My Stitched Self (2)

Tiny Stitched Self now has a face and hair! She is still as naked as the day she was...um...sewn, but now she looks like a real doll instead of an artists mannequin.

I was determined not to simply use wool or embroidery thread as hair, sadly my real life hair just isn't that bouncy and mane-like. And so, I cut brown satin and organza ribbons into small petal-shaped pieces and sewed them in an overlapping fashion until I had created the long bob shape my real life hair is in. A lot of my work is about texture rather than colour, so I'm pleased to have a similar technique in part of my Stitched Self - the effect created by the overlapping ribbons -plus I added some strands of embroidery floss here and there, tacked down with cotton to keep them in place.

From my last post you will see that her poor little face was very plain indeed, it put me in mind of a fencing mask. I felt it needed some subtle sculpting to give it some definition and features so I used a few little stitches, pulled tight, here and there to create something of a nose and mouth - not easy at this size! Then it was time to sew on her Coraline inspired black button eyes, the tiniest I could find at just 5mm. A few pink stitches for a mouth, and - she lives! Albeit with a vaguely amused expression. I suppose I should get her dressed now!

My Stitched Self (1)

Stitch London announced an interesting experiment in stitchery the other day. There is to be an exhibit at the Science Museum in London this summer to commemorate the re-opening of their 'Who Am I?' gallery, and all are invited to make a tiny sewn version of themselves. The collection of models will go on display from the 30th June. You can either knit or sew your Stitched Self and patterns for 'blank bodies', plus the rest of the details, are available here. Exciting Stuff!

Challenges of this kind make my head buzz, and I knew instantly I had to do something Coraline inspired. I also knew I didn't just want to do a 'flat' doll and knitting or crocheting a 3d one from the patterns was out of the question. So, I started to draw up pattern pieces for my tiny self. It was only then I realised how very tiny the Stitched Selves had to be! Approx 15cm (6 inches) tall, which really makes for the smallest doll I've ever sewn. For something of this size all the seams need to be on the outside. It was quite a task to make everything as neat as possible and I used a pale biege embroidery silk to give smoother stitches. To make things even harder, I used the cotton lining fabric from a pair of vintage 1970's curtains for my 'flesh', which I thought was very apt, but it frays like mad. However, this all adds to the weird, slightly disheveled, 'Miss Haversham' effect that is a trademark of so much of my work, and has turned out to be highly suitable for making creepy voodoo effigies!

A few evenings later and the basic body of my Stitched Self is ready - here she is! Admittedly, she came out spookily more human than I had imagined. The exciting stuff comes next: hair, features, clothes...shoes!!

Naked, featureless, tiny me.

Scenes from Dr Frankenstitches workshop.

Below, I had to use a cocktail stick to stuff the legs!

Amongst cotton reels and pins for scale.

A gruesome display

I made this grim display on top of one of the front room cupboards. It's just out of sight as you enter the living room and walking round the corner to the dining room it really stops you in your tracks! I think it's going to attract a lot of attention on Saturday, each exhibit has it's own identification card, with details of the grisly occupant of each vessel. I gathered a collection of glass vases and jars and grouped them into a nice formation before I started thinking about what was to go in each, one of the larger ones is sitting on a footed glass dessert bowl to give it extra height. The acorn shaped glass dome at the front is the shade from a dismantled vintage light fitting.

Brains and ears and lungs - oh my.

Here's what horror is in each - along with it's not so gruesome everyday description. All the specimens are suspended in a solution made with a few granules of instant coffee and a couple of drops of milk for cloudiness. It's the suggestion of shapes that make the display work, so each item was carefully judged and coloured until the vagaries of outline and texture just remained.

UNDEAD BRAIN - A cauliflower. To get it into this narrow necked vase I had to carefully slice it in two, close to the base, push each piece in separately, and then join them again using cocktail sticks.

VAMPIRIC HEART - A fennel bulb. I found it looked more realistic with the green outer layer removed, so I shaved this off with a potato peeler. The bulb I bought had five sprouting shoots, but I chopped the middle one out to leave just four 'valves'.

LEFT LUNG OF A WAILING BANSHEE - An old sponge. If you have one that's getting to end of life for car washing, then that's perfect as it's likely to be more holey and withered. I shaped the sponge to get rid of any harsh corners or straight edges. The addition of a few strands of red embroidery thread poked here and there into the sponge gives the impression of tendrils of blood seeping through tissue.

SEVERED EAR - Quite literally a rubber ear. I was working on a Halloween magazine this summer, and this treasure was sent in for possible covermount ideas. We deemed it far too creepy, and it was rejected. I rescued it and had it in my drawer till Halloween, it is just perfect for this display!

UNIDENTIFIED SPECIMEN - This is possibly the simplest yet most effective. It's a worn out foam cloth (the kind you buy to wipe worktops) again rescued from the car washing bucket. The weird growth attached to it? Is the strange twisty thing that you might sometimes find in the centre of a red pepper, tied on with a strand of muslin that resembles bandage.

ENTRAILS - noodles, tagliatelle and spaghetti! Boiled briefly to soften, and that's it!

BOLETUS LUPINUS (wolf mushroom) - Mushrooms. I was hoping to find a nice fat toadstool in the woods to place under this sinister dome, but dark evenings left me running out of time.

The whole display was a lot of fun to assemble, even though it left me feeling a little like Sweeney Todd in the process, and the kitchen looking like a science project gone haywire.

Thanks to Neil, official photographer, and scariest costume winner,  for use of the last photograph: Left Lung of a Wailing Banshee and,  foreground, Unidentified Specimen.

Creepy Canapés

I did a dry run today of the morsels I am planning to serve with drinks on October 31st. I'd been pondering something ghastly to offer people from the Ghostly Platters I bought a few weeks back and hit on the idea of severed fingers! But what to make them from? I thought I'd try a savoury pastry idea, cause it would enable me to form little knuckles and joints, plus paint on some gruesome detailing with a little food colouring. The addition of a slivered almond made the perfect fingernail, but I also tried pumpkin seeds which worked well too. I wanted to know how many digits I would get from one batch of the shortbread mixture - it gleaned 28, but I am still wondering exactly how many severed fingers I am going to need, cause they really are quite yummy plus they are *dead* easy to make!

Here's the recipe:

Witches Fingers 

(a cheese shortbread dough)

You will need:

100g plain flour

pinch of cayenne pepper

pinch of salt

100g butter

50g grated parmesan

25g strong Cheddar cheese

1 egg yolk

1 tbsp olive oil

red, yellow and green food colouring

slivered almonds or pumpkin seeds

a little beaten egg to glaze

Make your fingers:

Dice the butter and rub together with the flour, salt and cayenne until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the grated cheeses and mix with a knife. Add the egg yolk and olive oil and bring together to form a dough. Rest the dough in the fridge for 25 minutes during which time preheat your oven to 170 degrees centigrade and butter a baking sheet.

Roll out the dough to about 15 mm thick and cut into strips about 15mm wide. Cut the strips down to varying finger sized lengths then shape each piece into a finger by rounding off the sides and pinching in either side of where a knuckle might be. Leave one end of the finger blunt, as if it's been chopped off, and shape the other end to a rounded point. Paint a slivered almond on one side with a little of the beaten egg then push it into the rounded end to resemble a fingernail. Then mix one drop of each of the food colourings to make a murky reddish brown and paint the base of each nail, a few lines across the knuckle, and the stump. Place all the fingers as you work on the baking sheet, then lightly brush all the fingers with the beaten egg.

Bake in the oven for 25 minutes until crisp and golden. Rest them on the sheet for a few moments before transferring to a cooling rack as they are quite fragile when just out of the oven.

Give your guests the finger this Halloween!