Día de los Muertos Lenormand. (Day of the Dead)

trzes

Or you could just go through this thread and scoop up everyone's order already?

Just in case you decide to do that, starlightexp: hereby I step into the queue too.

I would also queue in on juli 1st at midnight, if neccessary. What timezone are you in? :)
 

rylla

I just found this thread! Going through it my last half on hour was nothing else but: Oh! WOW! A! Ohoh! so on. Saying to myself: I like this card the most, than seeing the next one: oh, I like this card the most! finally I realized I like all the cards the most :) :) :)

so I understand there is no pre-order list yet, but I want to express my excitement about this deck and yes, I want a special deck too :)
 

vee

Y'all are scaring me so I am posting here JUST IN CASE he decides to make this a preorder list, even though it's my understanding he won't. but JUST IN CASE. :laugh:
 

starlightexp

Ahhhhh... now that the whole set is out in the open I can talk more about what’s been going on with the deck. It’s so freeing not to keep secrets. On we go with the whole reasoning and design process of the 112 sets of the Limited Edition of the Day of the Dead.

Part 1: Bags and Fabric.

For me the most important part of a project is to find it interesting and challenging. If I’m just doing the same thing over and over then I don’t feel that I am growing. For me Pixie was a challenge because I set up the structure of using only lines that Pam drew. That is why I never credited myself as the artist on that deck. I didn’t draw a single line. Things were manipulated in photoshop. Cards like the Fox and Bear were made up of different parts of other cards, so much so that I thought PITA would step in because of the chopping and stretching of there animal parts. Doing another deck in Photoshop would have been a bit of a repeat. Likewise the wrapping. I LOVED the wrapped for Pixie. It fit the deck but would not be right for this one… also it would be repeating what I had already done.

The bag idea came about rather early on in the project. I remember as far back as November starting to look into the idea. As I said in my last big post I’m not a fan of having a bag just for a bags sake. I like unique bags that stand out. I thought that it might be fun to find some fabric in a Day of the Dead theme and make a few bags. These fabrics do exist, even at the local Joann’s Fabrics. In my world that is where it went wrong. I get turned off if I can just walk into the local craft store and get the same item that I just bought from someone. I think I get that from my upbringing. As the kid of a school librarian and art teacher in the 70’s, crafting was ALL around. From melting our old crayons to make candles to crappy latch hook rugs we made allot of the world around us in my youth. That translates to me being, I think, kinda snobby in my arts and craft world today. I figure that if I can make it myself then I should rather then buy it. So when I found the fabric that would be a fun fit at the local Joann’s I was like… urgg..now I can’t use it. To me would not bring any unique voice to the project. If I had found it at a small boutique store in some far flung corner of a town then I would have thought it more feasible to use.

It was then that I thought that I might look into seeing if an image or two could be screened onto fabric. Hey they do it on t-shirts maybe I could do it too. This is when I delved into the world of fabric printers. Boy I was in over my head on this one. 30-40 different fabrics, each in a variety of different weights and sizes. I had to consult my husband on this one. He for many years was a clothing buyer and could, at a glance, tell me about each type of fabric. While I was almost certain that I would go with a lush satin I was also thinking a nice textured cotton might work. I sent away for so many sets of samples I swear my postman thinks I’m collecting them. Comparing them was fun and informative way to get a real sense of the weight of the fabric but it would take getting samples of the actual print to see which one would win out.

This part of the process is fraught with the thing that most of us hate dealing with...time. Once the fabric choices were narrowed down then you can order these huge calibration blankets. These are fabrics that are printed with hundreds of colors and there CYMK or RGB print color codes on them so you can make sure that the color on your screen is what will be more or less what is on the fabric when you order it. One can just send them a file and hope for the best, but the fabric is not cheep and there is no return on it so it’s best to err on the side of caution, spend a few extra dollars, and get things right. The blankets are rather pretty. A huge spectrum of colors laid out in order. They were fun to work with. At this stage it’s just match them as best to what a print of the image looks like, adjust for the brightness of the computer screen and send the file off. Now is more of the waiting game. It takes about 10 days to get a proof back. They are 10 long days. Remember weekends don’t count so it’s about two weeks till you get a little bundle of joy in the mail box to see if you have got it right. Then it arrives for the first time it’s like a small miracle . Here is art..that I drew...me..my art..on fabric!! I was running around to everyone I knew showing it to them. Seeing the satin next to the linen that I had chose it was clear that it had to be the satin. The brightness of the fabric just added to the vibrancy of the colors. Then ,as one does when working with a printer on the cards, you get to spend a few hours tweaking colors and contrasts, asking questions over the phone about what one can do to make things either crisper of brighter and start the whole proof process over again. About 6 weeks later the whole of the testing process was and final full yardage arrived. I won’t lie. It was a moment I got choked up at. I was so proud to have done it and that it look good was just so wonderful. So now the front of the bags were ready… we have the backs, insides, ties and the whole rest to figure out.. Oh yea..and a pattern…
 

MoonGypsy

Edmund, you have my undying and utmost respect! i am reeling at your dedication, and painstaking efforts to this and every other art project you take on and make yours! :love:

i will continue to sit very quietly and patiently in the queue, whilst humming old Grateful Dead Songs....
 

Debra

Whew!

Why 112, I wonder.
 

flying black kat

MoonGypsy:

Nice to know that I am not the only one in this thread who knows who the Grateful Dead is.

Flash Backs?

Still watching the ducks on the pond, and the progress on the Day of the Dead.

Walk in Beauty and Be at Peace.

Kathy
 

starlightexp

Sorry for the long posts but this has been stuff just bottled up for a LONG time now :)


Part two.. The pattern.. And 112

Enter..my mother. Mom is interesting. Aside from being an art teacher and librarian she, drag raced cars, traveled the world while living out of a suitcase, and designed for Vogue Patterns in the early 1970s’. Needless to say she can sew. She got me through doing 8 years of The Rocky Horror Show in amazing style. We’re great friends as well so I rang her up and asked her about helping me come up with a pattern. Now I’m a decent sewer. I can run up a hem or fix a button hole, but take me out of a straight stitch and I’m kinda lost. It was a good long conversation about what I hoped the bag could look like and what I could do skill set wise. I sent her up a copy of the finished Pixie deck so she could get the correct size and she went to work.
In the mail about a week later came a thick envelope. In it was a pile of cut fabric, little bits of paper and a note to Skype her as soon as I got it. So I did. What she had done was to map out the bag in six steps. Each step was written out with an example of what the bag should look like when that step was completed. It was perfect, and it was lined. That’s my mom’s big thing. It didn’t matter if it was a vest for work or a one night only costume piece for Rocky Horror it WOULD be lined. This was no exception. The bag she came up with was a double draw string back complete with lining. Now I just needed to get a sewing machine that worked.
Sewing machines are complicated little things these days. They can; write names, do 50 different decorative stitches, be hooked up to your computer. The one thing that they don’t seam to be able to do is to hold the tension of the thread well enough so that it doesn't keep breaking. Tension is what makes the whole thing work. Have the thread to tight and it breaks, too loose and it just loops up and makes a big mess. I had a little sewing machine and this was the issue with it. Even if I never touched the settings from one piece of fabric to the next, SOMETHING would go wrong. Knowing that the project was going to take a heck of a long time as it was the last thing I wanted to deal with was machine issues, so I set about finding a simple sewing machine. Not to simple I guess. After slogging through dozens of models with hundreds of reviews on Amazon I ran across a very helpful one. My take on things like this is to read the 2-3 star reviews to see what the issue the reviewer had with the item was and see if there is a consistent issue and there was . The 4.5 star highly rated Brothers models got stellar reviews from allot of people, but almost always the lower reviews said the same thing: the tension tends to go wonky. In one review they said it was nice for the hobby sewer but they wish they had just spent the extra few dollars and gotten a Janome . I’d never heard of them so I called mom and got a very enthusiastic review of the Janome brand from her. She said they didn’t have all the bells and whistles of allot of other companies but that they were very dependable. That was the word I wanted to hear. Now the machine had the blessings of The Womb I ordered it and once more… waited.
Waited..well waited and shopped. Because I knew sizes of things now I could figure out the yardage of the rest of the fabric I needed. First off was how many of these things did I think I could make. I knew it would be a least 100, because that just always is a good number for a limited edition. I also had to figure in how long it would take to make so that was a good round, challenging number. The extra 12 come in as an homage to the fact that it’s 2012 and the whole ‘end of the world’ thing. 112 it was and now that the custom fabric was ordered I could turn attention to the rest of the bag.
Here in the burbs of Chicago we don’t get much choice in fabric, but if one travels a bit one can get to the wonderful Mecca of fabric known as Vogue Fabrics. Here you can get real silks and satins in ever color and pattern you can think of. Fabrics that exist no where else in town are to be found at Vogue. Knowing that my husband Scott would be into this we made a day of it and headed out on a fabric hunt.
I wish that I could say that it was hours of debating fabrics there, but I can’t. The fabric for the back found us after about 15 min of being there. Because there are going to be several different colors for the front there would have to be more then one color for the back, but they had to be the vibrant colors that the deck is made of. There was a wall of beautiful brightly colored taffeta fabrics. We fell in love with a textured silk taffeta that came in the strong jewel tones we needed. Well that was simple. 90 min of driving for a 15 min search. Well not quite. The lining was the big issue. A pattern was in order for the lining, but just what we were not sure. It could have been so easy to go goth and get black, or cheesy and get the kind with little glitter stars in it but neither, to us, fit the project. We finally settled on a very cute fabric with a simple pattern in the perfect colors. We now had fabrics and on to the pull string and finishing touches on it…
 

flying black kat

starlightexp:

You never fail to amaze me. The dedation you and yours have to make the decks you do makes them more valuable to me. I love how they feel each time I open the box (Pixie) to use the cards.

I know from my experience how sewing machines are now compared to the older models. I actually stopped making clothes for myself because I got frustrated with the whole procedure. I hope you never loose your sense of wonder.

Be at Peace and Walk in Beauty.

Kathy
 

jema

I guess the pre-orders will be up in july? This is gonna go FAST. I bet a lot of people are gonna buy many copies and then re-sell on ebay.
That makes me cry...

Cause I need this one!!!