Practically Imperfect in Every Way

My style of sewing is on the rough side. My stitches are wonky, my seams are anything but straight, but somehow that fits. I like the wonky ill fitting stitches that I use on my dolls and monsters. It gives them life and character. A part of me would love to be able to make a beautiful quilt with perfectly lined up squares. Wouldn't that be fantastic? But perfect isn't me, and I'm OK with that. Oh I still have my tics and the things that I make *have* to be just so. Perfectly imperfect.

fabric cuff made before we went away

A few weeks before we went on holiday I found a fabric cuff I had made well over a year ago. I put it on and was still quite happy with it's scrappy fabric, frayed edges and vintage buttons. I kept meaning to make some more, not so much to see but just to play with bits of fabric and to wear myself. So when i was packing suitcases and decided to take a partly sewn doll with me to finish while we were away I decided to fire up my sewing machine and sew a few scraps of fabric together to turn into a fabric cuff or two.

fabric cuff finished yesterday

I finished my packing early and ended up sewing a cuff while my friend Kate was visiting before we left. I ended up wearing that cuff most of the holiday and only worked on one of the other cuffs a bit before we headed back again then kept dragging my travel craft kit around with me determined that I would sit down and finish the fabric cuff or else. I'm not entirely sure what the 'or else' would be though.

modelling the fabric cuff and messing about with a TTV app. Also coffee. 

Yesterday in the car on the way to the dentist I sewed on the last button after much arguing with my buttons as to which would be used, in a lacklustre attempt not to think about the dentist, which let me tell you did not work in the slightest, ho hum. The cuff incorporates vintage buttons, scraps of text filled fabric, a slightly bent cog, and an old zip that was in an old sewing box I bought last summer while thrifting in Belper, Derbyshire. There probably isn't a straight line to be found on the cuff but that's fine and dandy with me. I love it anyway.

                                                                                     Close up of yesterday's cuff.

The first cuff I made and still wear....

While drinking coffee obviously.

p.s. I'm still trying to figure out this blogger update, everything keeps going weird on me. And why did I not get asked if I wanted to be .co.uk ? I was happy with .com. *grouchy*  

Miss Helena March: A doll story

Once there was a girl with hair the colour of sunsets and eyes that told stories if only you knew how to read them. Her name changes with the days and the months of the year. When last I knew her she went by the name of Miss Helena March. True names have power, but a nameless girl can call herself anything she likes. Names are turned as easily as coats, a twist of the tongue, a string of meaningless syllables. A stretch of letters scrawled in a hotel ledger.

She is a liar, a story teller, a traveller of the roads between time and reality. Her key opens doors to the past and to the almost was, and nearly is. Worlds in worlds.Earth but not our Earth.  Doors and keys and twisting realities.

 Her smile is sweet but wickedness and sorrow linger in her eyes. Her fingers twitch and she is ready to open another door. She is here one minute and gone on an adventure the next.

She collects clocks, and keys and funny little objects that each reality has discarded. Junk or trash, antiques or vintage. She travels the past and only she knows the things she will treasure most. She meets people and smiles that sweet sorrowful smile. She pours another cup of tea, lights another candle and plans another adventure, dreams of opening another door and sidestepping the world that is for one that isn't quite the same. Worlds within worlds and she has the key to slip between them all.

She is a girl with a key to worlds beyond our own. A little rusty key found in a puddle reflecting a perfect twinned sun sky that never was on this Earth. She takes the name of towns and cities, days and months, places she has been and we will never go. Where monsters roam, and magic lives and things aren't quite the way they are here. Today she is Miss Helena March. Yesterday she called herself Alene. She works in coffee shops, in diners, and in book shops. Small places. Unnoticed. A collection of name tags with the names of places she has been. Cities and towns. Universes and realities.
..............................................................................................................................................................

Miss Helena March was made for my very good friend Jaci. I finished the doll while we were away in the states. I could never quite pin down a name for Helena but I knew it had to be a city name and I was very nearly Roanoke or Alexandria, it could quite possibly be, the doll wouldn't tell me for certain, nor would she share her key with me. I left the doll unstained or grunged up and told Jaci she was free to stain her with coffee or tea if she wished a more aged look. I dare not make a mess of my parents kitchen like I do mine when I stain dolls at home.

 I have a few more dolls that I have been woefully neglectful in finding stories for but hopefully I shall attempt to fix that in the next few weeks. Like that poor steampunk Red Riding Hood that only has half a story written (the rest is in notes honest). If I can get the stories written I can list the dolls in my little etsy shop. Red really wants a new home to explore and she is pestering me to finish her tale and get her listed. Who am I to argue with dolls? Don't answer that!

Caleb the Imp

Caleb the imp is small and lonely little creature, prone to mischief, bouts of melancholia, lover of fairy tales and converse shoes. He is a tiny bit huffy and stubborn, but you didn’t hear that from me. He is wicked, and sweet, a charmer and a procrastinator. He has a way of generating messes that make you forget about the job you were meant to be doing. Caleb love listening to fantasy stories of broken knights, hysterical dragons and forgotten magical realms, and watching epic fantasy movies and shows like Game of Thrones, Conan, Camelot, Legend of the Seeker and Labyrinth to name but a few. Did I mention he loves shoes? Because he really loves converse shoes, he won’t go to a home without any chucks in the house, and may drive his owner to buy more and more shoes. He says the shoes are his pets and his friends.

You must be careful if you own Caleb for you might come to harm tripping on carefully arranged piles of converse. He mostly means well, honest, but Caleb is an imp and that means trouble no matter how many shoes you own.

Caleb and my favourite chucks

Caleb was made from a Converse One Star button down shirt, vintage buttons, vintage doily, and toy filler.Caleb was stained with a mixture of coffee, vanilla and cinnamon. He is meant to be a decoration and not to be roughly played with my small children, due to his button eyes. Caleb the imp is a one of a kind creation, and I hope that you love him as much as I loved making him. I mean just look at that face, how could you not love him?

Caleb is listed in my etsy shop.

I've packed my case

I have packed my case but not to run away. I have filled a small vintage case I thrifted a few summers ago with geeky badges and poison apples for a small display in the Book Boutique. It's a local book shop that opened not too long ago, family run and filled with very nice books. I may end up spending whatever money I get for any sold badges on new books.

I am ridiculously nervous about having my crafts on show so please come hold my hand and tell me it will all be alright and that people will love my lavender filled poison apples and bookish pin badges. I did have some jewellery on sale in another shop a few years ago but I wasn't nearly as nervous about that. Possibly because the bracelets I made were tucked away with a little card and my little suitcase of fairy tales is on display on the counter. Please if you are local to Ripley, Derbyshire pop into the Book Boutique, wander around, have a chat, buy a book and buy a badge too? Pretty please with sugar on top? I'll make you a coffee.

display

I dithered over what to take to the shop to display, and decided to take in some of the little poison apples I have been obsessed with making the last few days. I have made apples before but every time I have made them I have used a different pattern*. I think my little case display turned out OK, it is very me with bits of paper, poison apples and pin badges. I may bring in a small doll or the half finished fox plush I have hidden under my desk.

display

*When I say pattern what I really mean is what shape of scrap fabric I have and what I can do to fit it together. Mainly whatever if buzzing about my brain. I really don't do patterns so very well.

p.s. please can you like Meridian Ariel on Facebook ? And while you are at it will you like the Book Boutique too? *flutters lashes*

Dr. Horrible t-shirt

If you have visited my blog before you will know that I am a geek. Utterly. Completely. Geekily so. I love Science Fiction, Horror, Fantasy, books, movies, tv shows, and web geekery such as Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog. We own the movie/video and the soundtrack. Harrison and I listen to the soundtrack when he helps me cook dinner and we watch the blog with sweet popcorn and Harrison sings along with all the songs.

I looked into making a Dr. Horrible lab coat but my sewing skills are not quite up there with following patterns so I thought I would buy a red shirt and add buttons. Job done. Except it wasn't. I looked for weeks for a plain red t-shirt, I had no luck until today when I found a shirt in a thrift/charity shop for .75p! So I dug through my white button jar for eight similar sized buttons, found where I had hidden a spool of red cotton and needle in hand a Dr. Horrible t-shirt was born.
If I could embroider I would add the symbol on the pocket of Dr. Horrible's Lab Coat. I can't, not without getting in a tangle and steam pouring out of my ears. Harrison is playing in the garden with the Dr. Horrible Soundtrack on playing his favourite song 'Brand New Day'.

steampunk strawberry

steampunk strawberry pincushion

A little while ago on twitter the delightful Eirlys of Scrapiana tweeted about her pincushion vintage fabric strawberries on the cover of Mollie Makes magazine issue 2. If you are lucky enough to track down a copy of the magazine inside is a strawberry tutorial, written by Eirlys. I haven't been able to track down a copy of Mollie Makes, there is a dreadful lack of the good craft magazines around here (somebody should do something about that.

Scrapiana/Eirlys challenged me to make a strawberry on the darker side, something zombified or steampunk or dripping in blood... honestly what do people think I am?... *looks at books, dvds and dolls and monsters*Never mind don't answer that. ;o)

scrapiana Eirlys

@

@meridianariel PS Please take my strawberries over to the dark side. I need to see that. ;)

the above is an actual twitter quote. See !

I haven't been crafting much recently but with scrapiana egging...or should that be strawberry-ing me along I gathered together some scraps of material. Sent her a few messages as I didn't have the magazine to work from. And worked out a strawberry with her help and past experience making the Slightly Sinister Strawberry last year. I sacrificed a small rusty key and the inner workings of a watch that I bought the other weekend in Wirksworth and went to work crafting a small steampunk strawberry. It was fun to have been challenged and I look forward to seeing who else adds their strawberries to the flickr group.

I think I may need to make another Slightly Sinister Strawberry. Something a teeny bit darker than the previous one turned out last year though I still love the story and Lillian too.

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.

Little Miss Melancholia

Melancholia is wistful and some might say wise. She is an expert on morose and obscure poets. She can often be found wandering aimlessly on cliff tops and moonlit moors. Rainclouds follow her every step. Every time she turns the radio on a song of hollow hearts, acoustic guitars and melancholy lyrics fills the room.

She tried to grow a garden once but only with weeping willow and love-lies-bleeding grew. The roses and forget-me-nots all withered and died. Poor little Melancholia never had any friends for long the all seemed to move away, or suddenly died in a quietly tragic way.

Miss Melancholia is made with cotton, vintage buttons, acrylic wool and scraps of fabric and vintage doilies upcycled into something new and magical. She was grunged up with a lovely smelling mixture of coffee, tea, vanilla and cinnamon. Melancholia will come with her own hand stained and typed story card for you to keep. She is an art doll and not meant for small children to play with due to small buttons. I have listed her in my little etsy shop.

Iris the dryad doll for Japan

Iris the dryad

Iris dreams big dreams as she tends the flowers in her poison garden. Hellebore, columbine, foxglove, black henbane, bluebells , mistletoe, monkshood, poppies, oleander, stinging nettles and thorny apples, nightshade, wormwood, willow and yew.

Flowers, so delicate and earthly fair. Beauty that hides bitter poison filled secrets. Iris was human once, long ago forsaken by her love in grief and anger she became a dryad and her heart became a green and wild thing. She grows flowers in her poison garden flowers to heal and flowers to kill. Each afternoon she sets a tea party in her beautiful poison garden, delicate porcelain cups and saucers and a tea pot brewing tears, curls of steam dancing on the breeze.

Will you take tea with Iris? She made it herself.

Iris is listed in my etsy shop all profit for her sale will go to the red cross Japan fund. Her listing expired awhile ago and I thought about giving her away but I think this is better. Harrison has been very interested in what has happened and is happening in Japan. So listing a few dolls and donating is something helpful we can do together. I also have some things to take up to the Red Cross Charity shop in town that will hopefully help too.

Doll for Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief

*****SOLD*****

We have been watching the news coverage of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. It is devastating and Harrison and I have decided to sell this little nameless doll and give 100% of the profits from her sale to the Red Cross Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Japan fund.

Harrison helped me to to make the doll by helping to fill her with toy filler. She has no name so is waiting for you to name her and give us a few ideas to craft a little story card for her.

if you like she can be 'aged/grunged up with a special mixture of coffee, tea, vanilla and cinnamon, the same mix I use to add colour to the story cards I make for the rest of my dolls.

the doll is listed here on etsy please have a look at her and all the other lovely crafts on etsy for Japan.

the Ghost Boy

Merle the Ghost Boy

The ghost boy lives in a boarded up shop at the end of a dark twisting ally. Behind a rusty chain, a lock with no key and a door that might once have been green but now is black with age. The shop is filled with books, paper, ink, typewriters, wooden letterpress blocks and archaic machinery. He thinks his name might once have been Merle, or Mervin or maybe Fox. It’s been so long since anyone has ever asked.

The night is filled with the moans, shrieks, and groans of the printing press as the Ghost Boy plays with ink and letterpress blocks. He reads his books, prints stories and posters of fantastical imaginary things. He pins up posters on telephone poles and plasters them on walls. He makes up typography jokes that nobody ever hears. Nobody ever laughs but him.

He walks though the town when the lights are dim and laughs at signs in papyrus, comic sans and arial black. He painstakingly prints graffiti letter by letter onto white painted walls to share the beauty of typography and words. He painstakingly types letters and notes, and slips them into newspapers and books in the library and the bookshops in town. He waits and waits for the books to be opened and his secret notes to be found.

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the Ghost Boy was made with love using scraps of fabric, vintage thread and buttons, he is filled with toy filler. Merle comes with his very own story card. I have listed Merle on etsy, click here or click on the link on the sidebar.

jelly bean paper parcels

Its half term so that means making a few things with Harrison. If I can tear him away from the DSi or his lego to craft with me. I have tried to get him to bake some cakes, colour, and go for walks. He said no to everything until I said we should make something with jelly beans. That got his attention... bribery always works.

So we used a few pages of my much abused French copy of Lord of the Rings that I found on our last trip to Paris a year and a half ago..or is that two years? We made a simple square pouch first. I folded a sheet of paper in half then Harrison carefully placed the jelly beans inside before I finished sewing the last edge together. Feeling more confident we decided to make something with a slightly more difficult shape. But what could we make? A marshmallow bunny shaped peep! It was a quick fun craft that I had been wanting to try for ages and Harrison loved helping and eating the jelly beans of course.

a pincushion tutorial...ish

Today instead of doing the crafting I'm mean to be doing I made a little pincushion. Don't worry i will be doing some of the crafting I NEED to get done a little later after I have consumed vast quantities of coffee and had a little stroll around town. Tomorrow is an inset day at school before half term so I'm determined to get the most out of today and have some me time. Which includes sewing for no reason and going for a stomp around town with my ipod blaring in my ears. Anyway here is a little tutorial that you can use to justify the buying of chocolate. Seriously.

ingredients:
1 package of Sainsbury's pots au chocolat (or any alternative pudding in a little pot)

a spoon

dish soap

fabric

pins

toy filler

all purpose craft glue

these are the puddings you are looking for.

instructions:

1. Open the package of pots au chocolat. Using the spoon scarf down one pot. the wash the ceramic pot with the dish soap and set aside to dry.

2. cut a circle from your fabric that is roughly twice as big as the pot au chocolat ramekin.

3. carefully sew around the fabric circle about a quarter of an inch from the edge. Gently pull the threads together creating a little pouch to stuff to the gills with toy filler. Carefully tie the threads together. It doesn't matter if it looks messy no one will see it.

4. making sure the ramekin is perfectly dry squeeze out a large dollop of glue in the bottom of the pot.

5. carefully place the fabric puff into the pot. You may need to hold it for a minute or two so that the glue adheres to the fabric. And there you go a new pincushion.

crafter's notes: The fabric is a pink and white harlequin that I received in the Alice in Wonderland craft swap. I will probably give the pincushion away as I'm not big on pink but I am pleased with how the pincushion turned out and as there is a second empty ramekin floating about the kitchen I might use that one too.

Mr Northman

no not this Mr. Northman

Mr. Northman isn't for sale I'm afraid ladies... he was made for the exceedingly fantastic Amanda of Kitschy Coo infamy. She blogged about him when he arrived but I am a dunce and forgot to blog about him. So here is is Mr. Northman in all his vampiric glory... the button-y blue eyes, the fangs, the swept back blonde locks... this Vampire has everything.

this one!

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about you must go watch TrueBlood and read the Sookie Stackhouse novels...they are trashy Bit Lit at its best. And please visit Amanda's blog post as its far witter and funnier than mine. As I have bags to pack for a trip to York and I haven't had my lunch yet! eeep!

GO HERE NOW

Mr. Melvin Bone

Meet Mr. Melvin Bone. He was made from a witch's spell that went astray... he was meant to be a servant of the bone but something went wrong and Melvin isn't really of much use. He is crass, disruptive, lazy, deviant, downright vile in the morning....

.... he drinks far too much coffee...

in a bookshop in Hay-on-Wye

.....and likes to read books and watch movies that scare the bejeezus out of him and keep him up all night worrying about monsters and aliens... for some reason it has never occurred to him that he is a monster himself. Halloween is the only holiday he celebrates, with chocolate and candy and horrid movies that keep him up all night....movies that he makes you stay up to watch with him.

Here is me sewing him caffe Nero in Derby

he is listed in my etsy shop here

The Owl Girl

*****SOLD*****

The Owl Girl

In day she hides behind the fragile mask of humanity, thick glasses perched on a small nose, dark hair in wild disarray. Eyes on the ground, a quick step and an arm full of books to keep others away.

When the moon rises round and fat, the night creatures sing and Athene sheds the pale mask of humanity and slips from her human skin. Shining feathers burst from pale flesh. She flies screeching into the night, free to hunt and wishing the dawn will never come.

The world turns and night spills across the sky, strings of glittering jewels, necklaces of suns and worlds scattered across unending black.

The sun crests the horizon, golden rays falling on golden eyes and black and white feathers. Athene fights again the change, the slip back into human form. Feathers fly on the wind as her wing shifts to a human arm, bones twisting, breaking.

Fat tears roll down feathery cheeks, but the pain is too much to fight for one small masked owl and she lets her night shape slip away. Bones and feathers and cries of pain and a small dark haired girl is all that remains.

She crawls to the hallow she hid her clothes, dressing quickly in the cool dawn light. Wiping tears from her cold cheeks she slips her glasses on.

lillalotta fabric tapes

old book cotton tape

The lovely Anna of lillalotta blog will be closing down her fabric tape shop in two weeks time so run to her shop and order some beautiful tapes before they are all gone.

'little red' cotton tape

I have just ordered some of the 'old book' tape and the 'little red' tape and have ordered the book tape and some Alice in Wonderland 'Drink Me' tape that I have used to make some of my little monster dolls.

'Alice Wonderful' cotton tape

....run to her etsy shop now

a little pumpkin

a little bit of inspirational crafting... or that's what I thought I was doing anyway. Tis a little decorative pumpkin/pincushion made from some orange fabric and a vintage doily. Oh and a little piece of a stick Harrison gave me. I wasn't sure I liked it at first, but I think its growing on me now. In fact I might have a go at making one or two more once I have been to the shop to get some more toy filling. I'm posting this photo today because today feels very much like a crisp autumn day and not so much late August, so what better to blog on an Autumnal feeling day than an Autumn inspired fabric pumpkin.

tired and whingy

I'm working on things honest i have abandoned my blog and crafting, but this 6 week summer holiday with out a holiday is tough stuff, Matt is so busy working and H is busy being crabby and waking at stupid o' clock every damn morning. Today I have been busy tidying the house sugarsoaping the walls, touching up paint and arguing over the darkness of the shade of grey (something called Smoulder) that I want to paint a wall in our bedroom and Matt thinks is way too dark. But its my craft room and my choice unless he wants to give up the office to me. And I don't think that will happen anytime soon.

The doll above is named Iris, I'm working on her story and I won't put her in my shop till she has a story to go with her. She is made from a vintage embroidered linen tea towel that I found at a charity shop that was badly stained and torn but I managed to rescue some of the embroidery. I have enough tea towel fabric saved to make another doll or possibly two. I really like how Iris turned out I think she is a bit of a dreamer.

Right I best go make dinner, chicken enchiladas (left over from last night but the sauce always tastes better the next day) and settle down for the night and watch a bit more of V the mini series... the original one, we haven't seen the new one yet.

I will be posting a few recipes in the next day/week/whenever and having a giveaway too!

really really gone now... I'm starving.

Dexter the Imp

****SOLD****

Meet Dexter the imp. A small and lonely little creature, prone to mischief, bouts of melancholia, procrastination, and is addicted to bad sci-fi movies. Dexter will tell anyone that he used to be a well renowned actor appearing as one of the goblins in Labyrinth. I don’t believe a word of it, imps are notorious liars, and after all he is an imp and not a goblin.

When I said they used puppets in the Labyrinth he didn’t take to kindly to me and ran off in a huff. Later I found that all my bookmarks were removed from my books, the cutlery was in the wrong place in the cutlery drawer (I really hate that), and all the labels peeled off the cans. It probably wasn’t my wisest move calling him a liar to his face.

Dexter is wickedly good at procrastination and can be paid off in chocolate coins and Haribo sweets to leave you alone to get on with things... but if you let him he will show you the best websites for losing time and video games to steal your day. He has a way of generating messes that make you forget about the job you were meant to be doing. He has a knack for finding the trashiest shows on TV that somehow magically seem to be on when you walk past the room and you just sit down for a minute, three hours later you are still sitting there. But like I said he is easily bribed, and quite easily distracted by shiny things.

Dexter is tolerably good at revenge as well, if he doesn’t get distracted by cakes and TV, you can send him off to annoy those driven people that always get things done and never ever procrastinate. Is that a good thing? Probably not but everyone should procrastinate a bit. If you ever feel the need to sit down with a bowl of popcorn and watch a terrible movie on Syfy, then Dexter is your man...er imp, though the movie quotes can get on your nerves.