![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Crafty Tuesday: Failure is an option
Feb. 11th, 2014 10:20 amThere is a plastic crate that I have spoken of before. It is full of bits and bobs of puppets and dolls that didn’t quite work. However I have found over time that I tend to use something that didn’t work in another project where it did work well. The total failures do get tossed and I have had a number of those.
When I was first learning to sew puppets, my best friend was my seam ripper. The seam ripper and I had to take out a lot of stitches that were incorrect. I have lost count the number of times I have done something backwards on a collar or didn’t get the collar centered correctly. Sleeves two distinctly different lengths or cuffs that go two different directions. Mouths that don’t quite fit or that aren’t entirely complete or are just catawampus. I still make mistakes but fewer than when I started and I learned from each and every one of them.
If you saw the first doll I made for a Froud workshop and the last character I made for a Froud workshop, you would see a vast difference between the two.
Heck, let’s do that. I only have a picture of the parts before I assembled it for the first doll.
The first doll I made at the Wendy Froud Dollmaking Workshop
(For the VI: This is a picture of a flesh colored doll head at the top with arms on wires to either side and the feet/boots below)
Goat Boy from the last class I took from Wendy Froud
(For the VI: The photo is taking in front of Caroline’s dry erase board. The figure has a goat head, human hands and hooves for feet. His tail with a black fluffy tip is sticking out to the left of the photo. The head is Goat-like with horns coming out of his black hair. His legs are made from black and white fur His tunic is brown as are his arm guards.)
There was a lot of work between the first and the second photo along with a lot of trial and error. By the 3rd class, Wendy wouldn’t let me get away with any shortcuts because she could see that I could do the work better so she was politely harder on me than some of the other ladies but I appreciated that she wouldn’t let me get away with coasting.
So go ahead and create. Try something and see if it works for you. If not or you screw something up, well you learned something and remember that the seam ripper is your best friend.
I am grateful to Wendy for being so generous with her talents and gifts.
When I was first learning to sew puppets, my best friend was my seam ripper. The seam ripper and I had to take out a lot of stitches that were incorrect. I have lost count the number of times I have done something backwards on a collar or didn’t get the collar centered correctly. Sleeves two distinctly different lengths or cuffs that go two different directions. Mouths that don’t quite fit or that aren’t entirely complete or are just catawampus. I still make mistakes but fewer than when I started and I learned from each and every one of them.
If you saw the first doll I made for a Froud workshop and the last character I made for a Froud workshop, you would see a vast difference between the two.
Heck, let’s do that. I only have a picture of the parts before I assembled it for the first doll.
The first doll I made at the Wendy Froud Dollmaking Workshop
(For the VI: This is a picture of a flesh colored doll head at the top with arms on wires to either side and the feet/boots below)
Goat Boy from the last class I took from Wendy Froud
(For the VI: The photo is taking in front of Caroline’s dry erase board. The figure has a goat head, human hands and hooves for feet. His tail with a black fluffy tip is sticking out to the left of the photo. The head is Goat-like with horns coming out of his black hair. His legs are made from black and white fur His tunic is brown as are his arm guards.)
There was a lot of work between the first and the second photo along with a lot of trial and error. By the 3rd class, Wendy wouldn’t let me get away with any shortcuts because she could see that I could do the work better so she was politely harder on me than some of the other ladies but I appreciated that she wouldn’t let me get away with coasting.
So go ahead and create. Try something and see if it works for you. If not or you screw something up, well you learned something and remember that the seam ripper is your best friend.
I am grateful to Wendy for being so generous with her talents and gifts.
