and seashores. Their clothing is often made of found items, or sometimes bits of cloth stolen from mending baskets. They often come out at night, but are occasionally seen during the day.
This is the first test of my new pixie pattern! This little creature is 10-1/2 inches tall (26 cm). I am working on a final draft, but I thought you would like to see what I have come up with so far!
In my last two posts , I showed how to draw most of the Aah tangle using the Javascript p5.js library. In this post, the Aah is complete, as you can see from the image below. However, the Javascript code to do so, does not follow directly from what we saw in those previous posts. I have rewritten it and packaged it into a library: Entanglement . More about that shortly.
First, lets talk about how the Aah pattern was completed. You’ll recall that we had successfully generated the 8-armed starburst pattern, and distributed copies of it the around the canvas, with some random variations to make it seem more like it was hand-drawn. We avoided overlapping them by using collision detection: we draw a polygon around each pattern, and then as we create new ones, we check the polygon against those for the patterns we had already drawn to make sure there were no collisions. The final image we generated was nice, but missing something important: an Aah tangle is supposed to have small circles randomly scattered between the starburst patterns.
If you recall, in yesterday’s post, I mentioned that Tuna needed a pair of green shoes to go with her polka-dot jeans and butterfly top.
I was so excited to make these!
I found a piece of green kettle cloth that I’ve probably had for 45 years. There isn’t much left of the piece, but it was one of my favorite fabrics. I wish they still made kettle cloth/weaver’s cloth in colors!
The next pattern in the instruction booklet for this cat is for a pair of jeans.
I chose to make them from some fun and funky fabrics that fit in with my color scheme, rather than traditionally colored denim.
The pink polkadot fabric is actually very special. I’ve had scraps of this ever since my oldest granddaughter, who is now 18, was a very little girl. When she was young, I made her a dress that was very brightly colored, and had the front of a VW Bus appliqued and embroidered in the front! She had asked me for a “Hippy Dress”. This pink fabric was part of the dress.
I made the pair of shoes that you saw in yesterday's tutorial so that I could figure out a better method for sewing these shoes together.
Now that I have that, putting together this pink pair was a breeze, and really didn’t take very long at all!
Now, her butterfly outfit is complete… Unless I think of something else to add to it.
You never know what might be brewing.
I wanted to create a pair of Mary Jane shoes to go with Tuna’s new outfit. The Tuna patterns do not include this style of shoe. However, the Scout & Ria pattern does. Actually, there are several different cute shoes in this pattern!
This style of shoe presents some particular complications for construction. It’s more than just a tube, sewn shut at one end. Between the size, the U-shape of the front piece and the limitations presented by your sewing machine, it can get very tricky.
In my previous post , we came up with a program to generate a single 8-armed component of the aah tangle. In this post, we’ll figure out how to spread them randomly around the canvas, as in the image at the top of the post. We’ll use the program from the last post as a starting point.
As a first try, let’s just generate a draw 20 aah images randomly on the canvas. Our draw() function looks like this:
Here is Tuna’s floral tunic! I chose the butterfly fabrics because of the pattern’s butterfly sleeves! I love the way it came out.
I deliberately fussy cut the pocket fronts so that there was a large butterfly on one and the smaller butterfly on the other. They really add to the design.
Next: A pair of shoes!
#artdoll #catdoll #dressupdoll #sewing #koalaandmilapatterns
I am an enabler, LOL! Since I started Tuna, I’ve hooked another sewist, Laurie L.! She is doing a Koala and Mila sew along with me!
She chose the Gabriela & Friends pattern.
She had these fabrics, which she is using for her inspiration. Because of that, she decided to name her llama, Beetrice and she is a bee keeper! Isn’t that an adorable idea?
The face is all cut out, the eyes chosen and the ear lining prepared!
I’ve started in on the second ensemble that is in the pattern instructions. This is for a Flowered Tunic and Shorts.
I finished the shorts yesterday. The fabric is so pretty with it’s tiny, white butterflies flitting about that I chose to use them as the theme for this outfit!
More tomorrow!
#artdoll #catdoll #dressupdoll #sewing #koalaandmilapatterns
Personally, I only wear a few pairs of shoes. I’m not into having a different pair for every outfit. My shoes are functional, not decorative.
For my dolls, however, I have an entirely different philosophy. There is no such thing as “too many shoes”. They simply MUST have a different pair for every change of clothing!
This doll has what I refer to as “ballet feet”. Basically, she looks like she is standing on pointe. Actually, her feet are non-existant. One of the reasons I’ve chosen to make her is to tackle the challenge of making shoes… when there are no feet shapes.
Any Zentanglers out there who made it through my previous posts on generative art may be wondering whether these techniques can be used to draw Zentangles . Let’s try!
Zentangles are built from patterns, called tangles. We’ll try to create a tangle called aah. This is one of the original tangles from the Zentangle originators . There are many variations of aah. We’ll start with a simple 8-armed design. Tandika’s step-out for it looks like this:
While I was locked away from everyone because of the construction, I managed to make this dress for Tuna.
I used the Striped Dress pattern from the pattern set. Instead of piecing together strips of fabric, I found a fabric that was already striped.
I also started a pair of shoes, but didn’t finish them in time to take a picture, so you’ll have to wait until next week to see them!
Note: Today’s post was originally written and published in November of 2012, on another website I own. I’m sharing it here as a “Throwback Thursday” so that you know my “sudden” interest in dolls is not new and not just a Covid obsession! This post is image heavy. In addition, there are a couple of pictures of an almost anatomically correct, nude doll below!
I thought I would show you a doll I made that was delivered to her owner last week! (Yes, sometimes I do things besides cook! LOL!)
