Craft Enabled, Domestically Disabled

Finished knitted Christmas presents.

I made my three girl cousins a bunch of little scarves, for that fashionable "neck decor minus a coat" look.

On the left is my cousin Alicia's scarf, with a checkerboard theme. It's not bad. I don't know if she'll like it, but...well, we can hope.

On the right is my cousin Cassie's scarf. I did a diagonal thing on it. It came out smaller/skinner than I anticipated, but it's kind of the nicest scarf in feel to me. I hope it's okay...

And on the left again is my cousin Kristen's, in "Wavy Gravy" style. I REALLY wish I hadn't picked a multishade yarn for this- I wanted dark green and they were out of what I wanted, so I settled. Now I think it just looks weird.

The crazy thing is today when I was packing, I FOUND an extra skein of just the color I had wanted to get more of. Oh, the irony. So now I'm being CRAZY and starting ANOTHER scarf for her in hopes I can finish it before Christmas. (Yeah, right. So not going to happen...but I'm obsessed enough to try.)

And finally, just finished today...

Yup, it's Mom's poncho, which has given me oodles of trouble for months!

But the damned thing is finally done. I think it looks freaking WEIRD when put together- it hangs funny and the neck is huge- but...whatever. I can't nitpick it any more.

Oh, and while the Fun Fur looks cute on the edge and all...it is evil to knit with. Two really thin strands together, and yet you can't even see it if you screw up, much less undo it. GRRRRRR.

Oh well....almost done, right? Almost?

Doll accessorizing.

Added a little pointy necklace to Mom's doll.

Both of my dolls are done!

And here they are!
It's kind of mysterious that I used the same pattern and yet Mom's doll (on the right) looks so much bigger than the one I made! The head's positioned a little higher up and the skirt is longer and maybe the wings were fit on a little differently, but that's about it for the differences, you know? I guess I can say it's the "mommy doll and daughter doll."
I think my doll came out better than Mom's doll, but...oh well, I put in all of that work and she's just going to have to deal with it. I hope I can keep her from seeing MY doll first before she sees hers- then hers will look a lot more impressive!

The glass Christmas presents are done!

I am so excited! All of my plates got slumped in time! Hurrah!
My four seasons set of plates just looks so cute to me. I love them. I kind of want to keep them, except I put in too much work to do that! And the two other plates look pretty good to me too. Yay!
As for that picture frame I did, with the strange crud... alas, it looks even worse in the front. I ran into my frit painting teacher and she said it was "too much glue." So much for that stuff boiling away in the kiln, apparently... *sigh*

Kind of defeated the whole point of my putting a fancy back on it so people could SEE it when it's utterly covered in crud. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it, or if I'm going to give it away after all.

Other people's presents.

Here's the two round plates I have been working on. The green came out so pretty, especially when paired with clear glass. It has such an awesome effect!
They're currently being slumped tonight, so I hope they still come out all right. All the triangles were pretty quick and dirty compared to the cutting I did on the centers, but I think it looks all right.

And this is the picture frame I've been working on. I haven't cleared out the fiber paper I used to make the hole for the frame in this photo yet, because I wanted kind of a "before and after" shot. Anyway, the front came out very cute.
The back, well... I wanted to do this kind of crazy-quilt thing on the back because all of the main pieces were clear and I thought, "Since I didn't size this thing to fit any particular size pic, the back might be showing through. And who wants the back to be boring and clear?" So when I take the fiber paper out...I am dying to see how it comes out. Because the back of it...WTF IS THAT BROWN CREEPING CRUD?!
Oh well, it probably won't show through to the front and the back will be hidden by a holder or something, right?

Mom's doll is close to done!

Since this photo was taken, the arms are now on. Though I am thinking of redoing the sewing on of the legs, because the doll is um...spreading her legs awfully wide when she's not posed like this. Looks like a hooker....

The auction results!

Here's the final bids that my stuff from the auction got. (Most of them, anyway, I think I missed writing down a few.)

"Christmas balls" one- $12

Blue beaded wire necklace- $5

Blue striped fused pendant necklace- $16

Dark green beaded necklace- $14

Yellow necklace- $4

Dark blue fused pendant necklace- $30

Green icicle fused pendant necklace- $16

Blue striped plate- $15

Yellow plate- $12

Frit painting- $32.50

Purple fused pendant necklace- $25

Peach flower necklace- $20

Dollmaking 101: Skirt and Wig

Sorry for the bad quality of this photo (taking it at night in a dark apartment...sigh), but my doll is almost done! I need to add the wings and glue that hair on (it's just plopped on in the picture until after the wings get attached), but then it's done! Hooray!

It's a good thing the teacher was in there when I was trying to do the skirt today, because I had no idea what she was getting at. It's about 36 inches wide and hand-gathered with a dollmaking needle at the top (basted together at the waist and back seam), then you poke the needle through all of the gathers and the doll in a circle to attach the skirt. (You sew it on from beneath for fluffiness.)

As for the hair, you loop it back and forth on top of a piece of fabric, then sew it on the fabric like a hairline. You trim the front and back fabric to a point, then glue on with tacky glue.

Almost done...

As for Mom's doll, I now have more dollmaking tools and buttons, the skirt is pre-sewn and the wig is done, so all I have to do is attach it all.

Glass disaster

Alas, there has been a Big Fat Fucking Problem with my last plate....

The spring plate (on the left) came out all right, even if I couldn't photograph it. Though I can't get it slumped because they're out of molds... and I don't know when they will GET slumped because guess what, there was a class in there today and they'll get first priority... and class work is still going on this week. ARGH!

But the summer plate... I wanna cry. I don't know what the fuck happened, but one piece of it just SLID.

I'm not sure given the bulginess if it's salvageable, even if I figure out how to use a tile saw and saw the excess wave off. (And I don't really know how to use it all by myself either.) On the other hand, if I start it over, (a) I have to go buy more crappy blue glass and cut it AGAIN, and (b) remake the thing, and (c) wait for it to get fused TWICE before it'll be done.

Either way, I fear I shall only have two or three seasons at most by the closing of the CC.

Fuckola.

Well, at least my round glass pieces are still okay after fusing #1, even if my camera battery crapped and I couldn't get those shot.

Phew!

Every one of my pieces has gotten a bid at auction!
I am so relieved, I thought I'd be sitting there tomorrow night mortified when something of mine never got a bid!