Basics of paleontology Case study in false balance in journalism Cure for hiccups Dick Cheney empathy test Donald Rumsfeld: poet Dying language and identity Ethics of drug development Exhibition as social dominance Experience Is the Product Feynman on k-12 textbook acquisition Inside 48-hours magazine James Frey: sweatshop proprietor Justin Long: good guy Nabokov: insightful lepidopterist The appeal of Mad Men The end of men Verifying info online What movie titles are most often adapted in scientific titles? What's happening to my body: a book for cortez wrasses Wonderful review of the plight of isolated South American tribesI couldn’t finish the whole of Thing 28 by midnight, and it’s a gift, so the main part I have finished is not ready for publication, but this secondary part is, and it seemed like a fitting end to Thing-a-day. This is a bean-bag toy’s innards – a muslin peritoneum filled with flaxseed and with a little something inside that can easily be felt when the toy is assembled. A fitting finish for this month!
I joined a coworker with her dog for walkies yesterday afternoon. He had a full 12 minutes!
I had something slightly more ambitious in mind, but it was taking too long, so I quit here.
The first few (dozen) times I tried the round embroidery stitch called a French knot, my stitches knotted too soon, and they looked like crap. Then I managed to do a couple clean, and felt like I’d gotten it.
So I ripped out all my failed stitches and tried French knots in 5 different sizes … in these breaking waves. Yay!
A coworker brought these to the office today. She had been enchanted by the strawberry marshmallows but pronounced this result a failure. “They taste like Fruity Pebbles.” As if that’s a bad thing. Anyway, I took care of ‘em for her. And made a picture before I did.
I straight-stitched the stripes on and then sewed front to back and stuffed kitty. Not exactly the result I’d planned, but I’m making progress matching the result to the intent.
The eyes are much lighter in this picture only partly because they light was different; in the first picture, the fabric and floss were still wet from being rinsed.
This is the face for a felt + embroidery stuffed toy. My next thing is adding stripes, sewing the back, and stuffing.
This is from a simple design I sketched (and then, oddly, ended up reversing horizontally when I freehanded the silhouette onto the felt).
I had some trouble with the thing I meant to finish today, and this piece is a bit of experimentation to get a better handle on the fabric. Also an attempt at embroidered features. Baby steps!
Continuation of Thing 16:
Learning a different stitch (split stitch). I made a nest out of herringbone stitches, but it ended up looking just plain awful!
Making the Frederick quilt reminded me how much I’d like to have better options for decorating or giving features to small stuffed toys without having to do a ton of cutting (as for the 3 separate pieces for each of Frederick’s eyes) or gluing (to add on plastic googly eyes). A couple of weeks ago, I ordered an adorable book called Doodle Stitching, by Aimee Ray, and tonight I copied one of her illustrations and used a single stitch (backstitch) to embroider it.
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I don’t really know how to explain this Victorian streak I’m manifesting, but this month is turning out to be a good excuse to try out lots of little things.