Bed book peek: North America (part 1)

Posted on February 2, 2019 by Salley Mavor

This illustration features a little girl and her doll, tucked in and cozy under a quilt. She’s looking at a book in bed, in her bedroom, someplace in North America. The scene will be included in MY BED, a book about where children sleep around the world, with each spread depicting a different culture and living environment.
Here are links to posts showing other finished illustrations for the book:
Holland, South America, Japan, India, Afghanistan, Russia, North Africa, Ghana and Iran. To see a list of all my books, click here.

Update: Signed copies of My Bed can be ordered in my shop here . Watch this 8 minute documentary about how I created the illustrations for the book.

I’m steadily making progress on the book, with the intention of meeting the deadline in a few months. This kind of work can’t be sped up and just takes the time it takes, kind of like children growing up. It’s important that my art have a handmade quality that shows that a real human being labored over it. If I can’t be in my studio, I stitch during every possible moment – in the car (in the passenger seat) and while waiting for appointments. Of course, I sleep, cook dinner, go to exercise class and even pay attention to my husband. Winter is speeding by too fast, but then I’ve come to the age where it seems like my life is going by in a blur. There’s no such thing as boredom.

The quilt is embroidered with pastel colored cotton flower thread on wool felt. I chain stitched the squares from the outside in, around and around, like a Greek key pattern.

I’ve been using the chain stitch a lot in this book, as a way to fill in areas. After the squares were finished, I noticed that they needed more definition, so I outlined them with a darker purple and rose color.

I made the girl’s body out of pipe cleaners and her head from a wooden bead, using the same basic doll-making techniques that are in my how-to book, Felt Wee Folk.

Her doll has the tiniest wood bead head that I could find.

The book she’s holding is felt, edged with blanket stitch and wire to give it form. Otherwise it would be too floppy. I built the bed’s head and foot board of wood, gluing the parts together.

Her room has furnishings, too, such as this chest of drawers.

And there’s wall paper, which I decorated by stitching a vertical leafy vine on gold striped upholstery fabric.

This is the first in a 3 part series about making the scene. There are many more elements to show, which you can get a glimpse of in the photo below. Please stay tuned for parts 2 and 3.

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,

Wee Folk playing cards!

Posted on January 25, 2019 by Salley Mavor

I am excited to announce a new set of Felt Wee Folk playing cards! Aren’t they a perfect way for all ages to enjoy the wee folk? C&T Publishing has just added the cards to their product line, which also includes the 1st and 2nd editions of my how-to book Felt Wee Folk. After selling out earlier this week, they’ve been restocked in my Etsy Shop. I also want to take this opportunity to let you know that I’ve added some doll-making supplies to the shop – wool fleece fairy hair, flower petal skirts and wings.

Wool fleece fairy hair
fairy making supplies

C&T Publishing’s catalog describes them this way:
The popular Felt Wee Folk, created by best-selling author Salley Mavor, spring to life in an imaginative deck of playing cards. Each felt doll is shown in exquisite detail, so their outsize personalities shine through. So cute you will want to play with them all, these popular playing cards make a great gift for crafters and children, but will be loved by all!

• Unique set of playing cards based on Salley Mavor’s much-beloved Felt Wee Folk books
• Adorable characters handcrafted with love
• This set makes a fun gift for everyone—especially crafters, children, and the young at heart

Standard Size: 2.375″ x 3.5″

Retailers please take note:
The cards are sold in boxes of a dozen in an attractive POP (point of purchase) display.

C&T Publishing – ISBN 978-1-61745-806-4

To keep up with new posts, please 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

bed book peek: camel

Posted on January 13, 2019 by Salley Mavor

I don’t know if I could survive a year without hunkering down in my studio during the cold months of January and February. It’s like a gift of time, when you can focus and get things done, without warm weather distractions. My plan is to make as much progress as possible on my picture book My Bed: Enchanting Ways to Sleep around the World. The summer deadline looms large and no matter what I do, the process cannot be sped up. So, that means stitching in front of the fire in the evening, too. I’m not complaining – this is my happy place! For the past year or so, I’ve been sharing photos of the book’s progress on this blog, with more frequent updates on Facebook and Instagram, which a follower called “a daily dose of eye candy.” The story, which features children in different cultures and living environments, was written by Rebecca Bond and will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2020.

Update: Signed copies of My Bed can be ordered in my shop here. Watch this 8 minute documentary about how I created the illustrations for the book.

Today, I’d like to show how I made a two hump, or Bactrian camel, which will be a spot illustration to go with the North African scene.

UPDATE: I am thankful to Anna from Alaska, who pointed out that African camels are the dromedary or one-hump type, which shows sloppy research on my part. So, I’ve just transformed this guy’s two-humps into one! It’s better to find out now, before the book is printed and smart little kids write in to correct me!

For a guide, I used this wooden toy camel that I made in the mid-80’s, when I went through a period of cutting out shapes on a jig saw.

The legs were made by wrapping embroidery floss around a bent pipe cleaner, just like the dolls’ limbs in my how-to book, Felt Wee Folk.

Here, I’m stitching a blanket with fringe to the simple cut-out felt shape of the camel.

The chain stitch is becoming my favorite way to “draw” and “color in” with thread these days.

I stitched the front and back pieces together with a blanket stitch. But before that, I sewed the seed bead eye in place and embroidered the heavy eyelid. The bead is probably set inside a small slit, cut into the felt. Sometimes, I can’t remember exactly how things are done, which is why these peeks behind the scenes are really too vague to be tutorials.

I cut out a felt ear, outlined it in blanket stitch and and sewed it to the head. I like to add details, even in the smallest of figures and thought that a little hair on the head and neck would make this camel more distinctive.

Here’s an even smaller camel, which will be included in another scene in the book. I think I’ve reached my size limit with this one!

bed book peek : duck

Posted on January 5, 2019 by Salley Mavor

Let’s start the new year with a duck. It’ll be a spot illustration in my new picture book, My Bed: Celebrating Children’s Beds Around the World. Each double page spread will have a text panel with a corresponding animal. The duck will appear alongside the scene with a houseboat in Holland, which you can see here.

Update: Signed copies of My Bed can be ordered in my shop here. Watch this 8 minute documentary about how I created the illustrations for the book.

As with the other animals I’ve made so far (elephant and goldfish, parrot and sheep, rooster, cat, camel and bunny. I start with research photos. In this case, I searched for pictures of a classic rubber ducky, with webbed feet. I was so interested in figuring out how to make the feet, that I tackled them first. That turned out to be a mistake because they ended up being too small and out of proportion to the body that came later.

The duck is a good example of how I really work, which is not in a straight line, but here, there and everywhere. My creative process is full of experiments that may or may not end up in the finished piece, but they are essential to getting there.

The second pair of feet (pictured below) are a little bit larger and more neatly defined. It’s not unusual for me to take several tries to get something the way I imagine it. There’s a lot of ripping out and starting over, which is one of the advantages of using thread. For the feet, I devised a kind of weaving stitch that created the webbing between the 3 toes.

The body and wing are made of 2 shades of yellow felt.

The beak was a bit tricky to get to look right and took several attempts. It started with a thread wrapped piece of wire that’s bent into two V shapes for the top and bottom of the beak.

I then stitch the thread wrapped wire onto the head. The round shape of the head is from a wooden bead that is covered with felt, which I forgot to document with a photo. I wasn’t happy with how this beak (below photo) was coming out, so I ripped it out and started over.

I’ve had practice making bird beaks for the Birds of Beebe Woods and the Twitter Bird in my animated film, Liberty and Justice, but it’s like a new experience every time. When faced with a new challenge, I let my hands guide me, trusting that a solution will appear. That’s what keeps it interesting and never boring!

This is the second try at forming the duck’s beak.

After stitching the top and bottom beak in place, I wrapped thread around the wire. I then added a seed bead eye and stitched on the wing.

It looks like I opened up the bottom of the duck’s body to make room for it’s legs. They were the last to stitch in place, with the first pair lingering in the sidelines.

After looking at the duck for a while, I decided that it need more personality. The plain rubber ducky look just wasn’t enough! So I added some details, like the embroidered feather texture and the distinguishing lines on the wings.

2018 – precious to provocative

Posted on December 27, 2018 by Salley Mavor

It’s been quite a year. Thank you for coming along on my artistic journey, which I endeavor to make entertaining, as well as thought provoking. It’s encouraging to know that you are out there, interested in what’s happening at Wee Folk Studio!

To help review the year, I’ve organized a list of all of the posts published on this blog in 2018. They are grouped by topic, including a miscellaneous category at the end. Like my work, the subject matter ranges from precious to provocative. Along with the ubiquitous fairies and Polly Doll adventures, there’s our animated film, “Liberty and Justice” and the exhibit that caused a ruckus. I also documented the process of making a new picture book, “My Bed: Where Children Sleep Around the World”, which will continue into 2019. I hope you enjoy the 2018 tour.

Animation Stage for Liberty and Justice

Liberty and Justice Animated Film
Rob and I spent a year in the basement, making our 14 minute stop-motion animation, Liberty and Justice: A Cautionary Tale in the Land of the Free. We learned as we went, filming over 100 scenes. I made and animated the dolls and props and Rob designed the lighting, operated the camera equipment and edited the film. The movie was completed and released earlier this year. Get a look behind the scenes in the following posts:

Liberty and Justice in process 1/1/2018
All that glitters 2/25/2018
Animated movie logo 4/16/2018
Liberty and justice – the movie 4/24/2018
Liberty and Justice film festival debut 7/7/2018
Costuming despots and innocents 8/5/2018
Liberty and Justice film on YouTube 8/29/2018

Still from “Liberty and Justice” animation

costuming

Gold house

Campaign parade

Lurking in the shadows

filming Wee Folk Studio logo

WGBH Open Studio interview with Jared Bowen

Censorship and the Liberty and Justice Exhibit
It took me awhile to understand that being called a badass is a high form of praise these days. I was as unfamiliar with the term as spellcheck, which automatically underlines it in red, as if it is too hot to handle. But, after experiencing the cancellation of my exhibit because of its political content and the subsequent uproar, I’m enjoying the label, no matter how ridiculous it sounds. Over the past 2 years, I’ve made art that shows a provocative side that has always been there – it just needed a good enough reason to reveal itself. The following links cover the story of the Liberty and Justice exhibition:

Censored 9/6/2018
The show must go on 9/22/2018
Liberty and Justice for all! 9/30/2018
New England Quilt Museum Steps Up 10/12/2018
Happenings of Note 10/20/2018
WGBH Interview with Jared Bowen 10/12/2018

Reaction

Liberty and Justice film

NE Quilt Museum

“The Innocent Years” portion of the exhibit at the NE Quilt Museum

Signage at the NE Quilt Museum

Display of dolls and props from the animated film

Close up from Afghanistan page in My Bed

Bed Book
This year, I’ve focused on illustrating a new picture book that explores varied cultures from around the world. My Bed: Where Children Sleep Around the World is written by Rebecca Bond and will be published by HoughtonMifflin in 2020. I’m really enjoying the process and am falling more and more in love with the children and their living environments as time goes on. The end of the project is near, but there’s still a lot to do before late Spring, when the finishes are due! The following links document the process of making scenes and animal icons that were completed in 2018:

Holland (part 1), (part 2), (part 3)
N. Africa (part 1), (part 2),(part 3)
Iran (part 1), (part 2), (part 3)
Russia (part 1), (part 2), (part 3)
Afghanistan (part 1), (part 2)
India (part 1), (part 2), (part 3)

Persian Cat
Rooster
Parrot and sheep
Elephant and Goldfish

Holland

N. Africa

Iran

India

Russia

Animal Icons

Stitching fairy tunics in the Edinburgh Airport

Ltd. Edition Fairies
Even though I’ve moved on from fairies, I still like to take projects to work on while traveling. So, every once in a while, depending on my schedule, a Ltd. Edition of 25 Fairies makes its way into my Etsy Shop. This year I completed 2 fairies, Honeydew and Petunia. You can see the process of making them here:
Honeydew
Petunia

Petunia

Fairy faces

Honeydew

Polly in Edinburgh

Polly Doll
Polly traveled to Scotland in her custom made Fair Isle vest.

Polly – Scotland
Polly’s Fair Isle vest

Cahoon Museum of American Art

Misc. Posts
An odd collection of posts, from studio discoveries to activist art to a family recipe.

Small things around the studio
Surprise Find!
The best cheese straws in the world!
Self portrait revisited
Fiber art at the Cahoon Museum
Sweet Resistance Art
In the Heart

Dandelion

detail from Self-Portrait, 2007

cheese straws

In the Heart

Phoebe Wahl

chipping sparrow

small things around the studio

Posted on December 16, 2018 by Salley Mavor

I wrote this post 2 years ago and don’t know why it stayed in the drafts folder all that time. It was clearly written during a period of procrastination or when there was a gap in my work schedule, because it mentions cleaning my studio, which rarely happens. Right now, I’m engrossed in the process of working on a new children’s book, which you can follow here. It’s a calming break from earlier this fall when my Liberty and Justice exhibit caused a ruckus because of its political satire. So, let’s take a little detour and visit some small things around my studio!

— While cleaning up my studio, I came across the elephant pictured above. Her name is Savi and she is the main character in The Way Home, my first book. This attempt at an elephant wasn’t up to my standards (I think the bumpy trunk bothered me), so she never made it into an illustration. She’s been hanging out in my studio for 25 years. I took her picture and posted it on Instagram and Facebook.

Since then, I’ve found more small things to photograph and post. I’m holding some of them, so you can see the scale in relation to my hand. There’s Humpty Dumpty, 1 inch wee folk characters, a house and leaves that were used as spot illustrations in Pocketful of Posies. There’s a chipping sparrow that wasn’t included in the finished Birds of Beebe Woods. And at the end is a yellow telephone I made while in art school over 40 years ago.

: chipping sparrow

Surprise Find!

Posted on December 10, 2018 by Salley Mavor

I am happy to offer a very limited supply of discontinued Wee Folk Studio note cards, which were recently discovered in storage. Most of these designs were originally released in the early 2000’s and have been out of print for over 10 years. They come from a time when my business was dominated by fairies, with dozens of varieties of kits and cards sold on a wholesale basis to catalogs and stores.

Back then, I could be seen photographing fairies all over town, along the roadside, at the beach or on the bike path. This all-consuming experience led to writing my how-to book, Felt Wee Folk, which gives step-by-step instructions for making your own fairies and wee folk characters. My work has taken me in other directions since then, but I look back fondly at this period when the possibilities to expand the wee world seemed endless. I don’t think I would be making the kind of art I am today, if I hadn’t gone through this “fairy period”.

The cards will be sold in packs of 8 different designs, 4.25″ x 6″, with envelopes, in a vinyl wallet. The watermark will not appear on the cards. Each set will include 8 different cards, selected at random from a choice of 16 different images — Bay Berry, Morning Glory, Princess Dill, Harvest Folk, Swamp Rose, Dandelion, Lavender, Crystal, Flora and Rosebud, Sweet Pea, Milkweed, Bitter Sweet, Blueberry, Petite Pea, Moon Shell, and Rosita.

UPDATE: The discontinued cards sold out quickly, but there’s another 8 card sampler of fairies and baby wee folk available, which is a good substitute.

Please enter my Shop HERE.

Swamp Rose
Bittersweet
Blueberry
Crystal
Dandelion
Bayberry
Moon Shell
Sweet Pea
Flora and Rosebud
Harvest Folk
Morning Glory
Petite Pea
Princess Dill
Rosita
Lavender
Milkweed

The best cheese straws in the world!

Posted on December 8, 2018 by Salley Mavor

This family recipe was first published on my blog 6 years ago. Based on the numbers of visits since then, the post has been a constant favorite ever since. If you want to bring something special that’s not hard to make to a holiday party this season, try it out!

Cheese straws are my favorite offering to bring to holiday gatherings. The recipe comes from my maternal grandmother’s family from Orangeburg, South Carolina. The tradition has been passed down from mother to child for generations. There are cheese straws and then there are these cheese straws, which always get a lot of attention. I’m working on teaching my sons how to make them – they sure like to eat them! The trick is to use the sharpest cheddar cheese you can get and to roll them as thinly as possible.

My grandmother (2nd from left) with the Salley family, in about 1900.

Ingredients: 3 Cups flour, 2 tsp. seasoned salt (I use Lawry’s), 1 tsp. dried mustard, 1 cup butter, 8 oz. very sharp cheddar cheese. Start by mixing the flour, salt and dried mustard in a bowl.

Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter, like you are making pie crust.

Grate the cheddar cheese and stir it in with the flour mixture.

Dribble ice water into the mixture and combine until it sticks together in a doughy consistency. Don’t let it get too soggy!

Divide into balls, handling the dough as little as possible. Then wrap the balls and refrigerate for a few hours.

Roll out the dough balls as thinly as possible and cut in strips with a pastry crimper.

Spread the straws out on a cookie sheet and bake in a 350 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes, until golden brown. They may take longer to cook, so check them often and switch pans to different racks during baking time.

They don’t take long to cool, so immediately sample a few. Now, put them out and watch them disappear! They can be saved in a tin and make a great gift, too.

Since so many of you’ve enjoyed the recipe over the years, I decided to make a card with the cozy kitchen scene (below) on the front and the recipe for making cheese straws printed on the back. That way, it’s a greeting card (or Christmas card) and recipe card all in one. The Cheese Straws card is available in my shop in packs of 4 or 8.

Self Portrait revisited

Posted on December 5, 2018 by Salley Mavor

It’s been a while since my Self Portrait was featured in my very first blog post in 2009, so I thought I’d revisit it today.

Self Portrait: a personal history of fashion, 2007

Self Portrait: A Personal History of Fashion is usually on display in its semi-permanent home at the Woods Hole Library, except when it’s included in one of my exhibitions elsewhere. I made the piece for a self-portrait themed invitational exhibition in 2007. It shows a spiral of dolls, one for each year, starting with my birth date in the center. Each figure is dressed in an outfit I would have worn that year, taken from memories, family photos or imagination. The figures range from 1 in. to 3 1/2 in. and are variations of the wee folk and fairy dolls in my how-to book, Felt Wee Folk.

An old acquaintance wrote to tell me that three generations of her family enjoyed seeing my work at the Cahoon Museum. She especially wanted me to know that her 4 year old granddaughter was so taken with my self portrait that they couldn’t tear her away. For little Emma, seeing the progression of dolls opened up the concept of growing up, which led to her asking lots of questions. I love hearing accounts like this, because it reaffirms my intention to make art for all ages, whether it’s book illustration or stand alone embroidered pieces like this one.

Note cards and an 18″ x 20″ poster of the Self Portrait
is available in my shop here.

This piece seems to resonate with a lot of people whose lives parallel the same time period. I can’t tell you how many women remark that they had an alpaca poncho! As well as clothing memories, we all have a personal soundtrack that goes with different times in our lives. This video is a nostalgic tour through fashion and music that my husband Rob and I put together. At the end, there’s a list of the music.

Since I made many of my own clothes, I remember the fabrics and clothing styles. They are recreated here with smaller scale fabric and embroidered wool felt. My husband, Rob, appears the year we were married and my sons, Peter and Ian, are included through the years when they were little and physically connected to me. The tatting around the outside of the circle was made over 100 years ago by my late grandmother, Louise Salley Hartwell. The wool felt spiral in color gradation is mounted on upholstery fabric, which I embellished with multicolored french knots.

Self Portrait at it’s semi-permanent home, the Woods Hole Public Library

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

Petunia Ltd. Edition Fairy

Posted on November 27, 2018 by Salley Mavor

I’d like to introduce PETUNIA, the newest Ltd. Edition Fairy. The group of 25 dolls have been traveling around with me for about 6 months and finally they are all dressed, coiffed and winged! The fairies will be ready to fly off from my Etsy Shop to their new homes on Saturday, Dec. 1, 2018 at 10 AM (Eastern US time). They will be sold on a first come, first served basis. Sorry, no reservations ahead of time. I realize that the hour of the day is in the middle of the night for those of you on the other side of the world, but I can’t figure out how to make it perfectly fair.

I started making this group while in Scotland last spring. Here I am in the Edinburgh Airport, sewing their felt tunics while waiting for my plane. As with all of the Ltd. Edition Fairies, I only work on them while traveling, when there are long stretches of time to fill going from one place to another. The photo reminds me of a drawing I made of my mother many years ago. She is knitting one of her signature hats featured in my sister Anne Mavor’s 2006 article, “My Mum’s Fair Isle Hat” which she wrote for Interweave Knits Magazine. I wrote about it in this Blog post. I suppose we are all destined to become our mothers in some way!

As you can see, I haven’t weened myself entirely from making fairies. It’s a nice relaxing, portable activity when traveling. I’ve had to put limits on myself at home or else I would make them all the time, instead of pushing myself to do new work. To see this and the other fairies in the archives, click here.

So, 1 or 2 times a year, I complete a group of 25 dolls and offer them in my Etsy Shop. They’re basically the same fairies from my how-to book of dolls, Felt Wee Folk – New Adventures.

The only potentially messy part is gluing on their hair and acorn caps, so I usually do that in my studio. The hair is wool fleece, which I’ve just added as a multi colored sampler to my Etsy Shop.

During a recent long car ride, I braided their hair and sewed on their wings while sitting in the passenger seat.

PETUNIA is 3 3/4″ tall, with braided chestnut hair, acorn cap hat, hand embroidered wool felt tunic and petal skirt. Each doll is one of a limited edition of 25 look-alike fairies. They each sell for $85.00 and come with a signed and numbered name tag.

To enter my shop, click here. PETUNIA will be added on Dec. 1 at 10 AM. Good Luck!