But first I have to just say, it's going to someone in Pennsylvania!! I love that not only is it a domestic shipping address (not that I dislike doing international swaps but I got slammed with a ton of them lately and I think it pisses off the post office folks when I roll in there with six international packages--and I don't want to piss off the postal employees!).
Ok, so what's so fabulous about this dotee?
Hee hee! How'd you like that foil strip tease!
It's a t.v. dinner!!!
March is Frozen Food Month (and, I think it's the 7th, is Frozen Food Day). When I saw that I immediately knew what my dotee would be. And I'm happy to report it turned out very well.
It is a tiny bit warbly around the edges but I didn't want to add too much cardboard to it. First, cutting tiny cardboard strips annoys the crap out of me and then sewing them between strips of felt is a pain in the butt and if I would have had to then attach the food stuff to the reinforced edges that would have made me even crazier than I already am. So cardboard reinforcement for the edges was a NO. I did add a bit of cardboard to the back to smooth out the back (it was lumpy after all the stitching and such) and because I had to add a written patch to the back (this series of swaps encourages signing your dotee and including what holiday it's for).
Close up time:
Beads for the peas. This is the only item on this dotee I had to go out and buy. I needed them for this project but I'll be using them on other dolls (they're just seed bead style beads with larger holes--something I needed anyway). They are all stitched on, too. NO GLUE. I cut a piece of green felt for a base and then attached them in sets of 2, 3, and occassionally 4. It worked out very well and they're very sturdy on there.
Mashed potatos with butter pat. I snuck the face onto the butter. Yes, I realize sometimes I take big ole liberties with the dotee "rules". I slap a bitty little smile face on some tiny part of a doll and it totally counts. I do feel bad sometimes because some folks note on their profiles that they're not really into "kawaii" and I think this "slap a face on a butter pat" thing is more than borderline "kawaii" but (this sounds so damn rude) I don't really care. I'm not TRYING to make "kawaii". I'm trying to make a crazy fun dotee and if it ends up being a bit "kawaii" then. . .well, you can always send the doll to goodwill if you don't like it. (or mail it back to me--I'll always take my critters back). (true confession, the butter is glued on, I didn't want to add stitches to the edge of it and I wanted to be able to really poke it down so it looked like it was in a little divot on the potatos--which it does). The potatos are fleece which gives them a super potato look.
Brownie dessert. I know the foil makes this more of an vintage style t.v. dinner so I should have made a cherry or apple cobbler but that wasn't really in my skill or supply set. I'm sure I could figure it out but doing that would suck the fun out of making this so I went the easy route and made a brownie. And I used to LOVE those Hungry Man t.v. dinners that had the brownie, so it made me smile to add it to this meal.
And the schmeat. At first I was going to make chicken legs but I know when I think of vintage t.v. dinners I think "salsibury steak" (the Schmeat of Champions). So this is my felty take on the schmeat we love to eat. I was debating adding gravy but it just didn't look right when I layed it on so I skipped it. I used my trusty fabric pen to add the savory grill marks (I tried embroidery but it looked awful).
Did you notice the run away peas? Yeah, that amuses me. Well, from a felt t.v. dinner stand point. When I used to eat t.v. dinners I used to hate the run away corn. Corn does not belong in a brownie and I resented having to dig it out of the batter (or finished brownie).
I enjoyed making this dotee so much I even changed aruond my mailing schedule so I can show it off in person to my sister (who's visiting this weekend). She's going to shit. She gets a kick out of wacky stuff like this (and I was telling her about it and she gave me the idea to cover it with foil--which I will do when I go to mail it!).
I really hope the recipeint gets a good laugh out of it. I know it cracks me up every time I look at it (and my hubby even smiled at it and normally he's not one to react at all when I get all "ooh ooh, look at meeee and what I maaaade!").
What's next? Well, I have to make an easter themed doll. It has to be egg shaped in some way, so I'm thinking it's time to do some wet felting again to make an egg that I can put stuff into. And I need to make a pair of dotees for another swap. I'm still up in the air over what I want to make for that one. I've narrowed it down to two ideas which I'm going to sketch a bit today in hopes one will inspire me more than the other (I kind of know which one I want to do but I can't just admit it yet).
Ok, I'm done spamming my blog for today. (and now I want a t.v. dinner--eeww!)
That one is kick ass, including the stray peas that yes, really are always escaping to the other partitions! And I was glad to send you those bits of fabric by the way, hope they come in handy!
ReplyDeleteI may have to show this one off at some of the "link a finish" things other folks have on their blogs.
DeleteOh, I'm loving the fabric you sent. I plan to share it with some of my fabric swapping friends too (how many folks can use these scraps? lets find out!)