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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Posies goes to the Foothills

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Salley Mavor

…the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, that is. The Crooked Man and 24 other nursery rhyme illustrations are traveling to Elkin, North Carolina for the next leg of the Pocketful of Posies traveling exhibit.

I’m happy to announce that the show will at the Foothills Arts Council from January 11 to February 23, 2013. I hope that many people from the area will see the exhibit, as this is as far south as the show will travel. To find other locations around the country and the schedule for the rest of the year, visit the Pocketful of Posies Traveling Show page.

a proverb for the new year

Image

to the end of the world and back

Posted on December 27, 2012 by Salley Mavor

The experience of being in Antarctica cannot be adequately conveyed in photographs and words. The continent is a truly awesome part of our planet, with an environment so different and extreme that my visit was as close to being on another planet as I’ll ever experience. From the deck of our big comfortable boat, we saw this sailing ship, with some more adventurous tourists aboard. The monochromatic scenery was breathtakingly beautiful! And everywhere there was wild life to gawk at.

We woke up a napping elephant seal pup.

We had to bundle up, but the temperatures were mild for the end of the world–in the 30’s F.

Being the height of summer, the sun was out most of the day and night.

The elephant seals sang (or grunted), “There were 9 in the bed and the little one said, roll over, roll over.”

Polly had a great time!

Throughout the frozen landscape, there were signs of growth, like these lichens and moss.

The adorable penguins won our hearts.

And an occasional seal on an ice flow noticed our presence. Antarctica was worth the trip! My husband, Rob Goldsborough took many of the photographs I’ve shown from this trip. See more of his great pictures of Antarctica on Flickr.

penguin pot holders

Posted on December 25, 2012 by Salley Mavor

Our trip to Antarctica has produced penguin fever! Luckily the local fabric shop had some penguin fabric to make pot holders, which I traditionally give for Christmas. See a tutorial about making my style of pot holder here. I picked fabric scraps from my stash that reminded me of the Antarctic landscape, including a dark purple and blue Mari Mekko design I’ve had forever.

Old cotton mattress pads work well for the padding.

Striped sear sucker fabric cut on the bias finishes the outside edge.

It’s time to wrap them in the penguin wrapping paper I found at the super market. Merry Christmas!

Antarctica: birds

Posted on December 20, 2012 by Salley Mavor

We just flew into Logan after about 24 hours of traveling, beginning in Ashuaia, Argentina, to Santiago Chile, to Atlanta to Boston. After a day of flying and while we wait in the airport to catch the bus to the Cape, I thought I’d write a post and show you the splendid birds we saw in Antarctica. Some were seen from the boat and others we saw on land. Can you guess what they are? Answers at the end of this post.