literary crushes, procrastination and doll making

A few days ago while procrastinating on twitter and chatting with a few of my best geek friends I got the worm of an idea to make a doll inspired by Neil Gaiman himself. Mr. Gaiman is one of my favourite authors, he is cool, nerdy and all around fantastic. So with very little encouragement from the twitter peanut gallery I set to work sewing a new doll and ignoring the housework. But don't tell my husband that.

The dolls and monsters I make start life as scraps of fabric, lace and vintage buttons. I sit at my desk and play with ideas and fabrics until the pieces come together with the threads of small stories and fairy tales in my head. For me making the dolls and writing their little stories are one and the same, an outlet for my creative side. I make them for the love of craft and making things. This doll won't have a story because he is the doll of a wonderful storyteller and you should own his books already and if not then run out and buy one today.

Neil Gaiman the doll is made with scraps of cotton fabric, toy filler, and vintage buttons (green as that is the closest colour to hazel I had in my modest button stash. I did my research). I thin grunged up the doll with a mixture of coffee, tea, vanilla and cinnamon to at an aged look and a lovely smell.

blue sun tea towel

Blue Sun logo tea towel

Blue Sun is the logo for a fictional conglomeration in the Firefly verse. I like to think of it as the Starbucks or McDonald's of the Firefly verse. The logo can be found everywhere on the show, tin cans, ads, and clothing. I love Firefly, in my mind it is the best of Joss Whedon's many brilliant shows. Though very short lived, it was cancelled after 13 episodes, it has a huge browncoat following that made it possible to make the movie Serenity (which I love to bits and makes me tear up every gorram time I watch it).

Serenity's Crew

I bought the dvd box set for myself in January and Matt and I sat through every episode grinning away madly (or that might have just been me). I have the the soundtrack on my ipod and have been listening to it quite a bit. And I got chatting on twitter and facebook with other geeks quoting the show. I even wear a Jayne quote pin badge on my coat. Which isn't geeky enough as I felt the need to do a bit more Firefly crafting.

Blue Sun logo tea towel

Last year I bought a roll of freezer paper and its been sitting in my desk being ignored and gathering dust ever since. I have visited Whedoncraft time and again and was inspired by a few stencilled Blue Sun logo shirts. I thought it was time I got round to doing something too. I had Matt print me the logo and spent ages cutting it out with a craft knife, I am quite useless with craft knives in general but I managed not to cut myself and bleed all over my geekery. The tea towel need to be washed a few times so the fabric paint mellows down and fits in more with something found in the verse. I may even boil it in a pan of tea so it has a more aged look.

Jayne in his Blue Sun shirt

I want a Jayne hat and a Saffron scarf...unfortunately my knitting skills are lacking and my crochet is akin to making a tumor out of yarn.