Learning to Listen

Many Years Ago.....

     I used to chuckle to myself and smile when my Great Grandmother's hearing aid would start to 'whistle'....it would take her a bit to realize it was whistling and turn it down....and I would wonder, it must be really noisy in there to her, for her to not hear that horrid whistle!  I could talk regular voice level and she always heard  me and understood what I said....so it wasn't like she was deaf.   Sometimes I think I get the same way~ there are just so many voices with an opinion of what I 'should' and shouldn't be doing....some my own, some not....others, I don't know where they come from but they are there none the less...

   I have wanted to do a peddlar dollye for a long time~ I have done several, but I want one for 'me'.  I carved out a bunch of little poupards last year, as she will be a doll seller...but I always have so much going on for others...she always gets put on the back burner and must be content to watch other dollys come and go. She is always such a good listener~ she just sits there and smiles at me with never a harsh word

   She will be my first all body solid mache dolly, and I am quite excited with her.  Here I am holding her, the dowel is going thru her hip joint holding her legs on. They are very crude as of yet~ I am waiting for the mache to dry fully before I carve them to final shape. As you can see, I sculpted her to be a painted eye girl.  The past few weeks however, she has not been content to just sit and listen to my ramblings gleefully......she has been doing everything to get my attention, even resorting to being down right frumpy at times....not at all like her normal self. Night after night she appeared in my dreams telling me the same thing, over and over....until I would listen.

   O Happye Daye! it is for me when dolly is in favorable temperament again. She did not want to have painted eyes....how could I not appease her plea to see?

 Doesn't she look so much happier now? I think yes!  It wasn't easy tho~ I have never inset eyes after sculpting....but actually, it was rather fun. We tried on several different color eyes~ light light blue....dark clear blue...a gorgeous pair of green but she didnt like those, so we settled on an early pair of very dark cognac brown glass eyes. First I cut out where I wanted her eyes to be on her face... this is the intital set of coarse, I will go back later and clean them up

 I then turned her over and carefully cut out the back of her head~ now most dollys have their pate at the top of the head, but shes mine, so why not make it where I could most easily get at the back of her eyes to set them in?  I hollowed out her head and after setting her eyes filled in behind them with more mache.

  I am thinking I need to write a little note...or perhaps put a dollar or something fun in there before I seal her all up again.  Once her wig is on, no one will ever know she had eye surgery ;)

 She is unique to her own self, and I wouldn't have it any other way.  When one learns how to listen to what drives them, great things can come of it. A soul can be living and getting by, but still be lost..until they listen to that 'something'...that 'it'...and then...well watch out world!

17th c Beaded Basket~ Wrapping the Frame

My kind of 'Getting Dirty'

   I had a clear picture of my basket in my mind's eye~ but just could not find the right shade of silk to wrap my frame with~ and heck, even if I could, have you priced hand dyed silk ribbon???? Good grief!  6 and 7 dollars a yard and UP!!!  utterly ridiculous~ I bought a spool of undyed bias cut silk ribbon from Dharma Trading in Washington~ fabulous place she has~ the spool of ribbon I am holding I bought for 8.00....well, I think perhaps it was 8.70 ~ and how many yards you ask????  62!  YES~ sixty two yards!!  (yes, of coarse I counted) I bought two just to be sure I had enough~ especially when you are hand dying, you simply MUST do all needed for a project, and a little extra, because even if you write down your recipe to a T....you will never get the same color twice!

   So into my little bucket the silk went, carefully unrolled.  I used Procion dyes~ also carried by Dharma~ a little tan...a little ecru.... a little golden brown for earthiness

  Swishing every few hours carefully, so not to make a huge knott......  this was after about 3 hours and was as much dye as the fibers of the silk would hold, so a little rinse and as it came out, instead of waiting for it to dry, I cheated a little and ironed it to dry it~what can I say I get a little impatient sometimes!

   After I got it all ironed, which took longer than dying it altogether I think....I held up a little sample of lattice to see how it looked~ good enough!

  To make wrapping a bit easier, I wound one roll of the silk into a tight wad that I could hold in my hand and pass thru the spokes of the basket easily as I wound it round.  I tacked the end with a couple of stitches in matching thread and decided to do the spokes first. You will note that the very top edge is left bare~ this edge will be spiral wrapped~ no 'dirt' there!

  So here you can see my little stitches~ wrapping first with the wool gave the silk something to grab onto, and also made it much easier to pass my needle thru.  I wound round and round and round again, until all was covered

 At this point I started to freak out a little, as alone, like this, the silk really looked orange to me~ not brown anymore at all. If I remember right, I lamented for about 3 days, going from ' it looks OK'....to 'nope~ its getting ripped off and I will re~dye another batch'... and back again.  I was thinking too much of coarse, and finally just listened to the little voice in my head saying, 'no~ leave it well alone, all will be as it should'.

  Finally~ let the 'bead stabbing' commence!

Making a Beaded Basket~ Where to start?

   I took this picture about an hour after my mind told me I was making a beaded basket~ I have never beaded a thing, aside from stringing beads for necklaces!  This is probably not the way to do it, but I figured, if they could bend a wire to make a neat basket shape in the 17th c, I could do it....right now.... and in my living room ;)   So first, I wanted to make a pattern of some sort~ I didnt have any paper large enough, so I grabbed a spare sheet of foam core and drew it out with a sharpie. No measure, just eyeballed it.  I am glad now I used that foam core, I used it thru the entire process, from making the basket itself, so using it for my template to fit my beaded designs to.   For the basket frame, I used lengths of brass brazing rod.  They are not so stiff you have to use tools or heat them to bend~but you do have to use quite a bit of elbow grease.  For the handles, I sketched my pattern on a scrap wood board and then pounded it out with nails every little bit, then I took about a 25" length of rod and bent it carefully around the nails for my handles

   Here is what my frame looked like after the little spot welds to get it together~ you can see the one required element for the competition in the center~ I used the smaller of the two ovals from the kit.  My Idea at this moment, is for an angel in the center, and to reproduce the floral panels from the Corning basket in each of the surrounding sections.  So she will be watching over her Garden~ the inner panels will be treated like the Corning with the white lattice between, but the outside and handles will be wrapped spiral like the Holburne basket.

   Underneath the white lattice, I want the basket to look like 'dirt', so am planing on wrapping it with silk I will dye to the right dirt color~ and so that the wraps are nice and tidy and all the same size, I will wrap the basket first with wool~ this will give the sections a bit of a cushion under the wrapping and give my needle and thread something to dig into.  I have loads and loads of wool for my dolls, this is from a handsome ram named 'Leo'

 I just grab a little and stretch it out and wrap it round on itself. The wool has been washed, but there are still wonderful little seeds and sticks here and there~ that I like to leave in~ it gives character!

  Here is the basket frame all wrapped~ you will notice alot of my pictures will be at night~ cause I literally worked day and night on this basket~ from August till the last day of December it took to get it finished~ I wont tell you how many hours, because I am planing a little giveaway later for you all to guess that, but yes! I kept track of every  minute of work, and YES! Every bead! So be keeping track in the back of your mind!

Queen Anne Doll on eBay this week!

Stubborn as a Mule & on eBay this week!

  Wrestling Heart~ she certainly does live up to her name. It is known all girls of society and grace simply must must must have their heads covered at all times!  But no! all I hear is
  ' please Mum~ I hate wearing that bonnet!!!! Please don't make me wear it~ it makes my head itch horrible and now Jacob thinks I have the lice!!! Do you even know how embarrassing that is????'

  What to do when they are so cheeky...and one such as I am feeling such under the weather....  I let her have her way of coarse~ she is on eBay this week so please click on the eBay specials to see super huge detailed pictures of her wooden legs....latchett tie shoes....and that horrible silk brocade bonnet she hates so much!

A Special breed of 17th c Beaded Basket....

Corning Museum of Glass, Corning NY ~Accession no.  53.2.4

    This basket is a breed of it's own, I have found just one other that is made similar, located in the U.K.  No provenance is known for this basket, it was purchased from a dealer by the Museum in 1953.  In 1972, the entire Museum was flooded up to the second floor~ many pieces were lost and damaged, this basket being one of them. It was literally encased in mud, and both Ladye & Gentleman's hair were lost.  ( Its actually quite an interesting read if you go to the Museum link, you can read all about the flood)

 There are several things that make this basket unique, the first one that stood out to me, was the trellis like white bead work covering the basket itself.  The majority of the other beaded basket frames of this era (17th century) are wrapped solid with beads in a spiral direction....(think of a barber pole).  I really liked how delicate and light it looked~ very feminine.  And what a treat, one can see the actual basket frame....or can you?

  I have left the photos large so you can enjoy the details~ so please do click on the pictures to enlarge!  I have studied and studied the pictures I have, and while it does look like the frame is wrapped in cloth, I cannot be 100% sure that it is not the frame showing, and the wonderful brown color is not actually rust. (I have emailed the Museum several times with no reply as of yet) This was no bother to me, as I already had my mind set on how I was going to do up my own basket.   Besides a good view of the frame, the above picture is of one of my favorite panels, foxgloves. This at first looks like an absolute nightmare, but it being so disheveled actually showed a lot of how the individual flowers were constructed....which brings me the the  most fascinating and wonderful thing about this basket~ all the motifs...the leaves, the flowers, the people, the birds, the butterflies.....all made on wire forms.

 On this panel of roses you can clearly see the wire shapes of the large petals, their beads now missing. Actually, the two large flowers in back are also missing their second layer of petals that the center front rose still retains, tho they are all smooshed forward.   For the majority of the motifs, wires were bent to the desired shape, then seed beads were woven within the shape to fill it solid. Some things, like the peaches, were made more like traditional stumpwork, with woven beads covering a shaped card base, and then stuffing added to give a 3 dimensional shape.

  Perhaps it was the fact that so many panels looked like this~ just a mess! Beads missing, parts of flowers going every which way. How sorrowful it all looked to me. I wanted to see what this basket looked like when it was made~ when all the flowers and the vases and birds and butterflies were complete. Like I have said before, there was no question in my mind. No hesitation. I had  to make a basket like this.
      And so, it began....

Currently on eBay

Retired Nicol Sayre Valentines & Easter on eBay this week!

  When I was tearing the house apart in December looking for that lost santa chart, I found a whole nother BOX of Nicol Sayre licensed pieces (back when she was with Midwest of Canon Falls)  and have listed some on eBay this week~ all are retired, from 2003, 2004 and 2005~ never before been displayed and still in their original wraps~ so if you haven an interest~ go take a peek at my eBay specials~ link is at the right!

An Introduction to 17th C Beaded Baskets

   17th c beaded or bead work baskets are made from one main ingredient~ seed beads.  They have been labeled as 'Christening Baskets' by some, but in my research, most likely used as presentation baskets~ for a special occasion, like a wedding or having a child...and are purely decorative. They would not have held anything in them. Some are made entirely of seed beads strung over wire, others have beads applied to a silk satin background fabric and stitched over the frame...while others are made entirely of flat woven beads.  The Met's basket above has a bottom with beads stitched onto a silk satin background, while the sides are made up of beads strung on wires to make marvelous three dimensional fruits and flowers~ you can learn more about it here

  The majority are rectangular in shape, the like Braganza Basket at the Met Museum in NY in the first picture, but there are ovals too, like this cutie patuti from the Burrell Collection in Glasgow.

 You can go here to explore the Burrell Collection

   Whatever the shape, they all have key aspects in common~ a wire basket frame is made, then covered with beads, entirely, so no wire can be seen. Beaded embellishments are then applied by wiring to the frame, until the entire thing is covered.  The trefoil shape handles are also common, and a feature that I really adore~
   the above basket was just acquired by the Holburne Museum in Bath, you can read more about it here

This last basket is one in the Corning Museum of Glass  and one of my favorites. It looks at first glance similar to the majority of the early 17th c beaded baskets, but in fact has several unique features in its construction.  I have scoured and scoured, and have only found one other extant period basket that utilizes the same construction techniques~ which I will be touching a bit on in my next post