Hello, my lovelies! It’s been a busy time here at the House of Maus, and I’ve been stitching my little fingers off. But it’s been so rewarding! I’ve made large things, little things, itty bitty things, and loads and loads of Guardian Eyes. And this fancy, bold fellow…
These are his pretties and not yours,nope, nope…
I plan to be making more like him very soon, all a touch different, but all based on Canuck the Crow and his bold and sassy ways.
Also, I’m working on a couple of little Mystery boxes to offer soon for the holiday season. What’s in a Mystery box, I hear you ask? Well, sparkly things. A sculpture or two. Tiny paintings. Tiny embroideries. A knitted something or other. All in a handpainted box for you to treasure! I should have a couple out in the shop soon for you to salivate over, once I’m done making the happy innards…
And this week? I’ll be carving pumpkins and decorating the porch and getting ready for another Samhain. I’ve been waiting for Halloween so very, very long, and I’m so happy that it’s finally here! And while I’ll still be making things, I’ll also be taking it easy and enjoying the autumn before it disappears. I hope you all get to do the same!! And thank you, thank you so very much for all of your kindness and support…
Ah, summer, and the living is slightly spooky around the edges…Who else craves Halloween in the hottest part of summer? I suspect it’s a lot of you!
This last month I’ve been gratifyingly busy with all my happy stitchery! I went a little viral on a couple of Facebook groups, and requests have been flooding in for my Guardian Eyes, so I’ve been stabbing away, making as many as my little stabby hands can. Even with all that fun goings-on, I did manage to finish a few other pieces as well, and they’ve all found new homes…
(I will always, always love making Baba Yaga huts. )
Down the road, I’d like to release embroidery kits, so that people can have some fun with my designs. I’ve been drawing up patterns when I’m not stitching away on other things, and it’s great fun. I’d like to stuff a little box full of floss and a pattern, a hoop and some predrawn fabric, some directions and maybe a little surprise. I do love adding little surprises to things I send out. I’m also working on some Fall and Halloween stationary to put in the Redbubble shop, because Autumn is wonderful and so is sending out sweet cards to friends. This part of summer is the part where I’m really starting to crave October, so very much…
At any rate, fall is shaping up to be busy and interesting, with a few extra treats in the shop. And I’ve got some fun requests to play with. But in between all of this, I’m still trying out different kinds of Guardian Eyes, in different colors, shapes and mediums, as well as other embroideries that are demanding my attention. I have a boatload of Delicate Swears I want to stitch up, as well as offended mice, curious bunnies and sardonic ghosts. And if you’d like something special, leave me a note in the comments, or email me, or say hello on Facebook. (I’ve got kind of a longish list now, though, so commissions will definitely take some time.)
Stay well out there, be careful, and thank you all, so very much for your kind, kind love of my art. You all bring me a lot of happiness…
It all started years ago, at a local surplus store. They had a wide variety of things for sale, and it was always a mix of the practical, the interesting and the completely insane. I loved going in and seeing what I could stumble on for art projects, and you never really knew what would be available. And one day…they had eyes. Not just a few, but huge bins full of shiny glass taxidermy eyes of all colors, shapes and sizes! Some taxidermy business had decided to dump off it’s whole collection of them, and artists like me scooped them up by the handfuls and carted away as much as we could carry. I used them in polymer clay dolls, in pendants, in strange jars with eyes in the lids, on rocks that I mailed off to friends for no reason at all. I gave some to friends to play with. They were a bonanza, a complete wonderland of possibility…
it took years for me to whittle that pile of glass eyes down. But I finally did, And I was down to just a tiny handful, augmented by a few pretty glass and acrylic human-style eyes given to me by a friend, as a thank you for the handful of glass animal eyes I gave her. And as I was poking around in my embroidery stash, I found my small bag of leftover eyes, and thought to myself, “Hey, wouldnt’ this be really pretty surrounded by needlework? ” So I started to play around with the concept, with felt and leftover bits of old leather and beads and floss. And it turned out…pretty damn great!
When you look at my art, sometimes it looks back at you…
So I needed to make more! And that meant I had to dig around online, since those magical bins at the surplus store were long gone, now filled with wooden beads or auto parts or Baby Yoda heads. So I dug. And like most things on Teh Interwebs, the quality and pricing were all over the map. I learned I could get handfuls of cheap eyes, or a pair of antique German porcelain eyes for eyewatering amounts of cash. With some assiduous hunting, I found some lovely dolls eyes in various sizes, just right for my projects. I also had to refresh my memory on things like peyote beading, and assesed my embarrassingly large stash of beads. And I started to stitch…
I called them Guardian Eyes, since I felt like I wanted them to be (mostly) benevolent watchers over a space, with possibly a good side-eye to energies and presences that were unwanted. You know how a stern look from a parent or older loved one could make you stop in your tracks? That’s pretty much the idea…only magical, with an extra dose of love and sparkling thread and beautiful beadwork…
And it’s been such a gratifying thing, to see how much people seem to appreciate what I’m trying for and eagerly giving them homes, where they can look out over their new domains and keep a gentle watch. I plan to keep them coming, along with all the other interesting things I like making. And now that the Pandemic is starting to slow a little, maybe sometime soon I can go back to that surplus store and see what else those magical bins are holding, now that all those wonderful eyes have gone…
Welcome, my friends, to December!! Usually the time of year where we crowd together for warmth and cosyness, share gifts and food, and see who gets taken out first in the glorious game of Whammagheddon! Sadly, this year is a little different. And it should be. The Covid numbers are so high in my state right now, the only sensible thing to do is to stay home, mask up and try like crazy not to get infected. And those of us who are trying to do exactly that are doing their best to make their homes a little more comforting and welcoming, to get us through this season. Here at Chez Cohen, we put up our tree a little earlier than usual, because we both love the twinkly lights and the fun of putting on or making ornaments. And, while I appreciate the wonder of a well-curated tree…my festive offerings are a little more,shall we say, whimsical. So, behold the Gothmas Tree!
Yippee ki-yi-yay…
Every year is a little bit different, but it’s always weird. There’s usually at least one skeleton hiding in the branches. There’s always at least one Cthuhlu ornament(and sometimes several), a couple of angry (but festive!) Daleks, and a wide variety of ornaments made by us or by loving friends. This year, I added green blinky eyeball lights to the purple and white light scheme we’re using this year, and as the month chugs along I’m planning on making more ornaments. (maybe with still photos from other films I consider “Christmas” movies, like “Prometheus” or “The Thing’) It definitely makes our living room a little more fun, and if you peek in the windows at our tree, you’ll find our tree peeking right back at you…
Making Gothmas, Making Gothmas, Lalalaaaa!
What are the other holiday plans? Good question. Mostly being very quiet, making as many interesting things as possible, and staying healthy. This moment in time feels a lot like the interlude in any zombie movie where people are holed up trying to distract themselves any way they can while the shuffling undead hordes roam around outside, howling and hungering. All I want for the holidays is for as many of us to be safe and well as possible. Anything else Santa brings me this year is frosting on the cake…
Greetings, fellow knitty-fiends! I realize it’s been a while since I put something up in this space, but I’ve been busy, in ways I didn’t intend to be. Quite a few things happened over the summer, but what really took up a lot of head space for me was losing my mother. She died in June, and I spent (and spend) a lot of time processing her death.
The hardest part is going through all of her things. Like me, she was artistic, and I’ve been going through her paints and projects, many unfinished. It’s the unfinished ones that really hurt the most to find. Some of it’s glorious, some of it’s awful, and it takes time to really sort everything out. There’s also huge tubs full of movies. so many movies. And mostly, except for the odd animated film, the kind of wonderfully grody, cheapy-budget horror films we both loved so much. I now have every Saw movie, however many they made so far. And other great movies I’m looking forward to watching, like, “Doll Graveyard” and “My Mom Was a Werewolf.” There’s also loads of books, also mostly scary horror or weirdo mystery or funky things Nostradamus said.
But the unfinished projects are the saddest.
At one point I couldn’t look at the unfinished crocheted farmer couple she had been working on any more, and busted out some of her yarns to crochet tentacles for the lady’s unfinished legs. Oddly enough, not only did it make me feel a little better, but the couple looked much more…interesting…
And while I have a photo to share of the couple, It’s not loading right at the moment, and the dolls themselves are in a huge stack of boxes by the china hutch… Yes people, we’re moving! To a larger house with a very nice attic space that will become my new craftroom. It’s a very bright spot after some very dark times.
But there’s still lots of packing to get through first. Le siiiigh…
Crochet needles, Acrylic yarn and Bad, bad super-bad horror movies. That’s how my mom rolled…,
I finished up the pendants I wanted to play with last week. Here’s what I ended up with:
I have a few leftover taxidermy eyes from a haul I made at Axeman, years ago. I hoard them like treasure. But this turned out nicely!Polymer clay plus watch gears equals rainy-day fun!
It’s been great goofing off this way. It kind of helped me get back into knitting things again after a short break. I thought of this pendant, and then though how cool stitch markers with gears would be, then thought about various projects that needed stitch markers…and before you know it, bam! A scarflette finished!
Of course, a lot of my knitting has been on breaks at my work. I also do a little sketching here and there to help with stress. I’ve had this look on my face pretty much the entire week…
Just a tiny little dollop of side-eye and annoyance…
It’s my personal Saturday today. Which isn’t actually a Saturday. But that’s all right. And because of it, I can relax and get some well-deserved puttering in. I carded up some wonderful wools, and I intend to spend the afternoon spinning it all up while watching horrible tv or equally horrible movies. And this morning, I plan to goof off with polymer clays and old watch parts a friend donated to my artistic whims. Think of how cool a new drop spindle would be with watchparts embedded in the clay…
You see polymer clays and funky watch parts. I see…potential…*evil cackle*
It’s always such pure joy when I have a few moments away from work and busyness generally to just play with something cool for a while. I’ll take photos a little later of the fun, but I have to go and have the fun first…
