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.

dolls’ new home in Australia

Posted on May 18, 2010 by Salley Mavor

Lucinda Hooper sent me these photos of some Ltd. edition dolls which I sent to her in Australia. It’s fun to see Dahlia and Bud & Ivy settled in their new home on the other side of the world.

Dahlia, Bud & Ivy with Mimi Kirchner’s tiny world pin cushion

The dolls feel at home with Mimi Kirchner’s tiny world pin cushion, which also found its way from Massachusetts to Australia. See more of her pin cushions in an earlier post here. Thank you for sharing these pictures, Lucinda!

Dahlia sitting by a river in Australia

Bud & Ivy with a “river stone” cottage made by Lucinda’s Mum

Close-ups (boys)

Posted on May 16, 2010 by Salley Mavor

I’ve spent a good part of my adulthood surrounded by boys; sons, friends and nephews. They have kept me grounded and brought a counter balance to all of this girly stuff I do, like sewing and fairy dolls. Having sons has made me sensitive to the male point of view and I make an effort to include images of boys in my artwork, even though it’s easier to depict females. This first picture is from “Vineyard Family”, a piece I made as a naive young mother in 1985 and shows a rather idealized docile child.

detail from “Vineyard Family” 1995

This pair of boys are from “Fall Children” (see more here), which I made 10 years later in 1995. At this point, I’m trying to bring more motion to my figures, perhaps a more realistic reflection of children. Their sweaters are made from cotton socks and their shoes are leather.

detail from “Fall Children” 1995

Here’s George reading a book in a chair made from old worn upholstery fabric. His clothing is also made from cotton socks. The full picture can be seen here.

detail from “George’s Chair”

This boy sitting in his real stick fort is from my book, You and Me: Poems of Friendship.

detail from “You and Me: Poems of Friendship” 1997

This is my favorite boy, “Dusty Bill from Vinegar Hill”, an unfamiliar rhyme I found and loved. His hair is made from a spiky acorn cap, which a friend sent from California. Even though I never learned how to crochet, I figured out how to construct his bag using a regular needle. Bill’s in an illustration from my upcoming book, Pocketful of Posies, which you can find out about here.

detail from “Pocketful of Posies” 2010

Note: See other posts in the Close-ups series archive here.

Doll Collection (Baltic twins)

Posted on May 14, 2010 by Salley Mavor

This boy and girl pair is from my family’s doll collection. From the look of their outfits, they may be from Russia or the Baltic countries of Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia.

They’re doll house size, about 4″ tall and have cloth wrapped wire limbs. The heads are painted plaster and the girl has a braided white blond wig. I remember playing with them as a child and always loved their yellow crocheted booties. The clothing is crudely made, but the their delicate features, well made heads, wigs and shoes are examples of fine craftsmanship.

Pocketful of borders (end papers)

Posted on May 12, 2010 by Salley Mavor

detail of end papers from "Pocketful of Posies"

I love the way end papers of a book can be purely decorative and bring a connection to the tradition of using marblized paper. There are no interfering words to accommodate and there’s freedom to work in a different way, but capture the essence of the book. For Pocketful of Posies‘ end papers, I used only flower thread and a background of wool felt, which is plain and simple compared with the other illustrations.

To make the border for this picture, I made patterns and cut out felt strips with a wavy edge. The four corners were cut out as separate pieces. The border sections were blanket stitched with my favorite variegated edging thread, Watercolours by Caron.

Since the illustration was such a simple, flat chain stitched pattern, I thought the border could use some jazzy up. I embellished the border with glass beads and silk ribbon embroidery.

I added some lavender rick rick to the inside edge of the border to help set it apart.

All of the border sections were then sewn together into one continuous strip.

Then, with pins, I positioned the border on the end paper illustration and stitched it in place on the upholstery background fabric.

Note: See more posts in the Pocketful of Borders series here.

Santa Monica farmer’s market

Posted on May 10, 2010 by Salley Mavor

On my recent trip to California, we went to the Farmer’s Market in Santa Monica. The bounty of beautiful vegetables and fruit was a visual treat.

Faux Tiles

Posted on May 7, 2010 by Salley Mavor

When we built our house almost 20 years ago, I wanted to have a tile splash board behind the kitchen counters. The plan was to make my own hand painted tiles.

My friend Yvette showed me how to apply glazes onto unfired clay tiles. The tiles were fired in a kiln at the artisan tile business where she worked.

I made drawings and planned out a series of tiles that would create a panoramic landscape, decorated with animals and an occasional dish or basket of food. After a few test firings, I could see that the learning curve was too steep for me. The glazes were one color when you paint them and another when they are finished firing. The process was more involved than I had thought. The quality of my tests were not good and it would take a lot of practice to get the tiles to look the way I wanted.

Even though I really wanted to use ceramic tiles, I decided to make “faux tiles” instead. I ended up painting Masonite with acrylic paint and coating it with polyurethane.

I had fun trying to make them look like tiles, adding blue borders, with space between each painted square. With a jig saw, I cut out openings for the electric outlets. When people see our kitchen, they see a row of tiles, not paint on Masonite. The panel has held up well over the years and can be easily washed. I plan in making more for another area in the kitchen when we do some renovations.

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Katherine Lee Bates

Posted on May 5, 2010 by Salley Mavor

This year, my home town of Falmouth, Mass. will be celebrating Katherine Lee Bates’ 150th birthday. She was born in Falmouth and was best known for writing the words to “America the Beautiful”. There’s a street named after her, our health food store is called Amber Waves and the bike path is named the Shining Sea Bikeway. On a beautiful spring morning, I stopped by and took some pictures of her statue in front of the library, along with some very blossomy cherry trees.

Pocketful of borders (title page)

Posted on May 3, 2010 by Salley Mavor

Last week, I made a border for the title page from “Pocketful of Posies”. As I mentioned before, all 50 original illustrations need to be mounted and framed for the traveling exhibit this fall. Because the title page artwork was designed to bleed to the page’s edge and is without any kind of border, it requires a similar but different treatment than “Mary Had a Little Lamb” .

First, I picked upholstery fabric from my stash to stretch for the background. Then I tried out different felt colors and chose ones that I thought complimented the artwork. This process can be tricky because I have to try many color combinations before I’m happy with the dynamics. For this one, I chose a contrasting pale violet for the corners to give the border a strong visual impact, without overpowering the artwork.

Each border section was blanket stitched with 3-ply pima cotton (Watercolours by Caron).

I then chain stitched the year and my initials on the bottom left and right corners. The corners needed something to set them apart, so I doodled a chain stitch with 2-ply variegated yellow/green embroidery floss.

Now, the sides, top and bottom pieces looked plain, so I decorated them with some chain stitched loops of flower thread. There wasn’t enough contrast, so I outlined the loops with stem stitches, using 1 ply variegated pink/purple embroidery floss.

I sewed the corners to the side pieces, measuring to make sure they were even lengths. Then, using a corner ruler, I squared up the border and pinned it on top of the artwork.

I then sewed the border in place and sewed it to the upholstery fabric background.

This title page shows a landscape filled with different characters and buildings from the rhymes in the book. The title and other information will be printed in the open areas in the sky.

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

Ojai neighborhood

Posted on May 1, 2010 by Salley Mavor

During my visit, I spotted many places to photograph in and around Ojai, California. Here are some houses, front yards and trees that I found especially appealing.

Close-ups (peas)

Posted on April 28, 2010 by Salley Mavor

My peas are starting to come up in the garden. Their vines are such a cheery sight in the spring and then the first food to pick in June. This series of closeups begins with a peapod pin made with velvet ribbon and green wooden beads. You can read the story about my pins here.

peapod pin 1977

Here’s a detail from “Picking Peas”, a fabric relief from 1985. The full scene is on another post here. The peapods are glass beads. I must have figured out how to knot the string to make the net or cut a piece out of an existing net.