Designing Women (and Mark G. Harris)

In my recent LJ Runway Monday post, I mentioned fabric that I was given by Lynne and Lindsey. I’m sure you’ll be seeing more of Lynne’s donations, but there are some other people I’d like to mention, too. Kathy S saved a couple of bags of fabric scraps from being thrown away and brought them to me. I’ve gone through them and found some delightful little pieces that will be fun for designs. There are also a couple of pieces that are too large a scale for Barbie, like this one:

but you never know what use my trusty sewing machine and I might find for that. Be afraid. Yes, I’m talking to YOU.

Then, last night, I thought to go by the post office, where I found packages from Mark G. Harris and my LJ/FB/Twitter buddy Rain Wolfe. Mark sent some fabrics that he knew I’d love–thanks so much, Mark! There was also fabric in Rain Wolfe’s package. Of course, I’m not going to show y’all ANY of these fabrics because then it wouldn’t be a surprise when I use them in my designs. But I bring all this up for a reason.


Included in ‘s package was a book I’d never seen called The Art of Barbie. As described by the Daily Telegraph, the book, which came out in 2000 just after Barbie’s 40th birthday, presents “Unique and individual interpretations of Barbie by a diverse and glittering range of artists, photographers, designers and sculptors.” These include such fashion icons as Missoni, Prada, Jimmy Choo, and Paloma Picasso, among dozens of others. Considering my enjoyment of Barbie and fashion, it’s a perfect fit! Even better, all of the sales of the created designs and art, as well as all of Mattel’s licensing royalties, went to The Elton John AIDS Foundation. What a brilliant gift!


There is one distressing note. Tucked inside the book was this fantastic bookmark made by MouseRug. Their products are not just for mouse pads and bookmarks. Abby happened to be here because I was photographing her for a Flickr contact, and she pounced on my bookmark and claimed it for her loft apartment.

Oh, well, it is the Qashqa’i shekarlu rug, copied from the one that was draped over Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic couch. Maybe this will give Abby some interesting dreams.

Thank you all for the terrific surprises. I think you were instrumental in making my headache go away so I could finish my last painting well before the end of the week!

12 thoughts on “Designing Women (and Mark G. Harris)”

  1. fabric

    Hey, did the birthday girl and her wife EVER give you the bag of curtain fabrics I gave them (a REALLY, REALLY long time ago)? If not, feel free to yell at them and demand they turn it over…

    1. It’s Skipper’s sweater–Skipper being Barbie’s eleven-year-old sister. I couldn’t wear eleven-year-old sizes when I was eleven.

      Sometimes these top model dolls are very annoying, much like Michelle Pfeiffer, whose character put on her seven-year-old son’s shirt in One Fine Day and looked great in it.

  2. I’m glad it made you happy! Also that I ended up holding onto that bookrug so long that you had a room for it to fit into 🙂
    Since I’m not allowed to compulsively buy fabric for myself (cuz I’m not actually sewing anything with it) it feeds my need to be able to contribute to your designs.

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