The Tiny Eyes journey begins!

2 weeks ago I was SUPER excited when Dee from Tiny Eyes invited me to be part of her Winter Collaboration Project for 2013! At first I was honored, then excited, then nervous... 

I mean look at the line up folks! Some amaaaazingly creative designers and crafters. It's not a competition but its funny when you are working alongside some clever people doubt creeps in about abilities, choices and designs when doing something completely different. Will my designs be too boring, can I seriously match fabrics together... eek!

But.... one night I lay awake in bed and then it HIT me...  BAM! The idea train came a rollin in and I could not get back to sleep. Images, fabrics, techniques and designs came flashing up in my head, I think I even suppressed a squeak or two of excitement & a few leg kicks in case I woke hubby. Now we all know brilliant ideas come to us in the night and only the clever people have a note book to write these night-time ideas into. I do not, so I willed my brain to retain the ideas and slowly went to sleep dreaming of this Doll. 

My main idea for the clothing part of my Doll was to screen print some fabric for her skirt. I have some screens in the garage and thought about designing a print, but then my awesome hubby suggested I use my favorite woodblock... which happens to be my Mudbird Ceramics signature print/pattern. That was just far to fabulous of an idea, being a Mudbird vibe doll it made perfect sense. I've never used it for its original purpose (it had a long life as a fabric printing block before I bought it in 1995)and was excited to give it a go last week. My first print was perfect!

 It was a busy Wednesday indeed... shopping for fabric, printing fabric and meeting a real life Tiny Eyes doll.

Thank you Juliet from Tartan Kiwi for lending me your daughter's doll while we had coffee!

 I chose a pale turquoise/aqua colour fabric paint and experimented on dark denim and also a light grey denim. Dark denim won. I went to the Make Cafe to get the contrasting fabrics & paint and compared my print alongside the doll to get a sense of scale. I think the block print will make a perfect skirt for her.

After much deliberation with fabrics I chose 2 from the shop and added another fabric I had at home. I'm not a great planner, more of a spur of the moment type of person I have discovered when choosing fabrics!

Packed them all up for Dee and couriered them off 2 days after printing the fabric.

You'll have to wait to see how its all put together and Dee will work her magic for sure.

I'm now going to make some itsy bitsy Mudbird products for this lovely Doll - this part I'm really looking forward to. Nothing like a challenge that's out of the box to make you look at other styles and ways of creating. 

You can follow my visual idea journey over on Instagram.

@mudbird_ceramics

Thanks Dee, this is fun

x Gill

You can follow a few of the other designers 

who are joining in too!

Emma from Emma Makes

Rebekah from Bliss in a tea cup

Rhiannon from Croutons

Melissa from Tiny Happy