POSIES comes home

Posted on September 6, 2013 by Salley Mavor

After 3 years of traveling around the country, I am pleased to announce that the original illustrations from my book, Pocketful of Posies, are coming home! They have returned to my home town of Falmouth, MA for an exhibit at the beautiful Highfield Hall, where the tour began in 2010. Don’t the banners look great hanging out front? The artwork has traveled thousands of miles, having been driven hither and yon and shipped across the country a couple of times. To see a list of all of the past and future venues, visit the Pocketful of Posies Traveling Exhibit Page.

The show at Highfield Hall (Sept. 4 ~ Oct. 31, 2013) will be the last time that the complete set of illustrations from the book will be shown together. Well, almost all of them will be there. The Old woman who lived in a shoe had the opportunity to live in Azerbaijan, so she’s spending more than a year in the American ambassador’s residence. Read the post about it here. The old woman will rejoin the group when she returns from abroad!

After the show in Falmouth, the collection will be divided in half and shown at two venues this fall and winter; the New England Quilt Museum in Lowell, MA and the Cape Cod Museum of Art in Dennis, MA. Visit the Traveling Exhibit Page to see the show dates.

After holding off for most of the 3 year tour, I am glad to once again be offering several originals for sale. Some pieces were sold way back in 2010 and the buyers have been patiently waiting all this time. The framed fabric reliefs range in price from $2,500 to $6,000. The exhibiting collection needs to stay all together for a little while longer, until the beginning of 2014. Then the buyers will be able to take possession of their pieces. Please contact Jen (jnemec@highfieldhall.org) for a price list of available work and information about purchasing a piece. Highfield Hall will handle sales during the exhibit.

Out of the 51 total illustrations, I’m reserving about 20, making some Pocketful of Posies originals available to show. In the past, I’ve sold just about everything and it’s only in recent years that I’ve decided to hold onto some pieces, with the intention of exhibiting them. I hear all the time that seeing the real thing is a different experience from looking at the pages of my books. With this in mind, it is important to me that my work be shown in public places and be accessible to as many people as possible.

doll house play

Posted on August 29, 2013 by Salley Mavor

Yesterday, I witnessed the sight of real children playing with my doll house! Some friends came over to my studio with their grandchildren, who immediately engaged with the dolls and miniatures in and around the house. You may wonder why I find this so remarkable, especially since I constructed and decorated it almost 40 years ago. For most of those years, the house has been packed away or displayed behind glass. My sons weren’t interested in playing with it, so I offered to have it shown in the children’s room at the Falmouth Public Library. It stood there for several years in a case near the check out desk, out of reach of children’s hands. When the library was renovated and didn’t have a space for the house, I took it back and it has since been gathering dust in a corner of my studio.

I loved watching the children manipulate and position the dolls with their small hands.

The house has been out on my center table lately, because I’ve been fixing it up for a photo shoot of some projects that will be in the 2nd edition of Felt Wee Folk (2015 release date). I’m also sprucing it up for display at the Holidays at Highfield event later this year at Highfield Hall in Falmouth. The 10 day event will feature a tree decorated with Pocketful of Posies ornaments that I made for the Family Trees exhibit at the Concord Museum last year (see posts here).

Nov. 29 ~ Dec. 8, 2013, Original embroidered artwork, a tree full of ornaments and a doll house all handmade by Salley Mavor will be on display at The Holidays at Highfield. Highfield Hall, Falmouth, MA. Open daily 12 pm ~ 4 pm

Boat trip to Cuttyhunk Is.

Posted on August 26, 2013 by Salley Mavor

Rob and I have been making an effort to go out in our boat as much as possible in these last days of summer. On a beautiful calm day last week, we motored down the chain of Elizabeth Islands to Cuttyhunk at the very end. We like to visit at least once a year and take in the island’s beauty, charm and character, which I tried to capture in these photographs. To see all of the posts about Cuttyhunk, go to the archives here.

fairy girls in the studio

Posted on August 23, 2013 by Salley Mavor

Last week, I had a delightful visit with Bronwyn Malicoat and a carload of girls, who drove to my studio in Falmouth, from Provincetown, which is at least a 1 1/2 hour ride from the other end of Cape Cod. It’s common knowledge that people from our different poles rarely visit each other (especially in the summer), because there is no direct route and the traffic can be a pain. But, I’m really glad that they came, bursting out of the car with their little fairies in hand. The girls are enrolled in Bronwyn’s summer craft program, which includes a good dose of fairy projects.

When they arrived, Rob and I were just finishing a photo shoot out on our patio.

Here, the girls are looking at the scene, which includes some of my doll projects. They’ll be in the 2nd edition of my how-to book, Felt Wee Folk. Sorry, but I can’t show any details until the book is published in 2015.

They were so proud of their fairies that they made earlier in the week.

They played with them the whole time they were outside.

They ate what was left of the blueberry crop and took photos of their fairies in the blueberry bushes.

Then, they looked around my studio and took more pictures.

It was a treat to spend time with Bronwyn and her students. Being the mother of sons, I have not been around young girls very much and being in their company brought back childhood memories of playing with my sister and friends. We would spend hours making things and setting up scenes to play with. Come to think of it, I still do that now!

Giveaway winner in stitches

Posted on August 21, 2013 by Salley Mavor

Thank you to all of you who wrote about your favorite stitch this past week for the 2000 Likes on Facebook Giveaway. I loved hearing your descriptions of how certain stitches bring back sweet memories of learning from grandmothers. In this modern age, it is wonderful to hear from so many people who make a place in their lives for handwork. One entrant described herself as “a stitch dictionary junkie” and another wrote, “My favorites are the first and last stitches. Happy to begin and to finish.” Some stitches were identified as a signature of sorts, with one woman declaring, “I’m a blanket stitch with variegated thread kind of girl.”

Although I didn’t intend for this to be an embroidery stitch popularity contest, I couldn’t help keeping a tally of the various choices. In the end, it was dead heat between the blanket (or button hole) stitch and the french knot, which were both way out in the lead. Other favorites were the chain stitch, bullion, feather, daisy, stem, seed, satin and even the beaded Palestrina stitch, which I had to learn for the sampler pictured above. Mary Corbet has some easy to follow tutorials on her web site, Needle N’Thread. The different stitches are shown in numbers according to their popularity on the comments. I was not surprised by how the simple ones prevailed in the final count. No matter how many fancy stitches I try, I find that I can achieve almost everything I want with the basic blanket, chain and french knot stitches.

The 3 winners of the Giveaway are Teresa, Petra and Pam W. I will notify them by e-mail and send each a copy of my 1995 book Mary Had a Little Lamb. To see a list of all my books go here. Thank you to all who participated!

My how-to book, Felt Wee Folk, has pictures, directions and patterns for making a wide range of bendable figures with a variety of hairstyles, outfits, and armatures.

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.

2,000 Likes Giveaway!

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Salley Mavor

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As of today, 2,000 people have “Liked” my Facebook page! I’m flabbergasted by the how rapidly my audience has grown, since it took me so long to welcome Facebook into my life (8 months ago). It’s different from my blog, in that I post pictures just about every day and share images that I find inspirational. Thank you to all of you who follow my work, either on Facebook and/or this blog. To celebrate, I’m giving away 3 signed paperback copies of my 1995 picture book, Mary Had a Little Lamb. You can see all of my books listed here. Since more than half of you are from outside of the United States, the contest is open to everyone, worldwide. To enter, please leave a comment naming or describing your favorite stitch. The winners will be picked at random on Wednesday, August 21st, 2013.

Mary Had a Little Lamb 1995

Oak Bluffs cottages and The Moth

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Salley Mavor

Last Saturday, a friend and I took a boat over to Oak Bluffs. We had tickets to go to The Moth on Martha’s Vineyard, which I describe at the end of this post. Before the evening show, we walked around the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting neighborhood and I took some photos of the perfectly charming little cottages. See a post about last year’s visit here. The purpose of our visit to Oak Bluffs was to attend an evening of storytelling presented by The Moth radio program. If your local NPR station airs The Moth, you know how inspiring and moving the stories can be. Last summer, Martha’s Vineyard writer, Cynthia Riggs told a most compelling story that has by now been heard all over the world. It is worth hearing her tale, so click the link on her name. She returned this year and gave an update of her adventure to a cheering crowd of 1700. Here’s the inside of the Tabernacle while we were waiting for the storytelling performances to begin. It was quite an evening!

my garden

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Salley Mavor

Yesterday, I picked the last of the blueberries and the first golden cherry tomatoes from our garden. We have a wire mesh cage to keep the birds away from the blueberry bushes. Still, chipmunks manage to get find a way in and fill their cheeks to capacity. Unlike the birds, they leave plenty of berries for us!

The lilies are just about gone, but the trumpet vine is flowering.

My husband Rob took the closeup photos of wildlife and flowers found in our garden this spring and summer. You can see more of his great pictures on Flickr here.

Close-ups (emotion)

Posted on July 23, 2013 by Salley Mavor

One of the fun and challenging parts about illustrating for children is showing emotion and action, especially in fiber art, which tends to be static. To counter-act the stiff blandness, I like to bring forth emotion by exaggerating the poses and facial expressions of my characters. But there’s a fine line between evoking believable feeling and creating a grotesque appearance, much like the difference between acting well and over acting. I’ve seen some doll faces that are downright scary and bizarre. My goal is to portray emotion with a subtle firmness, without being too disturbing.

Nursery Rhymes are full of emotional and physical activity, so I had lots of opportunities to experiment with poses and facial expressions in my book, Pocketful of Posies: A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes. Here are a selection of close-ups from the book.

Do you want to see the original embroidered illustrations from the book? There are still several locations scheduled for the Pocketful of Posies Traveling Exhibit, which has been touring the country since 2010.

Fairy House Raffle

Posted on July 19, 2013 by Salley Mavor

I want to let everyone know about the opportunity to win this fairy house. In conjunction with the Fairy Houses of Beebe Woods Exhibit (which ends on July 21, 2013), Highfield Hall is holding a raffle for my driftwood and felt covered wire hanging doorway. It’s intended for indoor display because the glue isn’t water proof.

We were lucky enough to snap a picture of this blue fairy as she was peaking out of the door.

Other Fairy House News
(added May 30, 2015)
The Fairy Houses of Highfield Hall outdoor exhibit will be held from June 28th to August 31, 2015 at Highfield Hall in Falmouth, MA. In addition to curating the exhibit, Salley Mavor has made a fairy family of 5, which is being raffled (3 tickets for $5.00). Tickets may be purchased online or at Highfield Hall, where the fairy family is on display. The raffle drawing will be August 30, 2015. The prize will be sent to the winner anywhere in the world! Good luck!rway, but she flew away, so she won’t be coming along with the house.