The Pink Hair Trend

My spouse liked my daughter's hair so much, he decided to go for it.
Hair by Adobe Photoshop.

The English Stash

My spouse went to England in late January for a business trip, and since I couldn't go too, I sent him on a mission to hunt down and bring back some fun stuff. What you see above is what he brought back: Maltezers (you need to see the YouTube commercials for these), Jelly Babies (just like on Doctor Who), Fruit Sherberts (a very intense hard candy with a soft center), Mystery Sweets, milk and dark chocolate covered Digestives (very very good!), some stuffed animals from Harrods, and assorted candies we still haven't tried yet.
While he was there, my spouse hooked up with the local Morris side, the Chippenham Town Morris Men. He even danced with them (he's the one in the vivid blue sweater that stands out like a beacon): Vandals of Hammerwich by The Chippenham Morris Men. There are slight, but noticable style differences between how our American side does it and how the Chippenham side does it.

Poet Shirt with Lucet Cord

I finally finished the poet shirt I was making for my spouse Chris, as part of his Morris Dance kit. This was the shirt I was making a lucet cord for, which I posted about earlier.

Next, I'll be making my daughter a poet shirt for her kit, and maroon britches for both. Then I should be able to get a picture of the whole kit. This is different from the normal white shirt and white pants they usually wear. The white poet shirt and maroon britches kit will have a more Renaissance fair look to it and will probably be used at the Colorado Medieval Festival in June if we dance there.

New Dolls from Nifty Knits

I just received some genuine English morris dancers from Nifty Knits in the UK. She knitted up two little morris dancers to match my two full sized, living, breathing, stick whacking, hankie waving, bell clad morris dancers - Chris and Emily. The doll's baldrics even have a tiny version of the Maroon Bells Morris badge with the Maroon Bells mountains on it. I love the beard on the one that looks like Chris.


If you're at all curious about morris dancing, we have a website for the Maroon Bells Morris here.

And if you'd like a little morris dancer of your own, or another cool knitted item, Nifty Knits can be found here.

A New Handwoven Scarf

Chris has woven another new rayon scarf. The warp is hand dyed by me in turquoise and purple and the weft is black. It'll be in the Etsy shop in a day or two.


Update: It's in the shop here and this is what Chris has to say about it:

A handwoven rayon scarf with a unique twill pattern. This is what happens when a "pattern person" gets carried away. This scarf is woven using a progressing twill pattern on a purple and turquoise hand-dyed warp with a black weft. The result: an eye catching scarf with a wonderfully soft hand. It measures 7 1/2 inches wide by 45 inches long with an additional 3 inch twisted fringe.

Another update - it sold.

New Scarf on the Loom

My spouse weaves scarves using warps that I hand dye. Here's one scarf almost completed on the loom. The warp is purple and turquoise hand dyed rayon and the weft is black rayon. He has two more scarves to weave on this warp before he can take it off the loom.
The loom is a 44 inch Louet Spring 8 harness.

The Fairy and her Diary

Back in 2005 I entered a challenge where the doll had to have a story to go with it. I came up with this little brown fairy for that challenge. She was actually the prototype, but since she turned out reasonably well, I entered her instead of the next generation fairy because she fit into a story my spouse Chris came up with.

After drawing up the pattern and trying out various incarnations of bodies, legs and such, this doll was my first result of all the parts going together in a satisfactory way. Usually, at this point, I don't go any further with the prototype and just go on to the final doll but I had put enough time into her I thought I'd try and get a doll out of her. Since she was done in white muslin, I decided to try dying her with procion dyes after I put her together, which is not the way I would recommend dyeing a doll if you want a consistent color throughout. So, there are some interesting markings on her legs and arms, but it seems to go with her overall earthy look.

Next, I worked on her clothes. Her bodice is made of some kind of fake-a-suede and took several iterations to get it to fit just the way I wanted. It has tiny eyelets all up the front which I found in the scrap booking section of the hobby store. Putting those on the bodice was a bit of a challenge.


Her boots are also made of imitation suede with some painted embellishments and the same tiny eyelets. I looked at a pair of ice skates to get the general idea of how to do them.


The hair is made of mohair locks, carefully dyed using jacquard acid dyes and then needle felted on.


The wings are also hand dyed.


I couldn't come up with panties that suited her, so she's pantyless under her skirt. This inspired the story, a diary entry, on how she lost her painties.

"June 22
Dear Diary,
Oh baby, what a party that was last night. Everyone, who’s anyone, was there including Oberon and what’s her name, Titania. Sure hope none of her fairy spies go around reading diaries of young fairies. And then there was that satyr that came in about half way through the evening. Oh my! What a buck! And what a sweetheart, we talked and drank and danced into the morning. And then we went back to his place. He, he, he."...

For the rest of the entry, see this pdf:
Brown Fairy's Diary