dolls for friends

Here are a few of the pieces we’ve put together for the upcoming 2nd Sunday Sustainability Fair being held in Portland on February 10. All the pieces we are bringing with us will either be made from mostly recycled and/or reclaimed materials.

Jill and I have learned quite a bit about the extent to which we can push certain types of reclaimed materials while getting ready for this show.

There were several designs that we made it quite far into the process with, only to be abandoned because of limitations and flaws that surfaced due to the types of reclaimed materials we were trying to use. It’s also allowed us to take some mental notes on our processes and eliminate certain types of reclaimed materials because they are simply too hard to work with.

Our newest friend up on our Etsy shop.

A little back story perhaps? Sure:

Percival is extremely fond of techno, dub, trip hop and downtempo music. He’s been known to attend a variety of rave and house style parties, spending days grooving to the hypnotic, repetitive musical structures while hopping around in a semi-trance like state alleviating his cares and concerns.

He’s extremely mellow, widely read and loves to talk about a variety of subjects. Despite being a bit squinty from a variety of strobe light induced corneal burns, Percy is extremely friendly and outgoing.

Dolls for Friends will be on hand at the 2nd Sunday Sustainability Fair on February 10.

We were approached to do this show because of our love for using reclaimed and recycled fabric in many of the pieces we create. While I wouldn’t say we fit neatly into the “tree hugger” category when it comes to our views of the environment, we do recognize the need for conscience thought when it comes to dealing with issues surrounding the environment and how we add to / subtract from the overall ecological footprint.

Each of the pieces we’ll have on hand for the fair will use a mix of reclaimed and/or recycled fabric and new materials, and a few will be 100% recycled. Working with these types of materials has proved challenging in certain ways, but it’s enabling us to better understand the flexibility of reclaimed fabrics and what we can and can’t do with them while creating.

If you have time to swing by the event and say “hey”, we’d love to hear from you.

We were so excited when we were contacted by Tender Loving Empire in Portland asking us if they could carry our work. We thought about it for, oh, about 5 seconds, looked at each other and shouted, “Hecks yes!”

We were finally able to get downtown today and sign contracts with the hospitable Bri, deliver a couple of pieces for the shop and to take a look around her awesome store. There is just so much there that you could easily spend your entire paycheck there without even blinking.

Our agreement with TLE marks the first retail space we’re going to be located in, and it looks like it might not be the last. We’ve just received interest from a new vendor that if it works out might take us across the pond to merry old England before too long. Let’s hope.

The interview we did for DIY Alert! just hit the interwebs. We would like to thank Diane for asking us to be a part of her PDX Profiles section. We had a lot of fun writing this piece together and picking out the photos that we wanted to have represent our little project.

We were recently invited to join The Needle, a collaborative weblog that supports products that bridge the gap between art and craft. After taking a look at the site and learning a bit more about what their purpose was, we thought this would be a fun project to be involved with. We’ve just finished our first two posts introducing ourselves to their readership and giving a piece of press to our newest little lovely, Yanitori. Thank you to Claire and all of the other contributing members of The Needle for welcoming us into the fold.