Getting Ready for Atlanta, Part 2: MicroFish Tales

Posted byCathy

January 11, 2012

Studio Life

As we prepared for Atlanta last week, you could have literally put a sign on the studio door, “Gone Fishin.’” The MicroFish pattern, (which is one of our favorite designs from the Bot Buddies® fabric collection) was just begging to show up on a variety of product categories. We pulled out our Sculpey box again. All three girls spent some of their home-for-the-holidays time producing fish bodies. Some fish were too fat, some were too flat, (we even had to throw a few back into the sea) … but 10 little fishes were just right to fill our Fishmas Tree.

Above is our inspiration, the Bot Buddies® Big Border panel, which you can buy here.

The Food Network was playing on the television in the background while we worked, which was an odd juxtoposition, because periodically, a tasty fish dish would be featured, and we felt a little uneasy, because, well, our new fish creations were smiling at us … we had bonded.

Photos above from top clockwise: (1) After years of Sculpey play, Margaret makes fish for market. (2) Julianna pulled out the box of CelVinyls (which used to be our medium of choice before Photoshop entered our lives) and starts mixing pots of paint the old-fashioned way.
(3) Jules painting a base-coat on a fine fat fish. (4) A closeup of one of our smiling fishbots.
(5) After painting the fish, we hung them in the trees to dry … if birds could swim and fish could fly …

Just to imagine these busy MicroFish with yet another medium, here they are, below, in thread. We made these mockups to help buyers to visualize these little guys in a powder room at the beach or in a child’s bath upstairs at home. And you can make these, too! (They would be a great “thank you for inviting me to your beach house gift.”) We’ll post the how-to when we return from Atlanta.

And, while all this sculpting and sewing was going on, Margaret had the duty of cutting, and cutting … and cutting our newly received Bot Buddies® flannels for a variety of needs. We now have fat-quarter sets for Atlanta, as well as yardage to go to the members of the East Bay Modern Quilt Guild to cut and sew some fun projects. And although we provided Margaret with a fancy new rotary cutter, Margaret plans on not cutting anything for at least a month.