Wedding pillow

I made a (clearly very late) wedding gift for Abby and Chris, and I finally finished it and mailed it off. The first time I saw this old transfer (which I got from Floresita's vintage transfers on flickr) I immediately knew that I would use it for a Chris and Abby wedding pillow. They are both cat lovers who also have the best collection of antique everything. I used the coveted bird and wave fabric for the back:

I think I have to use my last remnant of the bird/wave fabric for my very own pillow. I like using the black piping for the edges.

And that is all I have to show for my crafty old self right now. As I recently mentioned we have had illness after illness around here in 2009 (nothing serious, and I am always thankful for that) and our latest bout has been with THE CHICKEN POX!

My poor little guy came down with the chicken pox in the middle of spring break, during a big annual music festival (South by Southwest). Needless to say, I did not get to see any bands. There was a fever, and a lot of waking up at night, and not a lot of sleep for mom or dad. I had intended on getting Harlan vaccinated just before kindergarten, but in a way I am relieved that he got the virus out of his system, since now he will not have to re-vaccinate himself every twelve years. I can not imagine very many grown men remembering to vaccinate themselves, and getting chicken pox as an adult is really horrendous. While Harlan was sick I heard from many friends who got the virus in their teens, their twenties, and even during law school finals! Lucky for us, there were enough parents around who wanted their toddlers to get the chicken pox too, and we were invited over to their homes. Harlan is such a social butterfly, and he hates being cooped up inside (no pun intended). I know some of you may be floored by the thought of intentionally getting your kids the chicken pox, but I can definitely see the benefit of it. I had it when I was thirteen, and let me tell you, I was way more miserable than Harlan was with it at three (which was really no walk in the park either).

So, we are all in a period of relative wellness (I know it's just a matter of time before my allergies return. I just finished a second round of antibiotics for an ear infection) and I am trying to catch up on work. At the end of April I am going to be selling at the Funky Finds Spring Fling in Fort Worth, so come check me out!

Happy 2009!

I hope everyone had a great holiday. I was absent from blogland as I was working on keeping my booth stocked at the Blue Genie Art Bazaar, and spending time with the fam. There were a lot of really fantastic artists at Blue Genie this year, and despite the current economy, sales were strong. Rose & Duke sold a decent amount of items, but I was expecting to sell way more and so now I have a lot of stock to fill my site and some local shops. That is what I will be spending the next few weeks doing; photographing items, uploading them, and taking samples around. I am super bad about updating my webshop, and my 2009 resolution is to make time to keep it current.

In crafty news, I had a fun time doing an ornament swap with some great bloggers. It was called the "Los Locos Calicos" swap, and I'll post a link to the flickr group as soon as more folks have uploaded their photos (hint hint ladies). I received the cutest ever Christmas bunny pom pom ornament from Frizz. It came inside a hand-pained wooden box which I now keep my barrettes in. I'm linking you to her photos of the critter, because she took really great ones. I ended up sending out two ornaments. The one that I made for the swap is this one:
I hand embroidered sliver thread onto blue wool felt . It wasn't that easy to remove the stabilizer, let me tell you.

I ended up making a batch of these birdie and vintage millinery flower ornaments. I had a box of vintage wooden thread spools in a drawer and the inspiration just hit me. I ended up including one in the swap.

Sorry for the overexposed photo. My other 2009 resolution is to take better photos. I end up rushing a lot and the results are not always pretty.

Guess what awesome thing happened chez Dunlap? Our ruby grapefruit tree gave us the sweetest grapefruit ever! A hail storm knocked off all but one, and here she is:


We also had a Christmas visit from my mother, and she and Harlan made a gingerbread house together:
Please note the Playmobil midevil guards out front. Somebody put them there to ensure that no one else tried to eat the house. This, after receiving the Jen Corace Illustrated Hansel and Gretel from Sanata. It's the loveliest rendition of the story I have ever read.

3 is the magic number

Once again I've been a bit scarce around blogland for the past month. After Maker Faire (which went really well by the way, see here and here for a couple of shots that are better than my own) we had Harlan's third birthday to celebrate, and then I dove right back into production mode for the upcoming Blue Genie Art Bazaar, which is a three week long sale of items made by local artists.

With less than twenty hours a week to devote to working, blogging is put on the back burner once again. Here are a few shots to keep all my dear readers in the loop!

Harlan's third birthday on Nov. 1:
I think this is my only photo pose. Every photo of me since Harlan was born looks exactly like this. Here is the birthday boy being asked to pose:


We had a little party for Harlan and some of his pals at a place filled with inflatable jumpy houses. Some of them were so large that they had slides and ladders (inflatable too) inside them.



I updated my deer and tree applique designs. I'm now hand dying the blanks in vibrant, more "punchy" colors, that come out somewhat variegated. Instead of hand painting each shirt, Joe drew a deer that I'm silkscreening (and I added a small batch of a big bad wolf version). Silk screening goes a lot faster obviously, and it feels great to be able to produce the clothes a little faster than I was doing so before. Lastly, the tree appliques remain the same except that there is now only one tree per shirt.

I am making most of the trees with my traditional ric-rack, and leaving some with raw edges for a more "manly" look for little boys who don't rock the ric-rack.

This shirt is Kelley green, although it looks more yellow in the photo:


These little romper/dresses are new too, and come in a variety of colors:


Also new are these sleeper sets. The hats will be sold with the nighties (don't these things remind you of Sweepea?)


I really love the way blue dye came out, but it shows the most variegation of any of the colors I've tried so far. It's a bit trickier to work with and I had to scrap a pretty big batch of blanks unfortunately.
I'm hoping to put some of these in the shop, but that is pretty neglected these days as well. If you are interested in a particular size or design to purchase, feel free to e-mail me and I'll send it to you instead of putting in the upcoming Art Bazaar. I'm also making some great stockings with the woodgrain fabric, some Japanese import fabrics, and some linen ones with the deer. I hope to post again soon, but if not, please know that the comments you all leave and the e-mails you send really mean a lot to me.

Sneak Peak #2

Twenty two totally unique hand-embroidered dresses are ready to debut at the Maker Faire on October 18th. So far I have figured out how to make them in a few sizes ranging from 0-3 months to 4t. I choose the size the dress will end up being based on the embroidery and trim of the original pillowcase. Here is a sneak preview of a few of the dresses:



So, it's not the easiest feat in the world to photograph some of the designs on these in a short amount of time (which is the only amount I seem to have for every task these days). I just realized that I chose two green and yellow dresses out of all the different color combinations. There are many different colors, believe you me!

And now, if you are dying of suspense about who won the ticket drawing for the Maker Faire tickets, the winners are:

shewolfnm: Two adult tickets and one child ticket

and

Solotko: One student ticket (can be used by a child)

and

Jen-uh-four: One student ticket (can be used by a child)

Congratulations! The way I generated this drawing was by placing the names in two bowls. One bowl had the name and ticket request number of everyone who asked for adult tickets, and the other had the name and ticket request number of everyone who asked for children tickets. No one asked for student tickets, but the Maker Faire will admit children under 3 for free, so all other children are students right?

Please feel free to stop by the Rose & Duke booth in the Bizarre Bazaar and say hello when you come to the fair.

Almost Famous

Rachel Hobson of Average Jane Crafter interviewed me for her column on Craft Magazine's website. Thanks so much Rachel, you rock!

The dress is a sample that I made recently, but there should be about twenty unique dresses in time for the Bizarre Bazzar at Maker's Faire. Each dress is made from a vintage hand-embroidered pillowcase, and is fastened with vintage buttons. This is my first step away from hand embroidering items myself, and moving into producting garments that can be made faster, but are still special and different from other items usually found in children's clothing stores. As many of you have probably figured out by this point, hand embroidering isn't exactly fast, and therefore is not very cost-productive. I hope the dresses are a hit!

Half Violet Crumble

So it turns out my camera is fine but the lens is broken. Lucky for me my father's birthday gift to me just arrived today. It's a micro lens and it's taking me a little practice to get the hang of. Here is one shot I took with it of a couple of the price signs I had on my table at Stitch:


This is a shot I forgot to post last week. It's my failed attempt at making honeycomb with chocolate coating for the adult's goody bags at Harlan's birthday party.


I made the honeycomb three times, all according to Nigella's cooking show. She never mentioned a temperature for the confection to reach and thus I never ended up with a successful honeycomb. Lucky for me my friend Kim can steer me in the right direction in time for Christmas.