Monday, June 30, 2008

Happy Birthday to Us

This July, Cordwood Cabin celebrates its first anniversary as online artists. It was the month we first began our regular listings on Ebay -- not always successful, but always rewarding in the people we met and the feedback we recieved from others (our first July customer, for instance, was from Pawleys Island, South Carolina -- she purchased a set of miniature Pirates!).

Above, little Cordelia holds a birthday cake lit with lots of sparkly candles...and invites all of you to join in the fun this month (since we'll be the one giving the present). We'll be hosting our first blog giveaway with a drawing for a free gift -- so stay tuned for details and the sign-up post!

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Americana and the Old Farmhouse Gathering

This is the latest Americana Angel in our Etsy store -- she's one of two unique Liberty dolls (as well as my favorite) we entered in the Old Farmhouse Gathering summer challenge this week. I love her rusty strand of stars and bells and her prim wooden wings...



The artists of Old Farmhouse Gathering have outdone themselves with the patriotic offerings for the summer challenge. Click the link below to see the prim stitchery, dolls, ceramics, woodwork, and much, much more in honor of the 4th of July.

Monday, June 23, 2008

The Evil Eye

Careful if she casts her eye on you ...




For her victims never look the same again.


Click the Cheshire Cat on the right to see what lies beneath those tangled strands of hair...

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Selkie, Part III

Finally! The topsy-turvy is finished -- including the woman half of the selkie. The tail makes for a tight topsy-turvy fit, due to the bulk of her cheesecloth robes (I'll be modifying this pattern in the future, I'm sure). I sewed strands of muslin seaweed in her hair. Green threads and rough cording are knotted to form her necklaces.


Sometimes, a selkie maiden is taken as a wife by a human man and she has several children by him. In these stories, it is one of her children who discovers her sealskin (often unwitting of its significance) and she soon returns to the sea. The selkie woman usually avoids seeing her human husband again but is sometimes shown visiting her children and playing with them in the waves....



Selkies are not always faithless lovers. One tale tells of the fisherman Cagan who married a seal-woman. Against his wife's wishes he set sail dangerously late in the year, and was trapped battling a terrible storm, unable to return home. His wife shifted to her seal form and saved him, even though this meant she could never return to her human body and hence her happy home.

Some stories from Shetland have selkies luring islanders into the sea at midsummer, the lovelorn humans never returning to dry land. (Wikipedia, "Selkies").



Saturday, June 14, 2008

Greetings from Mr. Poe

Quoth the Raven -- "Nevermore!"
"How odd," said Edgar Poe
"How can a bird say such and so
without a human tongue?"

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Into the Woods with Witches and Children...

Be careful offering these kids candy...they just might eat you out of house and home.



I started these dolls originally as a traditional Hansel and Gretel...but with Halloween rolling around the corner, I stitched Hansel a little candy bag and swapped Gretel's witch doll for a gingerbread witch.

Hilda the Gingerbread Witch is my favorite part of the set, by the way. I think it's her expression of surprise as she surveys the damage...

Ichabod is the first out of the box for the "Ghostly Gallows" series. The Anniversary Edition has a faded fabric head instead of stuffed burlap, a sorrowful painted expression instead of stitched-on patches like before. Ichabod trades in his forest-green coat and brown boot for a black riding duster and shoe and stocking befitting of even a New England schoolteacher (circa Washington Irving, of course).

His claw-like hand is reminiscent of Hob the Goblin King.

Memhotep the Mummy is doing his best to be scary... but it looks more like he's picking out a pumpking to carve. Maybe if his brothers were backing him up in the photo, he'd frighten a few more visitors...

Boo.

Monday, June 9, 2008

A Little Bit of Scariness To Come...

The holidays tend to move quickly in the primitive arts, so we bid goodbye to our 4th of July friends...

(Little Miss Firecracker)

And welcome a slightly scarier crowd for Halloween.



(The Irish Banshee)

This year's series is "Ghostly Gallows", a follow-up to our original "Haunted Hollows" work -- complete with an anniversary edition of Ichabod, the Headless Horseman Scarecrow.

(Don't you love the little pumpkin head?)

...the "And Friends" part of the series includes the friendlier little folk like the Halloween Parade and the mummies, a departure from the scary sort who haunt lonely stretches of road and dark, deserted houses.

Monday, June 2, 2008

Girl Gossip

Whatever they're discussing, it's a private party. Her looks tells me that my camera and myself are simply intruding.