Some recent commissions

There was a brief time in my blogging past that I did Made By Monday posts where I blogged about whatever I made that week. I'm going to try to revive that tradition. But first, here are a few commissions that I made within the last couple months.

First, this banner, my first-ever black and white one:

The recipient told me her newborn daughter stares at it all the time, which make a lot of sense since babies can't see colors well when they're wee little. No one had ever asked for a black and white one before so I never thought to offer it as an option.

I also made these pillows:

 A shopper on Etsy contacted me and told me she loved my Oldskool Sesame Street Sundress, but it was too small for her daughter and could I possibly make another one. Luckily, I had enough of the fabric left to make one, and this is what I made for her:

I also made this dress:

 

For a Facebook fan and fellow blogger Becky of Chicken Wire and Paper Flowers whose daughter was going to attend a Picasso exhibit in Richmond, Virginia. She had seen my toddler Picasso dress and wondered if I could make one to fit a ten year old. She even blogged about it here and posted this awesome picture of her stylin' girl.

It's customers like this that make me happy to be back in the commission business.

Made by Monday - Obnoxious and Ridiculous

I guess I have a weird sense of humor. I enjoy making things that are kind of obnoxious sometimes.

I don't like hunting but I do like irony. Somehow, somewhere, I acquired a box of NRA patches. I almost threw them away because they make me feel creepy with their great big capital letters promoting a gun-loving lifestyle. I decided to work with that creepiness though, and juxtapose them with opposites of deadly.

I'm really not a violent person, I swear, but splatter painting is fun. I have a whole box of patches that I get out and look at from time to time. Sometimes one jumps out and begs me to do something with it. I turned this one into a roadside sign:

and made the bill a road.

This one makes me laugh because I imagine whoever wears it will keep getting called "Nancy."

What's up, Nancy?

I sewed ties to this one, and painted the bill with nail polish:

I stitched them on with on a machine. It's hard sewing ties to a hat on a machine. I sometimes force my machine to do things only an industrial machine should do. I added these hats to the kokoleo Guys shop yesterday. Someday soon I'll add the shirts I've been working on.

I made this eyeglass necklace for my friend Matty, a member of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's (LLS) Team In Training, to put in his fund raising auction.

It's the logo for Fog City Wrestling, where the event is going to be held. I don't know jack about wrestling, but I hope some wrestling fan will buy it for his lady friend and raise Matty some money. I threw that card and packaging together in Photoshop last week to make it look semi-professional. I made these lovely ladies last week and stuck them on cards too:

20% of the proceeds from the sale of these earrings will go to the Susan G. Komen For the Cure breast cancer fund.


These images were taken from some "bust developer" course that was being advertised in an old Ladies Home Journal. I wonder what these ladies are doing now? I hope their boobies are doing well.

Honestly, I'm not always so bawdy. I can do sweet and cute too like these personalized pieces I did over the last few months:





See? They're not the least bit offensive or ridiculous.

Made by Monday - Skirts, etc.

First, for the family, I have to post this:

There, that should tide you over for a while. Now, for the rest of my readers, here are some other things I made. First, some skirts:

That one's a reversible wrap, this one has an elastic waistband:

I have some sort of fixation with Raggedy Anne, I guess. She won't leave me alone!

I made these last month:

That little girl likes to come around kokoleo every once in a while as well.

Good thing I don't have many of these all over the place. They can be dangerous:

I've had that purple and red lobster print fabric for a few years and when I found a screenprinted lobster linen napkin at a yard sale recently, I knew it was my duty to have them meet each other.

I'm sick of skirts, lets move on:

This weekend I made some hats.

I'm not quite sure they're finished yet though.

Now some shirts:

all size 6 months.

My mission this week: Get these things up on my website already, fer craftsake! All this sewing and blogging and kid-rearing is distracting me.

Made By Monday - Mishaps

I don't have much to show for this week. Sage is out of school and it's all I can do to entertain him all day, and then clean up after all that entertaining. Books, costumes, Legos, crayons, stuffed animals, couch cusions - it's a neverending task to keep these things in their places.

Speaking of misplaced things, last month two of my personalized pillows got lost in the mail. Thankfully, the customer was a friend and was very understanding. We waited FOUR weeks until I started remaking them. Here are the originals:

I was really happy with the way they came out too, which made it even more upsetting. I managed to gather most of the same fabric and make the new ones almost identical. I cut out and stitched on all the letters and was ready to turn them into pillows when I got an email that the originals had arrived! Yay!

So then I had "Mira" and "Stella" pillowtops laying around. I mentioned it to my friend Pamela, who mentioned it to our friend Molly who happens to have a niece named Mira who just so happens to have a green and purple room. Sweet! So I found a home for this one:

Now, anyone know a Stella? I'll whip you up a kokoleo for half the price.

Speaking of the aforementioned Pamela, 3 years ago I made this for her little girl:

It went perfectly in the pink room they had set up. The only problem was that Clara came out a Sam:


Oops! Let this be a lesson to always count your testicles before they hatch, er something. Don't worry though, I eventually sent Sam a "Sam" banner and Pamela sent back the "Clara" one.

Then, at a Halloween party last year I was talking to one of Erik's co-workers and he introduced his wife and baby girl named Clara. I said, "As in, C-L-A-R-A?" and they looked at me weird and said yes. I told them the story of Sam and said I'd love to give them the banner, since it was obviously destined for their daughter.

Sometimes mishaps have happy endings.

Made by Memorial Day

I've said it before and I'll say it again - I think I have creative A.D.D. I have hundreds of projects on my mental To Do list and a pile of projects-in-progress on my ironing board. Still, some nights I randomly whip up a bunch of stuff I wasn't even planning on making. I keep thinking I need to simplify, focus on one or two items and just do those to carve out a crafty niche for kokoleo, but I always end up working on random projects that look very different from the projects before them. The truth is, though, I like making lots of different things. I never know what I'll end up with at the end of the week. Case in point, last week I was on a skirt and purse kick. This week I ended up with these:

Size 12 months.Size 2T. Each set also has a matching long sleeved shirt:

So kids can choose their flavor. After that fabric ran out, I revisited the deer:

Size 12 months.

Size 24 months.

The image is from a photograph taken by my friend Carolyn in her backyard. I think I finally have the transfer process down pat so that the image stays vibrant after multiple washings.

Size 18-24 months.

Size 12-18 months. I think I'm going to keep that outfit for my own little doe-eyed girl. I made another one though.

I had some scraps left over from other projects, so I made these:

Size 2T. (That was actually supposed to be a cupcake shirt but the cupcake went awry so I covered it with Smokey's head. The screwup then became a happy accident.)

Size 4T. I'd make more of these but I don't have the heart to decapitate any more Raggedy Anns on purpose.

My big project this week though was my wardrobe. It's finished! And now stuffed full of kokoleo. Stay tuned for Studio Tuesday to see pictures.

Made by Monday - kokoleos

I've been slowly working on revamping my website. It's hard. I wish I could just stick it into my sewing machine and build it that way. Instead I have to make files and import images and move text around on layers with links and hope it will all upload as planned. I'm dumping the splash page and redesigning the homepage. I came to the conclusion that I'm tired of my old kokoleo sign:

So I made a new one, almost twice the size:

which I don't like either. It's fine for an extra booth sign, but not for a website header. This doesn't help it either:

Yeah, I wasted about an hour of my life pushing buttons around. A bucket of buttons is hypnotic like that.

Next, I decided to go back to my sewing roots and go small, hand embroidering x's around all the letters.

which I like better. It's in the running to be the one, unless of course I start from scratch and make another or just decide to stick with the original one. I don't know, is it too hard to read?

I also made these this week:

Come to think of it, these might be what inspired Sage to draw his own spool of thread last week for his kindergarten assignment. I distinctly remember him finding them in my studio and studying them intently.

They were inspired by the random bits of thread I'm always finding stuck to me. I figure these are shirts only a seamstress would like, and a seamstress wouldn't mind having strings attached.