Making Time

I saw an exhibition recently of Russian dolls, and they had ‘blank’ russian dolls for sale, to paint your own. I’ve got the pang of ‘why didn’t i buy that?’ They also showed lovely notepaper with Russian dolls on them, and these little wobbly Unazukin. Russian dolls and their look is very popular in Japan.
Anywho these are just some random notes… I love these little dolls, the Unazukin. I always thought they looked like Russian dolls. Here is a limited edition one styled after the ‘daruma’ doll. It’s interesting that this motif/style is making a full circle, and back to this point. Interesting little artifact, and digging a bit deeper I learned alot!

The Daruma Doll

“Daruma dolls (Daruma is short for Bodai Daruma, the Japanese rendering of the name) are red roly-poly papier-mache depictions of Bodhidharma. Like the Bodhidharma they have no arms or legs and sit in a meditative pose with large, staring eyes and no eyelids. When knocked on its side, the doll pops back to the upright position (hence “tumbler” doll, or “okiagari koboshi”) so it has become a symbol of optimism, good fortune and strong determination…” From Dolls of Japan More about Daruma - Father of Zen Buddhism

According to the legend, why does Daruma have no legs or arms?

Daruma has no legs or arms according to legend because while he was deep in meditation for such a long time both his legs and arms atrophied and withered away. read more about Daruma dolls.

The Russian Dolls

It turns out that Russian dolls are based on a Japanese doll which had no arms and no legs and was a container for other dolls. Who knew? And that Japanese doll might possibly be based on the Daruma dolls which are used for wish-making in Japan.

“The widely-held view that Matryoshka dolls are an ancient native Russian toy is sadly just a myth. The first Russian Matryoshka was carved out and painted in a Moscow toy workshop only in the 1890s, based on a model brought in from Japan“. Read more here.

Other dolls!

These little guys are in a shrine in Oita, but I have no clue what they are about. I’ve seen people go up to them and rub their little heads.

These are some lovely crocheted interpretations of the Russian dolls and Unazukins. Little crocheted Unazukin by Oh Sew Pretty, for sale on Etsy:

pretty russian doll crocheted by nguyen le:

also a pretty pillow on Etsy of a Russian doll by megillustrations

Blacktrycroshkas by Mrs. Pilkington!

Lovely Blacktrycroshkas A nesting felt Russian doll! I saw these a couple of weeks ago, and you know how it is, you forget where you left the note. Thank you for writing me, Mrs. Pilkington!

Mrs. Pilkington Knits posted photos from craft patterns about making these dolls

fabrication shows tshirts turned into a rug!

this is a great idea. much like the reclamation of plastic bags, you can cut the tshirts into ‘yarn’ going around in a spiral.

you can cut up pretty much anything and turn it into yarn. this is much like the old rag rugs you’d see around.

i found this through thrift and craft on flickr.

here’s a pic from my coloriffic swap-o-rama blue+brown swap.

but, i’m terrible! i was late in sending off my softies swap. thank goodness swap bot sends out a reminder email. i just wonder why it came into my inbox 5 days after the deadline. weird. anywho! glad for it anyway! i sent an apologetic email to my swap partner. i feel like a jerk! that deadline crept up on me. for some reason, i had it in my head it was due around the same time as the coloriffic swap-o-rama. alas, i sent it express, so i should be there very soonly, partner! i don’t think i can post a pic, so it is a surprise, but i will say it is a stuffed toy that i have posted pics of before; i made a little picnic blanket and a snack for the journey.

though the shipping was really high, i could not resist the brown and aqua swap, and i sent it out today. here’s the little brown bear that is bringing the package:

“i can’t do this swapping anymore. i just simply can’t. i should only be making gifts for family. and it’s so expensive. i just won’t do it anymore” i said. to which my boyfriend responded: “you’ve said that before”.
:)

i woke up this morning to one of the strongest earthquakes i’ve ever felt. normally, they start, and i’m surprised but strangely bemused and bedazzled by the weird rocking motions… but it went on for so long this morning that i actually felt a cold basic fear i have never felt.

then i went back to bed and had some strange dreams which i kept waking out of. one was about a doll i made that came to life. since i had not finished sewing eyelashes on, i watched as she transformed into a little girl, with no eyelashes on one eye. i was really freaked out by her, but i could see she was not malicious, and was completely innocent- she had no idea that she was freaky. i asked her to stay there in the room, making ’stay’ motions, because i needed to figure out what to do with her. like a little pinocchio. oh dear, if all your dolls came to life!
and on that note, a diversion: some pretty artwork by tamao, a japanese artist. i came across this in kurikuri くりくり vol 6! those little magazines are cheapish, they have wardrobe refashion how-tos, little finger toy how-tos, and pics of artist’s work. it’s a cool publication. and yes i want them all.

tamao world!

my notes on her work shown in kurikuri (くりくり）: very colorful work, lots of odd shapes, bright yarns, kinda wonky stitching… charming and imperfect. black drawings from the notebook of a 1970’s highschool student; colored stitching, pompoms and crocheted yoyos.
see her blog and her website:

monkey-family

Originally uploaded by feather.

Doing something more than once is good practice. the face is evolving too… the fella in the upper right has a broader forehead, and looks more bright. i have a couple more up my sleeve too. but i wanted to take this little pic and show them off.

camera bag

Originally uploaded by feather.

i love this series of mooks. they have book prices and ISBNs, but come out as periodicals. this one has some great things in it. i love the idea of this bag… i can imagine lots of things like this… maybe a monkey with with arms hanging down? the camera is v cool tho.

this is sweet too:

and

and i LOVE pui sudo… this is a cute applique pattern…

this is for the aqua brown swap…

Originally uploaded by feather.

it’s hard to find brown and aqua things, and i’m worried my swap partner does not like brown… so i am getting some brown things that you can’t blame for being brown… and i’m painting some things brown and aqua. but i have to say i am finding it hard to mix aqua… i used cobalt blue and yellow and white. but it’s like the colors are bright enough.

i also painted the wrapping paper with branches and leaves. you can’t blame branches for being brown

oh i love topsy turvy dolls. a long dress, or clever hats hide another faces and bodies, to make an all-in-one doll.
in march i was looking around for patterns for these kinds of dolls. i did have *intentions* however, they have remained unrealized. i really like the traditional freaky-deaky little red riding hood, with grandma/wolf on the other end. the wolf head hides under grandma’s nightcap, which is turned around. how fun is that?

recently there was a crocheted topsy turvy doll shown at whip-up, and it’s telling that kathreen posted it under ‘extreme’… they are weird! yes, they actually have split personalities! on the same day, 29 may- victorian-looking topsy-turvy dolls appeared at treefall design. i just found them this evening, wow. well done! and you can even purchase this pretty pair in her shop. and only 10days earlier another was posted in flickr: an angel/devil. coincidence? i think so.

quick solution: hack ‘em together

if one can’t bear all the sewing, the HGTV site gives a method which includes: “2 soft dolls of the same size “.. which you
ghoulishly graft together like some frankenstein’s monster.

1. Cut the legs off each doll, making sure that you don’t cut open the bottom of the doll.
2. With the faces on the same side, push bottoms of body sections together, matching side seams, and with heavy-duty thread, whip-stitch securely around the “waist.” The bodies should be firm enough that they don’t bend in the middle. For extra stiffness, you may want to sew twice around.

mixed race

another strange peice of trivia saying black slaves in the US were not allowed to play with dolls which had images of black people, so they would have to turn the doll too the ‘white’ side when overseer was around. i tried to google-confirm this. - one article says many of the topsy turvy dolls were of mixed race though it’s unclear to me what the intention or meaning of this was.

“While some historians believe that the dolls were cleverly concealed toys for slave children who may not have been allowed to play with black dolls (which were illegal during apartheid), others like Jones believe that they were given to white children to serve as maids to the other dolls. Either way, they reflected the striking contrasts between the two roles and the disparities in the treatment each received.

Kimberly Wallace-Sanders, a professor with Emory University, points out that the apartheid ban on black dolls signaled the political and moral potency of the doll in its time. She asks, “Why would you ban a doll if it wasn’t so powerful?”, suggesting that the oppositional characters helped children to learn their own roles in society (Siek, 2003).”

oo… i’d love to have a look at this book. 0672521571: How to Make Upside-Down Dolls

i’m adding this to my delicious links for this category:

http://del.icio.us/heather/topsyturvy

i’m not allowed to start anything new until at least one more monkey has a face, and one little doll has hair.

but this is now up on the top of my list.

the first craftblog i ever saw was in 2002, it was mena trott’s http://sewwrong.com. i went searching for it today, and it seems it’s down. mena trott developed movabletype with her husband- and i learned about the sewwrong group blog through that (since i was using that software at the time). and from that site, i saw notmartha, and getcrafty- which i visited religiously. there didn’t seem to be alot of craft blogs… like nowadays when there really is a critical mass… and i always seems to be finding new blogs that have been around for a year or more.
but it seems like sewwrong is not hosted anymore. if you’re pining for the past, you can be glad that we have the wayback machine! so you can check out getcrafty and sewwrong.
it’s still a great resource filled with loads of good links and info.

I think I’m ready to join the big-time. I am so excited I got onto the July Colorific-swap-o-rama, because Brown and Turquoise is one of my favorite color combos. I like it with red and green. I have loads of ideas of what to make and send for it too. (To join this one, you need to join the Flickr group, fill out some Get to know-you threads, and then email for the secret password to join in Swapbot). The organizers must be busy today!

And also the PurplePinkandOrange Softies swap for June. I can’t tell exactly what the specifics are for that… or how much money is to be spent. But I like the images I’ve seen of other swaps.

And all this through the handy: http://swap-bot.com/ So you’ll know if I screw up, because there will be a rating on my profile.

The deadlines for both these swaps is today, so hop on if you’re interested!