Tottie Talks Crafts Blog » doll & dolls & dollmaking & doll making

Bead love

tottietalkscrafts — Sat, 19 May 2012 20:49:43 +0000

I love beads- how could I NOT love beads?

The colors! the textures! the complete wonderfulness of them- sigh….

For many years, I did a lot of off loom beading- using brick stitch and peyote stitch to create pieces like this necklace:

This necklace is an homage to the Minoan Goddess of the Bees.

The blue teardrop shapes are dew drops, as the Minoan Goddess of the Bees is also known as ‘The Dewdrop Goddess’.

I love that—- dew happens when the earth is waking up and shifting from the dreamtime to the waking world.

How wonderful that there is a tiny Goddess there, guiding us back from our dreams, to our waking lives, and refreshing our spirits with dewdrops!

The red petal is a pomegranate seed, as The Minoan Goddess of the Bees is also closely aligned with the Goddess, Persephone.

Persephone was snatched from this world, and taken to the underworld, where she ate 3 pomegranate seeds. This meant that she had to return to the depths for 6 months of every year.

In Western Canada, where we live, winter reigns for at least 6 months of the year, often longer, so I resonate deeply with Persephone’s journey!

By the way, I love how the corded part of the necklace formed a figure ’8′ – tilt it sideways, and you have infinity!

I worked the cord in peyote stitch, using tiny brass beads that a friend found in a thrift shop. Nice!!!

I carved her face from a tagua nut (an ecologically harvested palm nut) that is also known as vegetable ivory.

I have never done much loom beading, but that is about to change!

Every year, Claudia and Elena at Mirrix looms have a ‘social media campaign’.

They choose 2 weavers (a bead weaver and a tapestry weaver) to be part of the team, and then give them each a Mirrix loom.

Then, the weavers blog and post and tweet and fb etc about their adventures with their Mirrix looms for 4 months.

Well… I am soooooooooooooo delighted!

They picked me as one of their weavers! wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

A few weeks ago, I bought a Mirrix Joni from another Canadian weaver who hadn’t bonded with it. I am working on a series of woven tapestries and fiber arts collages and I need Joni Mirrix to be my loomie for that

Woots! I fell madly in love with Joni Mirrix (although I felt unworthy of her at first… will tell you more about it, later) and thought-

‘Hmmmmm… there must be a Ravelry group for Mirrix looms’.

I looked for it, and sure enough, there is! Link

I joined, and the first thing I saw was that they were having their annual Social Media networking campaign.

I sent in my application, and last night, I was doing a huge happy dance to discover that I got picked for the team!

(good thing I don’t have to catch a ball or throw one to be on the team, or else I would still be standing on the sidelines! ahem)

Oh ho! I want to fill my studio with Mirrix looms, (tapestry is slow, and I want to be doing bead weaving, toooooooo, so I am just ecstatic!)

Speaking of bead weaving, I treated myself to Claudia’s bracelet workshop on Craftsy (anyone who has seen any of my video tutorials will know that I am madly in love with bracelets!) and I am chomping at the bit to get going on a bunch of yummy woven bracelets!

Alright…. back to work on design deadlines so I get back to my weaving!

Go gently!

Oh! PS: if you would like to knit yourself a Minoan Goddess of the Bees, I designed one for you to knit, and can be ordered here:

Link to the doll page on my website (scroll down, waaaaaaaaay down the page to click the ‘buy now’ button)

Woven Bunny free pattern

tottietalkscrafts — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 00:06:57 +0000

I designed a bunny for Lion Brand, using the Martha Stewart loom (which I love)

and, the bunny pattern is now available, freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee on the Lion Brand website.

Here’s the link: Bunny pattern

Happy weaving! and happy bunny fun!

A tiny pair of woven pants for Rosie Recycle doll

tottietalkscrafts — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:38:24 +0000

Yesterday, a lady who had just bought my Rosie Recycle doll book (link)

asked me a very good question. (I love good questions!)

She said that she always wears pants to work, and would like to be able to make pants for her Rosie Recycle doll, too, and how could she do that?

Using regular fabric to sew them would be a real pain, so how to do this?

Like I said: Great question!

Here’s one answer: Weave a tiny pair of pants on a 2 inch square loom.

I used a vintage Weave It loom to weave two 2 inch squares with embroidery floss:

Stitch the 2 squares together for 1 inch to make the first body seam:

Fold one of the squares over, and stitch the leg seam.

Fold the other square over and stitch the second leg and the remaining body seam. Weave in the ends.

Thread a strand of embroidery floss through the waistband, pull up to gather and tie a bow.

And, there you have it! A pair of pants for Rosie Recycle.

Actually, they are a touch short, so for the next pair, I would either make her legs a little shorter, or crochet cuffs onto the pants.

Vintage Weave It looms can be hard to come by (they are really pricey on eBay), but luckily, there are loom makers who are building lovely little 2 inch square looms (and other sizes, too). The one in this pic came from Dewberry Ridge looms

I love it when people ask questions….. (Well, not ALL questions, but you know what I mean!)

Delightful dolls woven with 4 weaving sticks

tottietalkscrafts — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:41:31 +0000

Stick weaving looms are probably the easiest loom on earth to work with.

They are just little dowels with points on one end and holes in the other.
BUT this does NOT limit the incredible creative possibilities that they have!

See my Stick Weaving page on my website to order this pattern: LINK

I have designed 13 enchanting little dolls (they are about 5 inches tall) to weave with only 4 of the weaving sticks. They are adorable!
In this PDF pattern, (16 pages), you will also learn how to carve the neatest faces from avocado pits (really!) in a tutorial with step by step photos.
Another step by step photo tutorial shows how to make Cornstarch clay and carve simple but effective faces with it.

Avocado faces end up looking like carved wood, and both they, and the cornstarch clay faces are remarkably sturdy and durable.

There are also how to photos for faces made in unusual ways: using buttons, paper, wood veneer, found objects, stones and twig slices.

There are many different methods shown for how to finish the heads, and as always, with Noreen’s patterns, the step by step photos showing exactly how to do each step are comprehensive and clear.

These little woven dolls are delightful on their own, but are also great to use as embellishments on bags, pillows, throws and wall hangings.
They are a great way to use small amounts of treasured yarn, whether it’s handspun or not.
The pattern shows how to use fabric strips, handspun paper, jute, and even sewing machine thread to weave these dolls.
They are delightful!!!!
This pattern is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than the dolls woven with the 6 stick technique.

Wonderful woven dolls with 6 weaving sticks

tottietalkscrafts — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:45:02 +0000

I have fallen in love with weaving sticks (aka stick weaving looms), and am just releasing two new patterns for wonderful woven dolls that are made with weaving sticks. You can order them from my website: LINK

There are 2 NEW patterns. They are each quite different from each other.

The pattern that I am featuring in this post is for weaving dolls with 6 weaving sticks.

I have designed 7 marvelous dolls to weave with all 6 of the weaving sticks.

They are about 8 or 9 inches tall.

In this PDF pattern, (16 pages), you will also learn how to weave the circular skirts worn by some of the dolls in a tutorial with step by step photos.
Another step by step photo tutorial shows how to use the weaving sticks as a flower loom!

And there are photo instructions on how to make wire glasses.
There are also how to photos for faces that are woven and for dolls that have faces made from other things: paper, wood, walnut shells and twig slices.
There are many different methods shown for how to finish the heads, and the step by step photos showing exactly how to do each step are comprehensive and clear.

These little woven dolls are delightful on their own, but are also great to use as embellishments on bags, pillows, throws and wall hangings.
They are a great way to use small amounts of treasured yarn, whether it’s handspun or not.
The pattern shows how to weave with yarn, fabric strips and roving to weave these dolls, and how to make each doll unique with nifty hair style techniques.

In January, I released my first pattern in my new series of weaving stick patterns, the Mermaid: Link

It’s a treat to finally have finished these new patterns- Happy Weaving!

Weave a Mermaid with the stick weaving loom

tottietalkscrafts — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 23:05:09 +0000

I love mermaids, and I never get tired of finding new ways to create more of them.

And, now, my newest mermaid is woven – on only 6 sticks!

Weaving sticks are probably the easiest loom ever – but that doesn’t mean that there is ANY limit to their creative potential.

I have been having a wonderful time, designing all kinds of magical dolls with them.

I have just released the first of a series of VERY fun patterns for them-

The Mermaid….

I’ve woven these mermaids with hand spun yarn made by my beautiful daughter in law, LINK

using the Weaving Stick loom kit from Lee Valley:USA Link Canadian Link

If you are in Europe or England, you can buy weaving sticks from Suzanne in her etsy shop: LINK

The pattern is available on my website at:MERMAID

By the way, there’s a wonderful group on Ravelry that is all about weaving with sticks and pegs: LINK

Here’s to Mermaids, and here’s to weaving, and, of course, here’s to sticks and string!!!

Minoan Goddess of the Bees Knitted pattern is now a pdf

tottietalkscrafts — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:32:25 +0000

Poor little Minoan Goddess of the Bees! She wasn’t being at all well served!

This morning, I received an email, and a pm, from someone who was right ticked off with a terrible photo that was up on my website.

It was a tiny photo of my knitted Minoan Goddess of the Bees.

OOPS!

So, I spent the day, not only re-doing the photo, but building a beautiful new pdf of the knitting pattern for the Minoan Goddess of the Bees.

She looks lovely now!

Many years ago, I was reading a book about ancient Greece.

There were a couple of tiny drawings of little figures that were engraved on pottery and furniture from Crete about 1700 BCE.

I fell in love with the tiny images and have been working with them ever since.

They were called, ‘Minoan Dewdrop or Bee Goddesses’ sacred to the goddess, Persephone.

They are known as ‘Melisae’.

The pattern for the knitted Minoan Goddess of the Bees is available at: http://www.crone-findlay.com/knitteddollpatterns.html

Woven Whimsical Cats

tottietalkscrafts — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 23:06:44 +0000

One of the joys of self publishing patterns is that I get to talk about them as soon as I finish them. (Not allowed to do that with commissioned projects! It’s up to the editors to decide when the word goes out on those).

Whimsical-woven-cats-by-Noreen-Crone-Findlay-(c)

My most recent self published pattern is for the Woven Whimsical Cats.

You can order the pdf pattern from my website: Link

They have been so much fun to design.

I started the designing process for them last February.

I went through several variations of them before I settled on the two versions that are in the pattern.

There’s the sitting Whimsical Cats, who are infinitely poseable (and can be convinced to wear shoes and play musical instruments, too!)

Whimsical-woven-cats-by-Noreen-Crone-Findlay-(c)

They have distinctly, ‘Who me?!’ expressions of feline innocence, which probably means that they are up to all manner of mischief!

Their ‘Laying Down’ cousins:

Whimsical-woven-cats-by-Noreen-Crone-Findlay-(c)

are lovely to rest your wrist on when playing with the computer mouse.

Of course, they might take a swipe at the mouse, but that’s to be expected, isn’t it?

Whimsical-woven-cats-by-Noreen-Crone-Findlay-(c)

They were woven on the lovely potholder loom from Dewberry Ridge looms:http://www.dewberryridge.com/products/potholder-loom

Whimsical-woven-cats-by-Noreen-Crone-Findlay-(c)

The yarn is art yarn, handspun by the delightful Nancy Nagle of Nangellini: www.nangellini.com

Whimsical-woven-cats-by-Noreen-Crone-Findlay-(c)

The spool knitter that is used in the project is the Lollipop from Harrisville designs: Link

When I was designing and weaving the Whimsical Woven cats, I was remembering all the wonderful cats who have graced my life with their marvelous ways.

So, here’s to our Feline Friends! with love and thanks for all the blessings!

One of a kind woven art doll-Green Empress and a mini studio tour

tottietalkscrafts — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 22:39:25 +0000

Over the last couple of years, I have been weaving a series of tapestries and one of a kind art dolls.

Please do not pin the images of my Woven Women Series- thank you so much!