tashina knight

I lived for years and years in apartments with white walls. When I bought my first house I went out and bought gallons and gallons of paint in apple greens, buttery yellows, and ocean-y blues. Every room was a different color and even though it was a tract house, when you came through the front door the house came to life with a sea of bright pastels.  Since then, I’ve developed a real love of these colors. Not as washed out and nursery-like as light pastels and not as scary for some as bright reds and blues on the wall, these colors can make excellent "entry-level" colors for people looking to brighten up their rooms.

This photo is from one of the model houses we visited in our home search. The bright pastel pink and blue just pop against the white. If they had also used a white wall, the cabinet would just fade into it, but the use of the golden pastel gives the whole wall just the right balance.

The beads at the top are some that I commissioned from Corina a couple of years ago. Just like mint in aromatherapy wakes me up, bright pastel colors like these just make me happy - and unashamedly so.

Like Mabelle who one day decided that even if "cute" wasn’t in, she still loved it, and made it her style, these bright whimsical colors are often my style. I think many of us need to learn to let go of the idea that what we do must be approved of by the majority of the populace. If neutrals are in, we make items in neutral colors. While it’s true that’s it’s useful to know the current fashionable colors in order to make sales to large markets, it’s often happily not neccesary in smaller craft markets. So, if something makes you happy and it doesn’t hurt anyone else, I say embrace it and make it you. 

Here’s is a Sticks jewelry box with a whole rainbow of bright pastels.

Who else uses bright pastels?

Key West, Florida
artist Ardith Goodwin
Julie Bomberger
Art Propensity

And the inspiration for this post was Melody Johnson who just made what
she calls a "sweet sugary little quilt" which is just fabulous- as is
her blog, go check it out!. (See more details about this quilt here)

Spring is finally just around the corner and I’m definitely ready for the world to be full of bright colorful flowers again!

Just testing out Coreldraw 9. I was too cheap to buy 12 which is the latest one and several people mentioned 9 as the most stable. Luckily, it appears to have everything in it that I liked from the free trial of 12. It’s great to have such a powerful tool - the last object oriented program I owned is the first Aldus Freehand back from about 1994.    

I’ve had dragonfly ladies in my head for a couple of months now. I think I’ll eventually make some faceless dolls with the dragonfly wings. If I could be something that flew, I’d be a brightly colored dragonfly, stopping often by the water to soak up the sun.

I once read a true story online about a golden dragonfly and the way it had touched one woman’s life. While reading the story, I thought that a golden dragonfly must be beautiful; I’d never seen one that color. A few minutes later, I looked out the bedroom patio door and right next to me was a golden dragonfly. Of course I had to tell the story writer about it and we shared a little moment of wonder at connections between people at a distance.

  I’m not 100% pleased with her, but I’ve declared her to be done. I may go back at some point and paint her feet, but I think that’s all. I really enjoyed adding all the embellishments - that seems to be my favorite part! I love the Doodlebug sequins in flower shapes - they are meant for the scrapbooking market but no reason dollmakers can’t use them too.

Things I liked about this doll pattern:  I like the simplicity of doing a running stitch for the elbows and the knees while stuffing. I’m sure some sort of joints would be better, but for a beginner project, this worked well. I liked the little body shape (see my work in progress post for the photo) and how easy it was to sew arms and legs onto it.  I like the hair which is really just a pom-pom that took 2 minutes. I’m supposed to glue the hair on which I guess I will, but for now it’s help in place with one pin.

What I didn’t like: The head in general. I don’t like the seam in the front or the shape of the head. The seam in front is pretty common, but don’t think I’ll be doing many like this once I get up to speed and develop my own style.

In other news, I went to Stitches West yesterday, a large knitting show. Wow, was that a madhouse! There were lines to buy yarn at the popular booths and just an overwhelming assortment of yarns and buttons and felting supplies. I had just bought some felting supplies so all I actually bought was a DVD to learn knitting - it’s called Art of Knitting. I had seen it on the website but I got a little better idea of what it was like at the show. 

Also, I’m about to start selling again on eBay and maybe my website. I’ve been an eBay powerseller for years selling beads and yarn and other goodies, but since I moved to Northern California in April, I’ve been taking a break from it. I have a lot of great hand-dyed yarns and gorgeous vintage beads to sell so I’ll let everyone know when I get the business license and all in place again.

I have a funny little idea for the Alice in Wonderland theme for the Month of Softies project…let’s see if I can actually make what I’m thinking of.

Highlights of the March COLOR  Issue of House and Garden:

Pantone Tableware from Fishes Eddy.
The "lollypop building" in Montreal.
Colorware will make your iPod or Powerbook any color you want or buy a colorful PC.
Take a bath in any color you like with Kohler’s Sok Chromotherapy tub.
The Erin Adams line of mosaic tile at Ann Sacks.

For the past few years, I’ve been more and more interested in fiber arts, especially art quilts and art dolls. Since I couldn’t sew at all, it was a bit intimidating, but I’ve decided to dive in. So this week I decided to start my first art doll. I knew I needed more sewing practice and decided to get it by just starting a project….if the doll turned out terrible, well, lessons learned and all that. I chose a pattern by Magic Threads, which is the business name for Julie McCullough. The pattern name is Pixie Dust and is one of her newer patterns. 

I’ve never liked to copy something exactly so I’ve decided to skip the wings and quilted dress and make a really simple dress (if I can even figure that out). I also want to use different colors. I have some new polka dotted fabric that I’ve been wanting to use on something and I’ve got plenty of mock hand-dyes to match.  I started on the doll late last week and got as far as this (click on the photo for a more complete image):

So far, I’ve learned that you can’t make instructions too simple for a beginner. The website page mentioned needing craft velour for the head so I bought some. Then in the pattern it mentions that the "right side" is the SMOOTH side. (the capital letters are hers). What is the smooth side of velour? If you rub velour it’s pretty soft and smooth- or did she mean to use the other side? I finally decided to use the non-velour side as the right side since I figured she wouldn’t have mentioned it if the velour side was the right side since that’s what one would assume. It seems to have worked because it was pretty easy to draw on (the mouth and eyebrows are supposed to be drawn on with Pigme markers).

Also, I tried to use the green hair in the photo, but the head is kind of a strange shape (which I’m not sure if that’s how it was meant to be or not - the pattern said to use a small seam allowance when sewing the front of the head to the back, but if you’re a beginner, how do you know what a small seam allowance is on a 11" doll? Is it 1/8"?, 1/4? ) so I decided to use the same yarn-type hair as in the pattern instructions since it hides the head shape quite a bit.

I’ve made the clothes but I needed to do some hand sewing on them since the seams are too small for me to be able to do yet on the sewing machine. My hand sewing at this point is pretty bad, causing me to call my mother and tell her that I had learned the first rule of sewing….The Worse You Sew, The More Embellishments You Need To Cover Up Your Bad Sewing. That’s where I am now….painting the feet and hands, adding embellishments to cover my sewing, and just adding all the finishing touches. Hope to have a finished photo up soon!

This is one of my acrylic paintings of a band of friendly monsters. These are all young monsters peering out of their homes to see if it’s time to come out and play all night.

This is a detail; to see the whole painting, click on the image.