Author Archives: Salley Mavor

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About Salley Mavor

I make 3-dimensional fabric relief pictures that are photographed and used to illustrate children’s books. I sew together different materials to create fanciful scenes in relief, much like a miniature stage set, with figures imposed on an embellished fabric background. My work is decorative and detailed, full of patterns from nature and found objects, all sewn together by hand with a needle and thread.

Pocketful of Borders: Bow, wow, wow

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Last summer, in the rush to finish making borders for the Pocketful of Posies Traveling Exhibit, I forgot to take pictures while I was working on the border for this illustration. It’s for the rhymes, Diddlety, diddlety, dumpty, the cat ran up the plum tree… and Bow, wow, wow! Whose dog art thou? Original artwork from my book  Pocketful of Posies will be on display until Oct 31st at Highfield Hall in Falmouth, Mass. and then the show will open on Nov. 13th at the Danforth Museum in Framingham, Mass. See future locations here.

illustration from “Pocketful of Posies” 2010

Here are some early layouts of the page, showing the progression of the design. Originally, there were three children, with the Diddlety rhyme positioned in upper left corner. I incorporated an island to make the tree and characters grounded, instead of floating around in  red space.  The mound was also big enough  to hold the Bow, wow, wow rhyme.    

Time went by, maybe a year or more before I started working on this page. I looked at the design with new eyes and was unhappy with the type placement.   So, I redid the layout, enlarged the tree and repositioned the Diddlety rhyme on top.                                       

                              

The tree was inspired by some wrought iron gates I saw, with graceful interwoven branches. I added bead leaves and glass pear-shaped beads. Here are some details of the finished border.

Note: See other posts from the Pocketful of Borders series here.

Bike Path: Porcelain-berry

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All along the bike path is porcelain-berry, one of the most beautiful invasive vines in our area. The plant’s berries come in shades of blue not normally found in plant life. They look like hard candy or gum balls that turn tongues blue.

The Plant Conservation Alliance (PCA) Alien Plant Working Group has labeled it LEAST WANTED.

 

Originally from Northeast Asia, porcelain-berry was cultivated in the US around the 1870s as a bedding and landscape plant.

The PCA says, “The same characteristics that make porcelain-berry a desirable plant for the garden — its colorful berries, pest resistance, and tolerance of adverse conditions — are responsible for its presence in the United States as an undesirable invader.”

I was inspired to make this pair of fairies to match the berry colors.

Shona & Amy’s Wedding Cake

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Shona and Amy’s wedding was as wonderfully unique, warm and loving as they are.  My friend Terry and I made their cake as a gift and they graciously left the details to us. We have worked together on many projects, including the Woods Hole Village Quilt. For the cake, we were free to create our own vision of our friends and decided to feature our local corner of southeastern Cape Cod. On Friday, Terry and I got together at her house to work on the decorations. The cake was going to have a raspberry filling, so Terry needed to cut the large cake sheets in half. Using a setup her husband Keith devised for the purpose, she sliced the cake with a saw rigged with a banjo wire.

I busied myself cutting parts out of fondant, while Terry spread the filling and spread the frosting.  I combed a wavy texture with a pointy toothed triangular tool. Then, I sprinkled blue shimmer dust on the waves through a fine strainer.

Woods Hole’s peninsula and the Elizabeth Islands were made of fondant and covered with green shimmer dust.  I spelled out Buzzard’s Bay and Vineyard Sound, using cute little cookie cutters. I also made the wedding couple’s house out of marzipan.

We positioned the boat and dolls heading southwest along the chain of Elizabeth Islands in Buzzard’s Bay

Terry piped the cake edges with frosting and we started to add decorations. I had made a fondant banner with the wedding date 2 days ahead and it had dried enough to crack in places, so we had to do some patching.

Terry had found some worm shaped candies, which we used to make a wavy border pattern on the lower tier.

Terry fixed the banner, while I added candy fish, lobsters and octopi. This project was becoming more fun by the minute!

We made a candy stone wall along the base of the cake.

And added some walnut-shell sailing dinghies and another candy wall. Beeswax holds the masts on place.

Here’s the sea gull’s view.

And yesterday, Shona and Amy saw their cake for the first time. What a special day!

To keep up with new posts, please subscribe to this blog. Your contact info will not be sold or shared. If you’d like to see more frequent photos tracking the projects in my studio, please follow me on Facebook, Instagram and BlueSky.

Wedding Cake figures

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My friends, Shona and Amy are tying the knot this Saturday. Their wedding is looking to be more of a do-it-yourself type than the formulaic extravaganzas I’ve been to lately.  Their’s will be much looser, with lots of friends helping out, which reminds me of 30 years ago, when my husband and I got married.  My friend Terry and I volunteered to make their wedding cake. Terry has already baked the cake and she and I will be spending friday working on the decorations. We’ve been planning this cake for months and I’ll try to remember to take pictures as we add the personal touches. I just finished making Shona and Amy dolls to fit a toy boat, which will be on the cake.

To start, I found a wooden toy boat of the right size and type at Bella Luna Toys. I then made two 3 1/2 inch tall pipe cleaner doll forms, the same way as explained in my how-to book, Felt Wee Folk.

This is what the dolls look like undressed. I wrapped some cotton batting around their middle sections and sewed small beads for breasts, which show that these are women, not girls. Just adding stuffing doesn’t look natural and the beads appear more true to life when they are clothed. I started using beads for breasts a few years ago, when I made my self-portrait, because I wanted to show maturing over time. See my piece, Self-Portrait: A Personal History of Fashion here.

Then, I dressed them in clothing that I thought fit their style and personality.

Now that the dolls had heads, they needed a trip to the hairdresser. I put glue on the top and sides of the bead heads and then draped felt over, using pins to keep the felt in place while it dried. I started devising this wig making technique when I made all of those dolls for my Self-Portrait.

After the glue dried, I cut the felt in the back to conform to the round head and glued the felt to the back. Pins hold the felt in place while it dries. I felt like giving the dolls little fashion magazines to read like women in salons, who sit and wait with curlers or foil origami on their heads.

I sewed the seams together and blanket stitched around the felt edges, using flower thread, which is thicker than embroidery floss. DMC discontinued making flower thread, which is too bad, because it’s great stuff. I still have some of this golden wheat color that worked for both Amy and Shona’s hair.

Shona has curls, so I twisted the thread around the needle and pulled it through, like loose french knots. I really felt like a hairdresser then.

Amy’s doll had straight hair.

I made a flag with their names that would fly above the dolls on the boat. Wire along the flag’s edge helps keep its shape.

I painted the boat and sewed the finished dolls to tiny screw eyes on the cabin. Amy loves to fish, so I made her a fishing rod and attached a bead fish.

Shona, who is a bit of a show-off, is ready at the bow, holding on to the flag pole. I’ll let you know how the launching goes.

To keep up with new posts, please subscribe to this blog. Your contact info will not be sold or shared. If you’d like to see more frequent photos tracking the projects in my studio, please follow me on Facebook and/or Instagram.

Woods Hole: porches

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I live on Cape Cod, near the village of Woods Hole, where I grew up. With several scientific institutions clustered on a tiny peninsula, Woods Hole is much more than a tourist town or the gateway to Martha’s Vineyard. My biologist grandfather began coming here about 100 years ago to set up a summer laboratory. Later, my father stayed to work in oceanographic research and our family lived in the village year round.

Lately, I’ve been riding my bicycle around the familiar streets, taking pictures of sights I find interesting and memorable, like this series of porches.

School St.

Middle St.

Quissett Ave.

Woods Hole Yacht Club, Bar Neck Rd.

Pocketful of Borders: Pussy Cat, where have you been?

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from “Pocketful of Posies”

Update: This post was written in 2010, so the events and dates mentioned are long past.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be showing pictures I took this past summer. They will show the process of adding borders to the original illustrations from my book Pocketful of Posies. All of the originals are currently on display in Falmouth, Mass. until Oct. 31st, 2010 and then they’ll move to the Boston area for the rest of the year. See the traveling exhibit schedule with future locations on this page. This is the illustration for the rhyme Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?  The original was made at 90%, so it was enlarged just a little for the book. I don’t know why, but some characters and designs are easier for me to make on a smaller scale. Since I’m aiming for the work to be reproduced, it can be blown up to the necessary size, as long as the proportions are correct. I picked out an orange upholstery fabric for the back ground and some lavender felt for the border. I then blanket stitched around the border pieces with variegated pima cotton. The bottom corners were chain stitched with the date and my initials, while the top corners had doodles. The corners need warming up, so I outlined the edge with some golden wool crewel yarn. I added some loopy chain stitching to the side pieces… and sewed it all together. To see a closeup of the cat, see this post. To see other posts in the Pocketful of Borders series, click here.

Autographed copies of the book are available in my Etsy Shop here.

To keep up with new posts, subscribe to this blog (top right column on the home page). Your contact info will not be sold or shared. If you’d like to see more frequent photos tracking the projects in my studio, please follow me on Facebook and/or Instagram.

Doll Collection: small wooden folk dolls

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This set of standing wooden folk dolls are a mystery to me. I found them in a box of other miscellaneous stuff, while cleaning out my parents’ house. They are small, about 2″ tall and would make fun cake decorations. Helen, a fellow blogger (here) who knows a lot about souvenir dolls, thinks they may be Hungarian or Polish because of the red boots and dark hair.

Since Helen pointed out the red boots, I’ve been flooded with memories of seeing Hungarian dance performances as a child. Besides wearing eye-catching red boots, the dancers’ costumes had full puffy petticoats under their skirts. I also remember seeing the women’s long braids flying out as they twirled. My parents were avid international folk dancers and would bring us to watch and participate in folk dance events. I don’t remember seeing these dolls as a child, but their red boots triggered a memory.

Eight Cousins bookstore & more wee folk centerpiece

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Carol Chittenden from Eight Cousins bookstore asked me to come in and sign another box of books. She sold out of the copies of Pocketful of Posies I signed last week, so I was more than happy to sign some more. To order autographed copies call Eight Cousins at (508) 548-5548. Judy Richardson and I went by this morning after our dance aerobics class at the Rec center. 19 years ago, Judy and I celebrated the publication of  our book, The Way Home. Read about the making of our book on earlier posts starting here. We gathered in the back room at Eight Cousins.  

Carol Chittenden, Judy Richardson and Salley

 I signed a book for Judy’s relatives, a family with a boy and twin girls.

   

Out front, my book was in good company, next to a card board display of David Wiesner’s new book, Art and Max. David and I were both illustration majors at RISD, class of ’78. He was quiet and serious, but had a bold, determined side. I remember a mural he painted on the wall in the house he shared with some friends of mine. It was a huge copy of one of Henri Rouseau’s fantasy jungle scenes. I saw David at a RISD reunion a few years ago and was happy to see that he was still as kind and friendly as he’s used to be.  

In the recent post about my book release party at Highfield Hall (see here), I said that I hadn’t taken any pictures of the wee folk centerpiece. Well, Carol from Eight Cousins was thinking clearly enough to take some, so here are her photos of the me setting up refreshments in the dining room. 

 

Bike path: Pokeweed

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This time of year, pokeweed are all along the bike path calling out for attention with their bright pink stems and deep purple berries. They are like 60’s fashion models in lime green dresses and hot pink tights, with bead jewelry to match.

Indians used the pokeweed berry juices for staining feathers, arrowshafts and garments. The plant’s roots and berries are regarded as poisonous when eaten by humans, but Indians and early American settlers used the root in poultices and remedies for skin diseases and rheumatism.