Birds flying to Paducah!

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Salley Mavor

Great News! I just found out that Birds of Beebe Woods will be part of the international exhibit, Fantastic Fibers 2013 at the Yeiser Art Center in Paducah, Kentucky this spring. The exhibit will be April 6 – May 4, 2013. I’m pleased that my fabric relief piece will be shown along with other contemporary and innovative works created with fiber as the primary medium.

The American Quilter’s Society Annual Show and Contest will be held in Paducah from April 24th-27th, 2013, so I’m hoping that many of the quilters in town will go to the Yeiser Art Center and see the Fantastic Fibers show as well.

Birds will have to be sent down to Kentucky soon, so Rob is going to whip up a shipping crate right away! Won’t be in Paducah to see the real piece this spring? Here’s the next best thing — I have 2 different note cards and a poster of Birds of Beebe Woods for sale in my Etsy Shop.

After the snow storm

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Salley Mavor

Last weekend’s storm brought about 10 inches of snow to our end of Cape Cod, but other parts of New England had 2 to 3 feet! The public was instructed to stay off the roads during the storm. On Sunday, we went out in the early morning sunshine and took photographs.

We headed down Sippewissett Rd. toward Woods Hole. The houses along the road had a story book look to them.

We then turned onto Quissett Harbor Rd., passing this house on our way to the water.

At Quissett harbor, everything was covered with snow.

In the village, we stopped in front of the Woods Hole School, which I attended in the 60’s. It’s no longer a public elementary school, but houses head start and a day care in the winter and the Children’s School of Science in the summer.

Further down Water St., I stood in the cold wind to get this shot of the draw bridge and Woods Hole Community Hall.

Even in winter, there are boats and house boats in the sheltered Eel Pond. Some summer houses are boarded up and still…

while other houses show evidence of people at play.

Posies is traveling to Illinois!

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Salley Mavor

from “Pocketful of Posies”

“Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been? I’ve been to Mount Vernon to see the Queen.” The Pocketful of Posies Traveling Exhibit will be on display from Feb. 23 – May 5, 2013 at the Cedarhurst Center for the Arts in Mount Vernon, Illinois. The collection of 50 original embroidered illustrations from the book are divided into two groups of 25. One group is currently being shown until Feb. 22, 2013 at the Foothills Arts Council, Elkin, North Carolina.

from “Pocketful of Posies” 2010

We took the six boxes to the UPS Store in the truck and they are right now traveling west, half way across the country to Illinois. I hope that some of you have a chance to see the show in either North Carolina or Illinois. Next stop: Fresno, California!

upper west side

Posted on February 2, 2013 by Salley Mavor

My husband and I spent a few days in the upper west side of New York City. As we bustled to and from the Amsterdam Diner in the morning, we passed this vine climbing up several stories to the roof of a building. I showed this picture on my Facebook page and someone commented that it looked like Kathleen Kelly’s house in “You’ve Got Mail”. I haven’t seen the movie and the fact that I don’t know who Kathleen Kelly is, could have something to do with my tendency to work in my studio all of the time. If they did use this house front in the movie, I can see why–it’s very appealing!

I found the wildness of the tangled vines refreshing in such an otherwise tidy and perfect neighborhood. It must look gorgeous in warmer weather, with leaves and possibly flowers!

It was frigidly cold and there was a pretty dusting of snow on the sidewalk and stairs.

This was the view from our hotel, looking toward the grounds of the Natural History Museum.

Felt Wee Folk on demand

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Salley Mavor

Print-on-demand edition of Felt Wee Folk

If you’ve been looking for my 2003 how-to book, Felt Wee Folk lately, you may have had trouble obtaining a copy. That’s because the publisher has sold out. I anticipated this situation and bought some a few months ago, so I have a limited supply in my Etsy shop. I even have a few copies of the French translation, Personnages et Motif on Etsy.

Book – Felt Wee Folk 2003

If you want to have an autographed copy of the original edition, order very soon, because they are selling fast! Your Etsy order of Felt Wee Folk includes a folded Blossom Fairies poster (pictured below). I’m happy that the book has had such a good run, with almost 55,000 copies in print. In this day and age, it’s unusual for a book to last 10 years, especially a craft book. The good news is that the book will continue to be published, just differently. C&T Publishing, Amazon and other online retailers are offering a print-on-demand issue of Felt Wee Folk, which is shown above. The printing and paper quality are not as good as the original, but these minor shortcomings are worth having the book once again available for purchase.

18″ x 24″ Blossom Fairies Poster

Old woman who lived in a shoe goes abroad!

Posted on January 22, 2013 by Salley Mavor

Yes, the old woman who lived in a shoe is going abroad! She, along with her children and other nursery rhyme characters who inhabit the original illustration from Pocketful of Posies were recently invited to spend some time in the American Embassy in Azerbaijan.

Where is Azerbaijan and why is the old woman going there, you may ask? It’s the largest country in the Caucasus region located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe. The ambassador’s wife saw the Pocketful of Posies Traveling Exhibit, when it was at Highfield Hall in Falmouth in 2010 (the exhibit will return there in Sept.). When her husband got his this diplomatic assignment, she arranged with the Art in Embassies Program to send one of my pieces, along with other artist’s work that she selected, to the diplomat’s residence in Baku. She reached out to me personally and together we picked a piece of mine to include. It was a pleasure to talk with her and we hope to meet when she comes home.

The art shippers picked up the framed artwork yesterday and wrapped it for the journey. It’ll be carefully packed with the other artwork in a shipping crate. It cracked me up to see the guys using plastic gloves to handle the artwork.

A huge blue truck pulled up on the road outside our driveway. I really like the art shipping company’s logo on the door.

Bye, Bye old woman. I wonder what they’ll think of you in Azerbaijan. See you in couple of years! I am proud to be doing my part to represent art being created in America.

Closeups (sleep)

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Salley Mavor

This close-up of a wee milkweed baby is also pictured in my newest card, which you can see in my Etsy shop here. She’s less than 2″ long.

The best bedtime stories end with a sleeping child. This is a detail from the last illustration from my 2001 picture book, In the Heart.

“Go to bed second, a golden pheasant.” detail from Pocketful of Posies.

This sleeping bird is from my first book, The Way Home. Read about the making of this book here.

Little Boy Blue is asleep under the haystack. detail from Pocketful of Posies.

“To bed, to bed”, says sleepy head. Detail from Pocketful of Posies.

A slumbering fairy on the warm rocks. He’s 2″ long.

One shoe off, the other shoe on, deedle, deedle, dumpling, my son John. Detail from Pocketful of Posies.

Are the children in their beds? Detail from Wee Willie Winkie board book.

another hand-stitched corporate logo

Posted on January 13, 2013 by Salley Mavor

After stitching the Facebook widget for this blog (see how I made it here), I couldn’t resist the temptation to personalize my Etsy shop widget that’s on the blog’s home page side bar. To make my version recognizable, I decided to keep the logo’s ubiquitous white letters on a field of orange. It was the first time I’ve tried forming wire letters with serifs, so it was a bit more tricky than writing out flowing script like I’ve done on the banners, which can be seen here.

After covering and wrapping the wire with variegated white and light pink embroidery floss, I gathered scraps of different shades of orange-colored felt.

I arranged the scraps like puzzle pieces and stitched them together for the background. Then, I made some additional words — “my” and “shop” out of wire and variegated turquoise floss.

It needed some jazzing up, so I added french knots and seed beads to the background.

In this close-up you can see how I wrapped the letters.

I’ve recently added some new items to my Etsy shop, so please visit!

leaf crust pie

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Salley Mavor

Terry, my cookie making, cake decorating and community sewing project friend gave me some leaf shaped cookie/dough cutters for Christmas. I don’t know the product’s name because I threw out the package and there’s nothing printed on the plastic. Update: see the comments for links to this product. Thanks, readers!

They not only cut out the leaf shape, but there’s a press inside that stamps out the leaf design.

I cut leaves out of pie crust dough and decorated a blueberry pie top. I usually do a lattice top, but this was more fun.

The used the acorn shaped cutter for the last piece of dough, which went in the center.

Bake ’til golden brown. Yum, yum!

I’m on facebook, finally!

Posted on January 6, 2013 by Salley Mavor

It’s taken a long while for me jump into the Facebook craze, mostly because I was afraid that my compulsive side would be totally smitten and I would spend way too much time at the computer. I’m very protective of my time working in the studio, or else I wouldn’t ever make anything new! Well, my (professional) Facebook page has been out there for a few months and I’m having fun! I like how easy it is to share other artists’ work as well as show what I’m making. With both a Facebook page and this blog to keep up, I have to be careful not to let it become too much of a time sink. So far, it’s manageable, but I really have to work at maintaining a balance between creating and writing about creating. The hibernation months of winter are my most productive, so it’s back to the sewing table (or chair near the wood stove) for me!

The hard-edged graphic logo didn’t seem to go with my style, so I just added a new hand sewn “Facebook” button to the right side column of the home page. Here’s how I made it:

I enlarged and traced the Facebook logo and cut out the letters with a blade. It’s difficult to write on felt, so I turned it over, so that the letters were backwards and traced the letters on a piece of fusible interfacing. I fused the interfacing to a piece of blue felt. Then, I cut out the letter shapes with scissors and sewed a blanket-stitch around the edges.

The interfacing helped give the felt some structure, so that it kept its shape during the stitching process. I added more stitches, creating a thicker outline.

After all of the letters were cut out and stitched, I started making a wavy chain-stitched pattern around the word.

Curly ques showed up– It’s impossible for me to sew a straight line!

I sewed the blue felt on top of a piece of white cotton batting material and sewed blue beads inside the a, e, b and o’s.

Please check out my Facebook page! It is developing its own flavor and spice, with a sprinkle of this and a dash of that.

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