holy crap, so many dinosaurs

i feel like for the past week or so i've done nothing but think about, make, & even wear dinosaurs...which is kind of awesome. To start with, i received perhaps the single most amazing item ever mailed: my custom dinosaur dress by isleofmuse. i also got a convo to my etsy shop requesting a custom stuffed orange Plesiosaur. Do to the specifications of the request i had to rework my pattern a little bit, which was something of a challenge. i consider the resulting pile of Plesiosaur to be my best attempt at plush-making so far.
But then i started thinking (which has a tendency to lead to some sort of wondrous nonsense) , if i can make a larger dinosaur, mayhaps i can make a smaller one too. Thus Mortimer the citrisaurus came to be. Mortimer is a palm sized brontosaurus, who enjoys reading, foliage, & crumpets. He is the lime dino in a soon to be complete lemon-lime dinosaur set. The dainty dinosaur between Mortimer & the Orange-osaurus is Alice, who you may recall from a previous post.

i'm thinking my next creature will be a stegosaurus. yes.

M is for Morbo

Morbo is my stalk-eyed, stripey friend. Actually, he's a gift for another friend, this one significantly less stalk-eyed & stripey. Morbo is my first sock creature made without a pattern. i really had to listen to the soul of the socks & let them tell me what they wanted to become. since Morbo started out as toe-socks, i knew i wanted to utilize the toes to the fullest extent possible. lately i have a fondness for drawing stalk-eyed, tentacled creatures, so fetal Morbo (in his rainbow toe sock form) seemed to beg for some long, bendy appendages. as a bonus, his eye stalks have wire at in the center, so they can be shaped in to pretty much anything (except sandwiches, Morbo has an irrational fear of sandwiches).

Morbo enjoys trigonometry & dance dance revolution. in his spare time, he haunts the dimensions frequented by space elves & people on DMT.



& for no particular reason, here's a picture of me & H.P. :

mysterious mailer # 2

One of my favorite things to do is send odd, random packages to my friends & pretty much anyone willing to give me their address. Most recently i made this ACEO (the text reads: warning, cupcake overdose may cause limb-loss in some robots) for operative #6.5, to include in a package which informs said operative that she has been designated an operative. For future reference, I am operative #3...there are others. yes.
just for the record, i have no idea what operative #6.5's feelings are about cupcakes, robots, or ACEO's .

in case anyone is curious to know the nature of an operative, i'll just put it like this: people often organize & appraise their lives based on pre-existing systems of labels to which value is or isn't attributed. but, much like a diamond is just a rock & money is just paper, the labels we give to things are only meaningful because we believe in them. so, i've decided to take an active role in creating my own systems of meaning, an operative is a person who is in some way relevant to my system. or some such.

if you're interested in becoming an operative, which will generally involve receiving a free ACEO or mini plush, send your address & a bit about yourself to poisonlake@gmail.com.

Magnetic Poetry 4/13

here's a secret: i love words. i am enchanted by the nature of symbols & the nuances & attachments taken on by text out of context. given that, my prolonged obsession with magnetic poetry should come as no surprise. my latest assembly required masterpiece reads:

through this
banal black endeavor
i almost did see
silhouetted,
a form
like the surreal self
shimmering & raw
open

the population of Poison Lake is slowly growing

my new etsy shop PoisonLake.etsy.com has opened the flood gates of awesomeness...okay, maybe they are just ajar, not entirely open. i'm having some trouble getting good pictures of my originals without a scanner. this one came out pretty well though. it's actually part one of the back of a letter i wrote on index cards. i've drawn 3 or 4 different versions & i'm thinking about offering them at PoisonLake.

i'm currently experiencing deep inner turmoil regarding just how desperately i need a gocco. so far the outcome is in favor of "so very, very desperately". yes.

Myrna the cupcake sprite

Myrna is my first experiment in machine appliqué & i love her. i have, in fact, already started on another cupcake sprite, woo hoo. woo hoo indeed. i considered keeping her, especially since her rice-weighted lowers might provide some protection against the draft monster, if she were properly placed by one of the billions of windows in my living room. but, alas, she is not meant to be mine, only to pass briefly through the universe of my craft shelf. i will definitely be experimenting more with winged creatures though, it's kind of awesome to see my creatures take on a little piece of myself, see the resemblance?

Meet Alice:

Alice is a dinosaur (a brontosaurus to be exact) & she is awesome. She is also my first attempt at making a three denominational creature from an original pattern. Not bad, not bad at all. Alice's pattern is still being reworked, but very soon little Alice clones will be available through my etsy store:

patchworkphoenix.etsy.com