#thehomeofartsyrandomness Archives

In Felicia the Artist

Spirited children…

Polly Moon

Recently I made a new Polly Dolly painting, her name is Polly Moon. She is quirky (as they all are) but has a mischievous and fun loving character.

Most of the Polly’s have a positive sentiment as part of the painting. I find that people love to give a gift that conveys what they want to say. They give a gift of an art piece, it hangs on the wall and everyday the recipient knows that it was sent the message was meant for them.

When I added the sentiment to this new painting it really struck a cord, and this is why.

When I was a child I was terribly shy. Like really, really shy.

When I was a teenager I had this battle going on between wanting so badly to be different, to stand out from the crowd – but to also be invisible.

I tell you this so that you understand why I wished this for my children: To be healthy, happy and confident. Everyone wants their children to be healthy and happy obviously, but the confident bit was really important.

My second child~

My second daughter was born face up with a cross look on her face. She was nine days late, but obviously very comfy where she was and not ready to be disturbed. We named her Molly, a name I love and there weren’t many of them around at the time. When I told my brother (he lives in the south of England where they have many folk laws) he said, “well, you’ve done it now, Molly is another name for a pixie – she will be wild”

And she was.

She was into everything, she was loud, and she was absolutely fearless.

She was hugely loving, wickedly funny and adventurous.

She was not a big fan of rules, they were just there to be challenged, boundaries, just for pushing.

There were times when I was fit to scream, but do you know what? I always thought that one day, that spirit will stand to her.

We mostly grow out of our childhood traits – I stopped being as shy, now I know I’m a very happy introvert. Molly stopped rebelling against everything, she grew up to be a beautiful, loving, kind and confident young woman. But, it’s still in there, the wicked sense of humour, the adventurous spirit, it has survived despite all the rules that we (parents, school, society) try to put on children and I hope it continues to stand to her for a very long time. ♥

STAY WILD, MOON CHILD!!

Polly Moon

It doesn’t just apply to my daughter of course, I love that the wanting to be different teenager is still in me. I’m sure if we look closely, there is a bit of ‘Stay Wild’ attitude in all of us and I think it makes life more fun.

F xx

02/08/2019 By felicia

In Craft/ House Love/ Painting

Cushions!

Polly Dolly Cushions are here!

Thanks to the amazing people at Pixalili in Donegal, I now have a lovely range of hand sewn cushions.

(Pink Polly)

Measuring 50 cm square, they are made of 100% cotton with a polyester pillow stuffer inside.

The backing fabric is a lovely duck egg blue cotton…. they are such amazing quality, I’m so impressed with the way they have been made!

At the moment I have three different designs, Pink Polly, The Bride & Groom and The Travelling Boy.

(Bride & Groom)

(The Travelling Boy)

I like to think that each of these little characters has a story of their own. The Travelling Boy, is bravely exploring the world in his Land Rover. In the background of his cushion you can find maps and a compass – very important for adventuring!

The Bride & Groom, are madly in love, they make each other laugh, respect each other and will always together.

Pink Polly is a little fairy, you can just see her gossamer wings. She likes to cast spells of bravery and confidence on those around her, believing that we can all achieve our dreams.

If you think any of these cushions would be a perfect gift for someone in your life ( or maybe you want to treat yourself),

just click on the names under each picture. This will take you directly to my Etsy shop where you can see all the details.

I have ordered two more designs, which hopefully will be here soon…..

They will all be coming with me to Art Source at the RDS in Dublin. I’ll be there from Thursday 8th to Sunday 11th November, stand A55, so if you are visiting come and say hello.

I have also been painting away to make a new collection for Art Source, It features quirky houses, which is not really a big surprise is it?!

I will try to get some images up soon.

Enjoy whats left of the Bank Holiday,

F xx

29/10/2018 By felicia

In Blogging/ Craft

Super Easy Quilt Making.

‘Super easy quilt making’ is probably the wrong title for this post.

It should actually read, ‘ Make it up as you go ‘.

This morning I was doing my favourite Sunday morning activity. That would be drinking coffee in my p.j’s whilst browsing Pinterest – when I came across this:

(Credit)

I love fabric, I love making things but i’m not very precise with them. My seams don’t line up and my sewing is only straight-ish. So I clicked into the post, read it all (it is a really good read) and decided that I would make a start on a quilt.

At the knit & Stitch show 2015 (yes, it was that long ago) I got some gorgeous Tilda fabric from The Crafty Fox stand.

Then last year I bought some pale pink velvet to make a backing for said fabric.

The tutorial said that she had used fabric of all sizes. Since I had bought fat quarters I thought i’d cut them a little more evenly to get the best layout from them.

The ‘How To’ bit…

First of all I ironed them (being folded for a year and a half really sets those creases!) Then marked them every 4 1/2 inches and drew a pencil line.

I do have a rotary cutter but I just can’t get along with it, so I used scissors.

Once I had cut up all five fat quarters into the 4 1/2″ strips, I cut those strips into random sized pieces. I cut some lengths into two sections and some into four or five. There was some pretty fabric with buttons on it in my stash so I added a little of that as well as a few pieces of the darker green stripe (top left in the picture).

I had bought a full metre of the green stripe so I thought I’d use that for the binding. It’s a bit of a contrast to the main colours but by adding a few little bits into the quilt top it will all blend in. Remember the ‘make it up as you go ‘ theme? yep, that’s where the binding that doesn’t match came from.

To make the top I just sewed pieces from each pile together in a long strip. There was no pattern to it, just randomly choosing a piece and sewing to the last. It didn’t take very long – in no time at all I had this:

That’s a long strip of fabric!

Five fat quarters cut into 4 1/2 inch strips (with a little of the two other fabrics thrown in) came to an amazing 40 foot long strip!

Next I decided how wide I wanted my quilt to be (you can see how well I thought this out before I started can’t you?) which was 36 inches. By the time I had cut up the whole thing I had thirteen strips. The last one was slightly short so I just added an extra piece of button fabric.

You can see how the order you sew them together in doesn’t really matter. The different sized blocks make it less precise and you can move the strips around until you like the layout. Of course, then it all has to sewn together, but that is really easy especially if you’re not too precious about sewing straight. I do try, I line up my edges and keep the sewing machine foot on the edge but the straight line just alludes me. Real quilters are amazing, they make it look so easy!

(I should have ironed this before I took the photo……)

It took two and a half hours to go from Pinterest to having the quilt top sewn together, much faster then piecing squares! I have to get wadding tomorrow (if you live in a place where there is a fabric shop nearby that is open seven days a week then you are a very lucky person!) and then decide how to quilt the layers together. I would love to try some free motion quilting but i’m not brave enough yet.

Tune in next week to see if I’ve made any progress…… hopefully I will have a finished quilt to show off!

Felicia xx

29/01/2017 By felicia