Dear Diary, part 17: 5 doodlebombs and a wedding

17/07/20
My friend bought one of my scarves as part of the Artists Support Pledge  , you can read about it at the bottom of this blogpost. She posted a photo of herself wearing it on Instagram. I loved the photo so I printed it out , doodlebombed it and posted it to her. I’ve asked other friends to send me photos to do as well. Watch this space. Although you might be watching a while as our colour printer has fallen out with the laptop, hopefully they’ll make it up soon.

I did another doodlebombed card for July, and this time I took a photo of the face I found in a magazine before I did anything to it.

Here’s the card I received for the July swap, the artist explained how she made it : “I used acrylic paints for the background and a stamp to make it more interesting. The face is from a tissue paper by by Studio Light. I put it on aquarel paper and coloured it in with acquarel.”

07/08/20
I doodlebombed a few more friends and posted them the results…

I took part in a Swapbot swap called “Mystery Supply Swap” . I received these…

and I had to make 2 things with them, I chose to make postcards…

I wrote on the back that the boy used the ticket to leave home and make his way in the world as a musician, and he would really miss his dog.

I did a postcard swap on the theme of “squares, I used photos of some of my 5×5 inch textile pieces I made for the Made on Monday project , you can read about it here

Here’s the card I received on the same theme, the artist said it was made up of various sizes of squares that she stencilled and coloured each with complimentary or hues of colour.

15/08/20
A lady who already has one of my customised jackets bought another one from a photo on my Facebook page..

Her daughter saw it and liked it, and sent me a jacket she had that she wanted funked up. She looked though photos of my previous work and picked out a few that she particularly liked. She told me to do whatever I wanted, but could it be multicoloured, sparkly and assymetric? Sure thang it can! Here’s what I did to it, she was delighted with the results.

I had lost my sewjo of late, but I got a bit of a boost doing this customisation, and since then I’ve done 2 more – photos to follow once the customer has seen them in real life.
The beauty of customising garments that customers send me is that we know it’s definitely going to fit. You can read about my customisation service here
https://www.mcanaraks.com/product/customised-clothing-information/

Here are some garments that I have previously funked up for customers..

This is a customisation I did on a well loved gilet owned by a 70 year old man, he wanted it jazzed up, with a tree of life on the back, and buttons no bigger than a 10 pence. How’s this for feedback…. “The gilet has just arrived! The garment is FABULOUS, thank you so much for a splendid job. I cried (… with joy)! My husband LOVES it. It’s been great, Fran. Your whole set up has been easy and I have absolutely no hesitation whatsoever about recommending you to people whenever I get the chance and I shall come back to you soon because I have an item of clothing of my own which could do with a new look!!! Actually, now that I adore your work I want to change my whole wardrobe!!!””

This one comes with it’s own blogpost, you can read it here..
https://www.mcanaraks.com/a-customisation-with-a-bit-of-history/

Finally, this dress I customised to be worn at a Handfasting Ceremony. Normally I would run a mile at the thought of making a wedding dress after a disaster involving some expensive silk about 30 years ago (still wake up sometimes in a sweat thinking about it). However this was for a close friend so I made an exception.
Here is the dress she gave me..

these are some of the embroidered linens that she had collected from charity shops…

the white tatting I added round the neck was made by her mum…

Of course the dress needed pockets…

here’s what I did to the back of the dress…

It was the perfect shape for adding embroideries to..

Here she is looking lovely in her dress…

and check out her jewel encrusted Crocs …………

It was a pleasure to do, and she loved it. Doesn’t mean I’d do another one though!