Meet Claramae

The name Claramae means "bright rebel", at least according to one of the name sites I went a-scouring.

Poor Claramae - her color looks really washed out in this picture. She's much brighter and livelier in person.

I've been playing around with color and fabric lately. Ok, so I've also been messing with glass painting, watercolors, embossing/coloring metals, doodling (zentangles), and a quilt (that started as an art quilt - but has gotten way out of control). The things I've learned - and subsequent results - from the materials I've been experimenting with, will come up in future posts. That's my way of letting you know I haven't been a total slacker - and my weak excuse for where I've been lately. Then again, as a single mom, do I really need an excuse about where I've been? Juggling the kids, a giant court case, more spine injections...oh forget it. I'm too exhausted to even bring it all up.

In Wednesday's post, I showed you how to make this awesome fabric.

Today, I'd like to introduce you to Claramae, the art doll I made with some of this fabric.

She's about 12" tall. I stitched her arms and legs separately - basically because I'm lazy...and had some serious help from the Princess. Doing it that way just made it a lot easier. You can see all her beautiful colors - the darker pieces come from various darker permanent markers, the lighter colors use lighter markers. (Der! Just in case you couldn't figure that one out for yourself.)

I made the pattern - which you are free to print out for your own use, if you'd like. Please do not post it on your site, in a book, or on handouts. If you'd like to use it in your own projects - or for a swap - that's totally fine, have a great time and send me pictures. To use it for any other purpose, please contact me so we can discuss it. (I hate saying that - but too many people without scruples make it necessary.)

I went to work cutting her out, then lovingly stitching and stuffing her. I'm still learning my way around the sewing machine, so yes, I'm aware she's not done exactly right. And that my stitches don't leave a perfectly measured seam all around her. But she's supposed to look like that. Yeah. That's it. She's exactly like I imagined her. Sure.

 

Beautiful eyelash trim makes up her hair. Once she was stuffed and stitched, I used black, purple, and red Sharpies to draw a few symbols on her. Most have no meaning other than decorative - but a few are symbols I seem to draw on everything.

The colors are a little off in these pictures - they are washed out. It's hard to get pictures of really colorful things with my camera. It's probably more operator error than a problem with my Canon PowerShot A560.

I intentionally left her backside plain. She's almost like a two-sided doll - you turn her one way and she's decorated, the other way she's plain. That has to be the stupidest thing I've ever said or written.

Her new home will be on a shelf in my studio, next to Stella. I haven't introduced you to Stella yet - but I will. She's still a work in progress and has been kind of neglected for the last eight months or so...but dang. She's a lot of work! You'll see what I mean when I get her finished and finally introduce her.

Anyway, this is Claramae - my "bright rebel". What do you think of her?

xx,