Heart's A Flutter

Finished up the angel heart project. Even have it up on eBay now! You can see it here.
Nothing like being lazy, eh?

Angel Heart

I have been sketching things that I can make (and hopefully sell) for Valentine's Day. This one got a bit out of hand - I meant to make a small heart with angel wings. The wings on this are 18" long - a bit bigger than I was thinking. It's not done - I just laid the pieces on the floor to take the photo. Still have to sew it all together. The heart is stuffed and the wings are quilted with a layer of batting. Kind of odd, eh?

New Prim Raggedy

Finished up another Raggedy doll today. My friend commissioned me to make one for a medical worker who has been really nice to her. Really caring, over and above. The woman is a mammogram technician so I tried to work some pink into the outfit, as requested by my friend. This material has pinkish stripes with blue hearts. It really took the aging process well - the dress looks old, old, old.

I also painted stripes on the legs and gave her painted shoes. Didn't do that on the last one. One nice touch is the red edged lace. My friend gave it to me years ago, it's from something of her grandmother's. I'm thinking it was a tablecloth because there are a lot of curves in the lace. It used to be white, LOL.

Oh - used a low thread count muslin and had no problem sewing after everything had been coffee stained. I did stain the body parts before stuffing this time too - after sewing, but before stuffing. I learned a lot last time and made changes in this one that make it much easier to work with.

Showing off her legs ...

Odessa flies to the moon

Oh my - another primitive doll has stolen my heart. Funny to think I used to hate these - thought they were incredibly ugly. It's taken me a couple of years to come around to liking them but now I've fallen big time, LOL. They are definitely a 180 degree change from what I've been making. I hope you like her as much as I do ... so .. drum roll please ...

Say hello to Odessa. She sure looks worried, doesn't she. Her dream was to fly to the moon and now that she's there she's a bit scared. She is a pattern from Dirty Crow Inn - an E-pattern (sent by email) - instant gratification, I like that! She is painted with acrylics instead of coffee stained like the last prim. Her proportions aren't off in the picture - she is supposed to look like this. Big head, little legs. This pattern called for doing all the painting before you attached all the body parts. The arms and legs were easy, the head was a bitch. I don't know if it's because I'm still using a high thread count fabric instead of a muslin but I don't know anyone who makes prims so I can't ask. Had to use hemostats to pull the needle through the fabric to put the head on the neck. My fingers are sore! I still have to make her display - she will sit on a paper box. But I have to go buy one. I think I will put her up at my Etsy store when I'm done. I have to learn to let go of my little creations - I tend to get attached to them, LOL.

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Got an extra head?

Betty had been looking at photos of an elinor peace bailey class I took a few years ago and she asked what I did with the head that elinor drew for me. This is one of the neat things about taking a class with epb .. she will draw your face for you if you want. In the end though I decided to make another head with my own face painting for the doll I made in the class. I wanted it to be ALL my own work. So this is what I did with the epb head ...

Just a mini dress form and a scrunchie ...

One more thing .. it's amazing how fast she can whip these out. Didn't take her more than a couple of minutes. She used Fabricmate fabric markers and crayons. Neat, huh!

Raggedy Ann - in all her glory!

She's done! I'm going to have a hard time giving this one away because I think she's adorable. I love making dolls that make me smile every time I look at them and this Raggedy Ann certainly does that!

What to add to my last entry? The clothes went together well although I had to really visualize what was what from the pattern. The written directions were hard to figure out. For instance for the bodice it said - cut fabric on doubled folded fabric and sew 1/4 edge, sew 2 inches then sew neck. Huh? I'm not very good at clothes and it took me a while to figure it out. Finally I just looked at the pieces and figured out what to sew on my own.

Oh - the embroidery was easy even if the fabric wasn't as soft as it used to be. I was surfing the net and found that the Raggedy Ann doll makers refer to their girls as 'crunchy' or 'crusty' - so I guess the Raggedy IS supposed to feel like it does.

Another new thing was to use a stencil brush to blush the cheeks. Supposed to use the dry brush technique but I guess I didn't get enough paint off for the first cheek - the second one came out better. I'll know for next time.

This is another of my Hope dolls - she has two strands of beads hanging from the middle flower on her dress. One strand says Hope and the other says Courage. It's for a friend with breast cancer. My hope for this year is that I don't have to make any more of these dolls - it's the third one in a year.

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From one extreme to the other!

I decided to make a prim Raggedy today. I've never made one before and have absolutely no clue how to but, hey, that's never stopped ME before! So I found a free pattern on the internet, with basically no instructions. But I can sew a doll body - no sweat!

Used this fabric that is a decent thread count - no idea what it is - something that Christine Shively uses (I had bought it for her class). Made the doll body pieces. Pattern said to put it together and stain it. Stain it? What the heck is that? A few Google searches later I know it means age it. Okay. How? Can't find anything through Google except for Gail Wilson's website and it says to use Rit dye. I don't want to use Rit. Keep searching. Join another Yahoo group. Go through their files. AHA - coffee and vanilla will age it. Go to store to buy instant coffee. Might as well pop into the craft shop and get some yarn for hair too. Hey, this fabric is nice - bet it will age well in the coffee too. Back home. Make tea. Make coffee. Drink tea. Dip doll pieces in coffee for five minutes. Hmmm, this looks interesting. I wonder if the doll shouldn't be STUFFED to do this? Try to get coffee out of doll. Notice that the coffee also stains your hands. Put doll pieces in oven at 200 degrees for 10 minutes. Check and it's still soaked. So is the towel under it. Guess I didn't get enough coffee out. Give it another 10 minutes, and another 10 minutes. House starts to smell like coffee and vanilla. Husband wanders in. Making cookies? Nope, baking dolls. Nothing surprises him anymore - he leaves. Finally the doll is dry (more or less). It's aged. It looks like something my dog dug up in the yard. Okay - now to put it together. Why, they didn't say that after you age the fabric with coffee it turns into CANVAS and you CAN'T get a needle through it. They also didn't say that maybe, just maybe, you should put a pin across the top of the legs so the *stuffing doesn't shift* during the aging process. That way when you put the doll together she might be able to sit up WITHOUT a prop behind her! Okay, she'll just have to lean against something, it's not the end of the world. Now to find buttons and felt. Tried red felt and she looked like Rudolph. Get out the good wool felt and that works. This looks strange. I don't like prim Raggedys but I'm determined to make one. So let's keep going and see .. cut some black thread and lay it on the face for eyelashes and a mouth, just to see what it will look like. Have no clue how I'm going to embroider on something I can't get a needle through but that's for another day. Lay some yarn across the head. Hey, it's not so bad after all. Maybe when I get her dressed she'll be okay.

Stayed tuned for the next episode ... LOL.

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He's back ...

Working on the cherry pitter again. For those of you who don't remember .. this is a kitchen appliance I found in a box of junk. I wrapped his body with four different yarns and then green 20 gauge wire. There's another cherry (berry?) that goes on the top of his arm but it keeps falling off. I'll get it back on there when I'm done with the hair. This hair is a PAIN!!!

I'm making the hair out of cotton quilting thread. I thread up a long piece on a needle and make about four loops in the same space. Then I make a loop around the base of the threads and knot it off. The knots make the threads stand up. Finally I clip the top of the loops. It's going to take HOURS .. and HOURS .. and HOURS. I have some leaves and berries that are going to go on the back of his head as well.

Notice his little 'loincloth' - I didn't do that on purpose - the yarn just loosened there by itself. I think he was telling me that he's not an exhibitionist. If you look closely you'll see some color under there. I'll leave it up to your imagination to guess what it is, LOL.

Here's a refresher on his progress:

The beginning:

Next step:

Where he is today:

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I'm a lucky girl!

One of my internet friends, Natalie, sent me this absolutely breathtaking pin doll. I absolutely love her faces and now I have three pieces of her art. I'm a lucky girl!

What a difference!

Thought it would be fun to show a now and then photo of faces I did. The upper portion of the photo shows one of the first faces I did (back in 2001) and the lower portion shows a face I painted this year. I've come a long way in four years! You can too! Just practice, practice, practice.

It also helps to have some good books and some good teachers to learn from!
My picks are:
Sherry Goshon's Watercolor Faces book
Patti Culea: Creative Cloth Doll Faces

One of the best instructional packets I have is from Anne-Marie Brombal but you can't get it anymore. Awesome step by step photos.

Cherry Pitter

I started playing with the Cherry Pitter today. I asked my husband to straighten it some so it would stand upright. He had a bit of a problem with it - it kind of fell apart. So he welded the center part with the thumb loop between the two finger loops and split the bottom piece in two. I like it in this configuration - it gave me a place for feet.

I have this Superflex Sculpey clay that I had bought years ago so my daughters could make hair decorations. Ran it through the pasta machine and it softened right up. Huh. I was surprised that it was still useable. So I made him hands and feet. Put a face on another leftover head I found in the boneyard (my boneyard is emptying out!). I have to darken the eyelid area - looks too much like makeup - and this is supposed to be a dude. The photo shows why I think this is a guy, LOL. How I'm going to work with that piece I don't know!

I also don't know where he's going from here .. but we'll find out soon.

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Switching heads

Last night I was getting some stuff together for a project we were going to do at doll club and I went digging through my boneyard. Grabbed a couple of heads and I picked up one that I thought was pretty. Wondered why I had put it in there. So I popped it on one of my girls that still hadn't made me happy. Egads. It worked!

I tried that head on the doll a few months ago and didn't like it. Now I do. Strange. But I finished her up today with hair and a turban. You know me - I love turbans. I still have some embellishing to do and I have to make some kind of base for her but for all intents and purposes, she's done! Now she just has to tell me her name.!

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Beaded pin dolls

Remember those doll blanks I made a couple of weeks ago? They aren't blank anymore ...

I'm not the world's best beader and I learned a lot doing this. I have SO much respect for beaders - these took me ALL day long! They aren't even beaded heavily either. My favorite is the red one.

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These are for the Doll Street Dreamer pin doll swap that I'm hosting. If you're a Dreamer you should play!

Making blanks

Sometimes you get on a roll and you get a lot done. Today was a day like that for me. I made 9 Goddess blanks using some patterns from Ronda Kivett's site. If you don't sew she sells pre-sewn bodies, and even kits that contain face cabs and beads. I used three of her patterns and just dug through my scrap pile for the fabrics.

The sage Sun Goddess is 6 1/2 inches and it's her latest design. All the others are 4 inches. I need 3 of these for a swap I'm doing and some of the others are going to my friend Heather who hasn't figured out her machine yet! Guess whatever is left just might inspire me to do some beading over the winter.

Visit Ronda's web site

Nearly there ..

Thought I'd give another try at making a head for the walking gal. At the rate I'm making heads for this thing she could have been a multi-headed monster for a second-rate sci-fi movie.

On first glance this head isn't bad at all - but then if you look again you can see the lips are crooked and the eyes aren't centered on the nose. But, hey, at least I'm getting closer. Sigh. I've changed the way I'm shaping the eyes - more of a straight line for the bottom and more of an arch for the upper eye. Way more of a character face - I like it. Maybe I'm working towards a Japanese Anime look! Medium: watercolor pencil on wet fabric for shading, watercolor pencil (dry) for eyes, gel pen for white of eye, prismacolor pencil for eyeshadow and lips. Pigma pen for detail work.

Flower Face

This past Monday our doll club's program was watercolor pencil faces. We all made a head from the #2 pattern in Patti Culea's new book Creative Cloth Doll Faces. Had it sculpted and features draw on before the meeting so we could spend more time playing with the watercolors. I love how mine turned out.

I think she's precious! We pretty much soaked the heads before we started - which really was kind of an epiphany for me .. because I hadn't done that before and now I know why my watercolor pencil faces never worked. They were too dry. Then our teacher had us put two or three colors on top of each other for the basic shading and blend it in really well with our fingers. Another great tip - just make sure your hands are clean! Once the heads were pretty dry we did the detail work on the eyes, mouth, etc. I had avoided doing watercolor pencil faces because I could never get the colors blended right - now I think I’m hooked!

And as usual I made the practice head into a flower face - that way I can enjoy them without worrying about a body, LOL. I just hang them on the wall. I used two different flowers for this one - the red 'hair' is actually a couple of petals. Cute, huh?

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These are gorgeous!

You all know by now that I'm pretty heavy into mail art. Checking the mail every day is a joy because I never know what kind of surprise I'm going to get. I'm doing postcard swaps, artist trading card swaps, pin dolls swaps, and anything else I can get into! Today's mail was a bonanza - not only did I get a DVD I ordered about altering doll patterns, but I got some ATCs, and some pin dolls. Here's the pin dolls.

These are from a swap on Friends of Cloth Dolls, an on-line mailing list. I've done about four of these swaps over the past few years and these are the best pin dolls I've ever received!

The jester is from Deb McKenzie, the striped woman is from Kelly Parker, and the colorful stick man is from Yvonne Nathanson. Pretty neat, eh? I love this stuff!

Another gal finished

She's done! Dressed, wigged, embellished, etc, etc. If you remember, I posted that I didn't make the head right so I was going to do another one. I did. Did all the sculpting, embroidering, etc. I liked it but thought I could do better so I made a third head. Well, she didn't like it - insisted on having the first finished head back . These girls can be so picky, heads and faces, you'd think she was going to a beauty contest. She sure posed for her photos like she was in one!

In case you forgot, this is a Jill Maas pattern called Jude. I stayed true to it and didn't redesign any of it - what a shock! She has two layers of lace on her bodice and arms, which I dyed using Jacquard Dye-na-flow. So much easier to buy white lace and color it myself than trying to find something to match! She's going to my aunt who is having a mastectomy tomorrow. She's a get well present!!!! That's why she is holding a metal tag that says Courage on one side and Hope on the other. I couldn't figure out what to do with the tag - it's too big for a necklace. If you have an idea of what to do with the tag please leave me a comment.

She, she, she ... she doesn't have a name. I'm going to let my Aunt name her. Here is a side view.

The other side. One time I wanted to make a turban for a doll so I looked up how to tye a turban on the Internet. Couldn't figure it out for the life of me! So I emailed Rosie Chapman - whose African dolls usually wear turbans - and asked her how she made them. I was gobsmacked by her answer! She is so innovative - she makes a tube that fits on the dolls head and then twists the material and tacks it down! My tube was eight inches wide and about 45" long - I stuffed it lightly so a little would go a long way!

Back view - not too exciting.

Well, there she is! Glad she's done. I enjoyed making her - the whole felt thing for the face was something new. Plus this was the first time I tried making Ms. Chapman's turban. Now it's time to move on to something else! Unfortunately, that's probably going to be cleaning the house.

Guess what I did!

You're not going to believe what I did today! It's so amazing! It starts with the letter D.

Yes, I did something other than ATCs! This is from a Jill Maas pattern - isn't her body something else! I love the way it curves, kind of looks like she's pregnant, LOL. You know how everyone elses stuff is better than your stuff? Well, the body fabric is from my friend Heather, I just got it in the mail this week. It's a batik and it's gorgeous. This little puppy is stuffed hard as a rock. Took me nearly an hour just to do the body. It's got about a cup full of shotgun pellets in the bottom to weight it down too. It's heavy! The camera angle makes the arm look really big, it really isn't that big but it is long and it has some of the skinniest fingers I've had to deal with yet. Wasn't fun turning them but I did it! YAY! Thank goodness they are velour rather than cotton. Much more forgiving material. I still have to sew the boobs on, stuff the other arm, and do the head. What's neat about this pattern is there isn't any face painting. The facial features are made of felt and you embroider eyelashes on. I was SO surprised when I realized that. I hope to have it done tomorrow. It's a present for my favorite aunt who has to have a single mastectomy next Tuesday.

Beaded bod

Today I worked on another round robin project - Willow, one of the cloth 'Flat Stanley's'. I hadn't been sure what I wanted to do since I wasn't getting very enthused about making teeny tiny clothes. The artist before me had done some hand-embroidery and gave her 'tattoos'. So I carried the theme a bit further but I beaded.

I started at the hip - tying in to the spiral. I used the fern stitch out of the
Embeadery book - it's a book that takes classic embroidery stitches and shows you how to bead them. I've used it a couple of times on different projects. I did the fern stitch down the leg a ways and then just did a plain old backstitched line of beads. Put in a couple of crystals and accent lines for fun. I'll hang on to her for a while so the next gal in line doesn't kill me for sending it nearly a month early. Like I said before - with 18 of us working on these teeny tiny things you can't do much!

Found Object Pin Dolls

Monday night my doll club had a found object pin doll workshop. The idea was to take 'junk' and make something out of it. We had kid's wooden blocks, lots of junk jewelry, driftwood, seashells, dominoes, just all sorts of stuff. I really haven't ever tried this kind of thing before so I was looking forward to it. This is what I came up with.

This first one started off with a wooden thread spool. I found a whole bunch of these at a garage sale when I went on my fishing trip last week. I covered the spool with some lumpy yarn (great description, eh?) and then I ran a doubled 20 gauge wire through the hole in the spool. The beads for the head and legs were added to that wire. I then added a wire at the back of the spool for the arms - glueing and tying it on with more of the yarn. Beads were added to that. When I got home I thought it needed something more so I added the hand and feet charms. I'll probably tie some yarn to the top of his hat too. This one's okay but I'm not in love with it.

Now this one I do love!

Michelle had brought a bunch of dominoes that she had drilled holes in using a drill press. This one has four holes - one in each corner. For the head I ran 20 gauge wire through the two upper holes and twisted it in the middle to form a neck. The head is a big teal bead, the hat is made from other beads from this big bag of beads my hubby bought me for my birthday. There is a flower bead on top of the big flat one and a white bead on top of that. Two feathers and a couple of wire curls top it off. I think I'll tilt the head a bit more to give her more attitude. Our hostess, Kris, had a box of clip on earrings that were just wonderful and she gave me one plus pieces of it's mate for the arms and skirt. The arms are wired on with 26 ga wire - that colored Wild Wire stuff. There is one metal bead added before the dangly piece to give her a bit of a shoulder. The earring skirt is glued on with E6000. Now I think I'll have to find some more dominoes to play with! All in all it was a fun evening.

Judi A's "Spirit of the Dance"

Today I worked on Judi A's Flat Stanley doll. She named her 'Spirit of the Dance'. With 18 of us working on these dolls you can't do much or else the gals at the end will have a heck of a time finding room to embellish. So today I gave her ballet shoes.

Nice shiny ballet shoes! First she had orange shoes, courtesy of Tsukineko all-purpose inks, to which I added blue polka-dots. Not bad. Next I added the teal ribbon with the orangey eyelash yarn. Then I decided her shoes weren't bright enough so I got out the Dye-na-flow and painted them red. Whoops. Really clashed with the teal and orange ties. Next up - Stuart Gill fabric paints. First a purple coat, then a mint green coat, then a blue coat, and finally back to the orange with streaks of Tsukineko inks. Those shoes aren't going anywhere! And if the paint gets scratched during the journey she'll just look like a hard working dancer!

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She borrowed some ribbons to wear about her head - she didn't want her picture being taken while she was bald. Or naked for that matter.

She's baaack ...

I got back to work on the Crash Test Daughter today. Decided to start giving her a face. I wanted to use watercolor pencil on her but it didn't seem to want to lay down over the fabric paint I used as the base layer. So I switched to my old stand-by, gel pens.

Actually, gel pens, colored pencils, and pigma pens. They seem to be what I turn to more than any other medium. I did her iris and pupil with gel pens and detailed them with pigma pens. Her lips were done with Prismacolor pencils, same with the eyelids. I didn't do much shading since I put that big old bruise around one eye. Don't want to overwhelm the face with too much color! After the hair and everything is done I think I'm going to give her false eyelashes. She looks funny without any right now. I'm pretty pleased with how she's turning out. Next up - fabric selection for her outfit!

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She's done !

With no little help from the ribbon chewing puppy I managed to finish the project from the Barbara Willis class. I'm pretty pleased with her except for one thing - I don't think I like the orange scallop around her neck. I wasn't sure of it when I put it on so I only tied the ribbon in a knot instead of sew or glue it on. I'll give it a few days and see how I feel though. I took two photos of her.

Her head is covered with ribbon bows. I made all the bows first and had them sitting on my desk. As I was attaching them I couldn't find one of the light purple bows, I looked under the doll, I looked on the floor, and then I looked in the other room where the puppy was laying down! Uh oh. This wasn't the first time he'd gotten hold of ribbon meant for this little lady. I managed to save the bow and it isn't any worse for the wear - must have caught him right away. I have to admit the ribbon was still a bit wet when I attached it but there's no little teeth marks! I never manage to see him take things and it's literally right under my nose. She hasn't told me what her name is yet so maybe I can figure a way to add puppies and ribbons to her name.

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This is a closeup of the shoes. I thought they were pretty cool. I cut two motifs out of a piece of lace and they've been dyed lots of times. I didn't like the color the first time I dyed them so every time I dyed or painted they have had another coat of color. They ended up being perfect for the shoes - although the shoes do tend to blend into the color of the skirt.

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Now maybe I will get back to the Crast Test Daughter!

Bella Donna

I've finished my little Flat Stanley for the round robin on Doll Street - although she's not flat by any means. She will fit in an envelope though so she should pass muster! Here's her vital statistics: Her body is a pattern by Sherry Goshon that was for an altered doll challenge that got cancelled, her face is a stamp from Barbara Willis, and her hair is knit by moi! This is the first time I used a face stamp and I have to say I enjoyed using it. I stamped the face in brown then did all the coloring with a mixture of gel pens, pencils, and acrylic paint. I never seem to use just one media on my faces. Her top is just a piece of panne velvet that I cut into shape - it doesn't ravel. I figure since she's getting dressed by everyone else she didn't need much in the way of clothes. So now she's ready for her big adventure .. she's off to see most of the States, Canada, England, and Israel. She'll be more well traveled than me by the time she comes home!

The final effect

I took some more pictures today of the Crash Test Daughter in all her bruised up glory. My eldest daughter and her boyfriend looked at her last night and they just stood there and giggled. So I guess it works! Here's two more photos of her and a description of how I painted her.

I actually found some photos on the internet of interesting bruises and printed them out to use as a color guide. I used dye-na-flow fabric paints again (thank you so much Patti Culea for introducing me to them - Patti is one of my inspirations). I started with a dot of yellow as the center of the bruise, then did a ring of magenta, followed by two different purples, one darker than the other and leaning more towards blue. I also used a dab of green on a couple but it's actually too bright of a green. For her black eye I used periwinkle mixed with some micro pearl Pearl-Ex powder. The Pearl-Ex gives her shiner some shine! I also used a little magenta below the eye and some of the blue-purple above the eye and along the nose. As you look at this picture you can see that her name really fits her ... Oblivious!



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Here's her back. I must not have had the fabric wet enough on one arm because the colors didn't bleed as well as I would have liked and the lines are quite obvious. I imagine a lot of these bruises won't show when she's dressed but I'm going to try for skimpy clothing so I can show them as much off as possible. Or else what's the point, eh?

Painting bruises

The Crash Test Daughter body is done now .. well, except her head's not on her shoulders .. but that might just fit with this little girl! I have the bruising done and she even has a nice shiner! Here's a photo of the first bruise I painted.

This was still pretty wet so you can see the water lines - but when dry it doesn't show up like that. I took more photos but didn't care for them so I'll try again tomorrow.

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My husband thinks I'm insane. When I called him down to see the bruises he just shook his head and walked away. After I got the black eye done I took the head out to show him (he was working on his truck in the driveway). At least I got a smile out of him that time. I was having way too much fun painting these bruises and I got a little carried away as you'll see when I get the rest of the photos up.

Crash Test Daughter

Today I'm going to start working on the bruises for the CTD doll. I googled some images of bruises - some interesting pictures came up. I want to make sure I get the colors in the proper order - you know - like pink INSIDE the purple. Or the yellowy green color inside the really dark blue. I'm not quite sure where I'll place the bruises yet or if I'll just do her whole body as a bruise. I'll see as I go along. Can't take photos of it in progress which is always fun because my hubby took the camera to his knife class. I really hate sharing it!

Painting Doesuede

I had fun today experimenting with painting various products on some stark white doesuede fabric. Doesuede is a one-way knit fabric, fuzzy on one side, and smooth on the other. I needed to paint the smooth side. I decided that my Crash Test Daughter was just too 'dead' so I wanted to give her some skin tone. Here's the results .. in pictures!

First off, a photo of the products I used. Jo Sonya textile medium, this is an Australian product, Stuart Gill Colorise textile and craft paint in skintone,which is from Scotland, and Jacquard's Dye-na-flow fabric paint, which I believe is a product from the good old US of A!


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These three samples are painted with the Stuart Gill paint. This paint is rather thick, kind of like an acrylic. I treated the first piece with textile medium by itself and let it dry. Then I used some paint with textile medium in it and some paint that was watered down on it. Neither of them went on easily - although it worked better than the untreated cloth. Next piece is paint thinned with textile medium - the top half was painted dry and the bottom half was wet down first. I couldn't get the dry fabric to take the paint except in blotches - so that was an easy one to forget! The wet wasn't much better. Last one is just watered down paint - top half dry, bottom half wet first. Didn't care for that either. This paint was just plain hard to spread, no matter what I mixed with it or if it was wet or dry. Probably would work much better on cotton than a knit though. To be fair I did use Stuart Gill paint on the doll I have in Patti Culea's new book - but she's made of Pimatex. This experiment was on doesuede.


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Next I tried the Jacquard Dye-na-flow fabric paints. These aren't thick like the Stuart Gill paints - they flow like water. I did one piece dry and one piece wet. If you've ever done one of Patti Culea's classes she likes to use these dyes and have the colors run into each other. The coverage on these were great, and I liked the dry best.


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So - here she is ... all painted with Dye-na-flow. I mixed ochre, white, a bit of yellow, a smidgen of red, and a drop of chartreuse for the skin tone. You can see where some of the paint migrated at the leg joins. I laid her on her back to dry and some of the paint migrated into the paper towels so I'll probably give her a light coat on her back tomorrow. Next time I use this fabric for a doll I will paint it first now that I know I can. Oh, you might notice she has a head now - amazing!

Check back tomorrow .. I have a funny photo of her I'm going to post.

Angel pin

I've used this design before to make an 'I'm thinking of you' present. This little angel was made for a woman who is battling cancer. This is the second time I've made one of these angels for the same reason and I hope I don't have to make any more!

It's quick and easy to make up and can really be embellished if you want. I did the tulle fantasy fabric thing for her body - you know, put snips of threads on the base fabric, cover it with tulle and stitch it all down. When I do this now I use an embroidery hoop - it works much better than bunches of pins and holds everything nice and taut. Then the wings were free motion embroidered with a quasi-feather design. Did that in yellow so it would tie in with the body color. Her hair is just ribbons that I looped and sewed down to the head - easy and elegant. This angel could probably have some beaded dangles added to the underside of her arms - that would look cool. But I want to get it to the owner-to-be so I'm not going to do that this time. The tassel was made with funky fibers and ribbon. Finding charms with healing words is rather difficult. I finally found a charm that says Courage on one side and Hope on the other - it's hanging in the tassel. I found it in the scrapbooking section of a craft store. I'm afraid that she looks kind of worried rather than hopeful - but that's just my opinion!

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You can find an online class for this angel at Di McDonald's website.

What a bust!

This September my club is supposed to be bringing Arley Berryhill up to teach costuming. I am soooo looking forward to it! I can't sew a costume from scratch to save my life! For the class we have to have a body already sewn to use as a mannequin. So the Dragon Ladies decided to get a head start on it!

I'm really impressed with the body so far ... I mean, look at it, it's still completely unstuffed and she has breasts! It's a really cool pattern. We really had to pay attention to what we were doing though as it takes careful sewing. Lots of pinning too in my case - the pieces looked like a porcupine got hold of them! In four hours we got the pattern cut out, the body cut out and sewn, and we got most of the legs/feet done. Not too bad for a snowy afternoon!

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Just for fun!

If you've been reading my blog you know that I have a lot of extra heads hanging around. A while ago I took the cap from a glue bottle and stuck it into the head opening of one of them. Kind of silly but fun!

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Crash Test - in final?

Today I finished up the body design for the Crash Test figure. I still have to make another head as I was screwing around with needle sculpting and did some really strange things to it. I really like the pose though. In this photo she is holding some floral tape to simulate a steering wheel.

I think I'm going to use Sculpey or Fimo to make a steering wheel for her to hold. I'm also going to make a brake pedal and maybe a gas pedal out of clay too. The base is going to take some thought. I want the car seat and the pedals to be attached to the base. I had thought of making the seat out of Sculpey but I think I might be better off using fabric. Make a 'tuck and roll' type upholstery, using stiff cardboard or wood for the base. My husband's friend was over today and he wanted to know if I was going to paint her black and blue. Snicker. I think I might. Of course I'd have to add pink, purple, and green in there too!

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Oh - the little brown pieces that are visible are bits of a wine cork -I finally got smart and capped the pins that are sticking out all over.

Crash Test Dummy doll

So today I've been working on refining my own design for a doll I want to make for my 18 year old daughter. She was in an auto accident a couple of weeks ago and she decided it was a major event in her life. She totaled her car, got horrible bruises from the air bag but she walked away from it, thank goodness . She took pictures of everything, including her bruises, took souvenirs from the accident site and is keeping it all in a keepsake box. The figure is going to be seated, holding a steering wheel, with one foot extended to the brake, and it will have a surprised look on it's face. This is what I've done so far.

I'm pretty happy with the proportions overall. I've made the bottom really flat so it can sit easily. I might make the arms a tad bit wider but other than that the basic design is good. Next up is modifying the boot - the boot/foot is too long and I'm not thrilled with the shape. Made another one - just the boot part - no reason to make a whole leg but it's still not right. So it's out with the In Style magazine to see if I can find a good silhouette of a boot. If not - a sandal with a foot in it will be a good reference. It's been fun making this today. I started with arms from another doll I designed and modified the body from it too. The legs I had to draw from scratch though. Only made one leg - why waste material on two until one is designed the way I like it. Didn't wire the fingers yet either so they look a bit strange. I'll pull the stuffing out and do the arms when the design is finalized. She'll get boobs applied later too. What do you think?.

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Miss Piggy goes Walkabout

Here's the latest heads I made for the walking doll. Although the heads aren't bad they don't work with the doll. So I think it's time to set her aside and move on to something else. I thought the one on the left looked like Miss Piggy when I put the blond wig on her. I have this thing about bald dolls - I hate them. So when I work on a doll I always have to put a wig or turban on her until she gets her final 'do'. I have two little wigs that I use just for that. One of my friends thinks this is very strange and she's quite amused by it - but, hey, what can I say! Everyone has their little idiosyncracies and this one's mine!

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The doll on the right has an enormous amount of needle sculpting. The entire

eye is sculpted - around the whole socket and the eyelid. The nose has the bridge, nostrils, and nostrils flares sculpted. The mouth is a three-stitch sculpt. I really like the look this gives the face. I used techniques from a book called Needle Sculpting from the Beginning that is written by Barbara Owen. It's a great resource and you can get it in black-and-white book form or on a CD. The CD has face coloring instructions which the book does not. I may have mentioned this book in an earlier post. Guess that means I really like it!

Another 2 faces

Still struggling with the head for the doll I'm working on. Made another two today and don't like them. One of the things I don't like is that the head is too big for the body - and that's the pattern. So I decided that I'm just going to draft my own head and make it a profile head instead of a flat one. A profile head is one that has a seam down the middle and it has a nose that extends from the face - as opposed to drawing one on. I'm getting tired of these faces. I need to move on. At this rate I'm going to make a headless doll and be done with it!


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2 down, 1 to go

It's been a while since I practiced faces and it shows. These are two heads I did in the past few days and I don't care for them at all. They are watercolor faces and I just don't have that shading stuff down. Don't like the features I drew either. Usually I can do really nice faces but they seem to be escaping me for now. Back to the drawing board. I have another head sewn up so I'll try again.

The trolls are done!

Whoo hoo - the trolls are done! They were so happy that they got into some booze and made real idiots of themselves. Here they are in all their glory.


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My troll is the one laying on the table. The others thought they could drink him under the table, well, he showed them!

Trolls to go

These sure are funny looking! Sometimes ya gotta wonder about naked dolls! But we got the toes sculpted, the legs on, the arms on (well, except for me - I seem to be the slow one in the bunch) and one more Sunday should see them done. I think we had more fun arranging them on the bench for their photo shoot than we did sewing them.

Our doll club has a major gallery showing next year (2006) and we decided that we (The Dragon Ladies) are going to make a tableau for these guys so they can be exhibited together. Just haven't decided if they should be in a cave setting or a bar setting. A cave would be appropriate for a troll but a tavern would be more fun to make. We're also going to exhibit our dragons in a tableau, maybe guarding a damsel high up in a castle tower. Since Karen joined us after we made the dragons (hence the name Dragon Ladies) she gets to make the damsel! Never to early to plan ahead.

Who needs a head anyway?

Looks like some maniac got into my studio and lopped off the heads of some of my dolls. Didn't find them rolling on the floor though so it must be something else. Like my bad habit of popping heads off when I'm not entirely pleased with them. Of course if I made another one it wouldn't be so bad but I don't ever seem to get around to it.

The middle gal has been waving her neck back and forth for two years now, she was made in a class with Patti Culea. The one on the left was made last year in a class with Christine Shively. The face actually came out great - it was just too big for the body. That head is now hanging on my design wall. The last one doesn't really fit the unfinished category because I'm working on it now. Have to finish sewing the clothes down, make the boots and then it's on to the head. Soon, soon.

There are NO mistakes

I don't know who said 'there are no mistakes, only opportunities' but I really like that saying. Tonight I was working with a wonderful piece of fabric that my daughter brought back from Korea for me. I must admit it wasn't much material - she went to a tailor shop to buy me fabric and they didn't understand why she wanted it - so they gave her 3 scraps. I've been saving those scraps for something special - and darned if I didn't give myself an opportunity tonight to use all of it! I've been taking an online class (just love those things!) and I was working on the overcoat for the figure. I knew I had to fussy cut the material so I could get the color and the motifs where I wanted them so I very carefully laid out the pattern pieces. There were two, the back of the coat was one piece (placed on the fold), and a piece for the sides (right sides together). Got them cut out - had a blue motif on one side - matched the trousers perfectly - and a fuschia one on the other. Went to sew them together and realized that I should have turned the side pattern piece over since I had cut them separately. I had two right sides. Grrrr. What a waste! It was the ONLY blue motif on the material. That definitely bummed me out but I cut out another piece and finished the coat. Know what? It came out great .. better than it would have with two different color motifs. I even managed to get them nearly perfectly even on each side of the coat. Ergo ... no mistake .. just a great opportunity for creativity! Ya gotta love it!

P.S. I do this kind of thing all the time. When I used to make clothing - very infrequently I might add - I always put something on backwards. Guess it's just one of my quirks! And I was trying to be SOOOO very careful too!

Clogging pens

The question of how to keep your gel pens and Pigma or Zig pens from clogging up when you are coloring over other media is one that comes up quite often on the doll lists. I used to have this problem too - now plain old impatience is my biggest problem. The trick to keeping your pens from clogging is to seal each layer before you go on to the next one.

For instance, if you are going to draw the outline of your features with a Pigma pen you should spray it with a fixative before you go on to your other media, especially if it's a wet one such as watercolor pencils. You HAVE to do this if you are using gel pens because they bleed like crazy. I use Krylon Fixative - it stinks so make sure you spray it outside. Let it dry overnight - yes, I know - it's hard - you want to get right into coloring that precious little face. But do it anyway. Then the next day go ahead and do your coloring, if you use gel pen or paint for the whites of the eyes, or for highlights save that till last. Spray again and let dry. Then take your pens and do the final detailing. Do a final seal. For this I like to use Craftgard - which is a waterproof sealer. It goes on kind of oily but dries great and it doesn't change the colors. This lets you clean the doll with a damp washcloth later on in life when she gets a bit dusty.

If your pens have clogged there are a couple of ways to unclog them. One way that was discussed on the lists is to gently draw them along very fine sandpaper and another is to draw them along a paper towel. I often just draw on the back of my hand until it starts to flow again. You'll just have to try them to see what works for you.

Heads will roll

I was laying in bed New Year's Eve when I heard a loud thumping noise. I didn't want to get up but I figured I better go see what the dog had knocked over. She's good for blaming things on but it wasn't her this time. My big 2 foot tall 'Last of the Faeries" had fallen over and took out another smaller doll with her on her way down.

After standing on her own for 2 weeks she has fallen over twice now. It was New Year's Eve .. maybe she's been sneaking drinks when we're asleep. But now I need to do something to keep her upright.

A doll stand won't work because she's too tall and they look horrible anyway. So I'm going to take a big chance and try to make a hole in her foot and up her leg and insert a brass rod which will attach to a hard wood base. She's pretty rigid - two layers of fabric which was painted over with gesso and acrylics - so I think I can drill a hole without too much trouble. I think I'll start it with a Dremel and then see if I can use an awl to smash through the fiberfill. I used Mountain Mist which is really stiff so I don't know if I'll be able to do that. I sure hope I don't ruin her! Wish me luck!

If she was a bit shorter I'd stick her in Doll Prison :

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Last night I had a holiday party to attend for the quilt shop I am affiliated with. We always have a gift exchange and the gift must be handmade. As I said earlier I've been working like mad to get the doll for my class finished, which, by the way, I got an A on (10 out of 10 points). Yay! So I didn't have much time to make a whole new doll, which is what the girls have come to expect from me. So what did I do?

I took pieces and parts from dolls that were never finished for one reason or another and combined them into a lovely little gal who now has a great new home. I had a doll body from a class, no hair, not much of a costume. So I added a new underskirt, wrapped ribbon on her feet for shoes, and gave her a sweet little updo with mohair roving. I had wings on another unfinished doll which were just pinned on .. so I took them too. Luckily they were in the same colors as the doll so it worked perfectly.

Use the world around you for inspiration ... I had watched an episode of Oprah while I was getting my nails manicured (a rare luxury for me) and she was giving away watches that were attached to ribbons which you wound around your wrist. It really looked more like a scarf. So my doll had one - at least she had the ribbon wrapped around her wrist - fairies don't need to tell time so no watchface. I cut a piece of material into a triangle and just wrapped it around her wrist, tacked it down with a couple of stitches, looked great! Make it long enough to go around the wrist at least twice, and end with the point on top. This would also make a great cuff for sleeves.

As I was working I was listening to the radio and they played a song by the B-52s .. remember them? Wild haircolors, big beehive hairdos? Yep, you guessed it, my doll ended up with purple hair in a crazy updo. I took a long piece of mohair roving and laid it down across the doll's head, forehead to nape. I had about two inches hanging over her forehead and the rest down her back. I then sewed it down around the entire hairline with matching thread. Then I gathered the long piece and twisted it into a french twist. Sewed that down to the top of the head. Curled the front piece back into a type of pompadour and sewed that down to the top of the french twist. Hair doesn't have to be complicated to look good.

Here's another great way to get inspiration .. eye candy! I love this book Patti Culea's Creative Cloth Dollmaking
- it has dolls by well known names and by, well, just regular people like you and me. The book has 3 doll patterns in it and lots of great ideas for embellishing.

Wings to fly with

I finally got the doll finished for my art project - she is titled "The Last of the Faeries".

I had a lot of fun making the wings and they were so easy. I wanted lacy wings so I figured I'd try burning organza to achieve that look. I had never tried it before but I've read about it in magazines and it sounded simple.

I drew out a sketch of what I wanted the wings to look like so I didn't go into it blindly.

Then I took a piece of floral wire - think it was 16 gauge - and bent it into an extended 'v'. Took another wire and formed the same shape but made it much tighter, then I nested the smaller 'v' inside the big one. I sprayed the wires with 505 - a temporary adhesive spray and stuck them to the organza. Didn't stay too well so I added a couple of pins across the wires.

Zig-zagged the wires down with the sewing machine and then trimmed the organza a bit. Now the fun started. I took my Versa-tool, which is like a soldering iron with lots of different tips, and put in the stencil cutting tip. It's a bit bigger than the tip of a soldering iron - but that would work great too. Then all I did was just draw the shape I wanted with the hot tip - the excess organza just melted away.

It was so cool!

You really have to be careful though - it takes a really light touch or you could end up with a really big hole! The nylon kind of built up on the tip of the iron so I had to keep wiping it off on a wet washcloth - read that tip somewhere on line - it sure helped! Once that was done - and it only took a couple of minutes per wing, I painted the wings with acrylic paint. It was hard to control the flow of the paint on the organza - I think that will take more practice than making the wings!

But it was a grand experience and I'm sure to make more fairies now! Or maybe just a wing collection ...

Wire Woes

I think if it wasn't for little problems (stumbling blocks) I wouldn't experiment as much as I do. I said earlier I'm working on my project for my art class - and I'll be doing so for at least a week.

Living in a small town can be a real challenge to finding the materials that you need. I spent one morning going from hardware store to hardware store looking for aluminum wire to use as an armature. I finally found some wire to use for the body but none for the hands. I went through all my wire at home but none had the same malleability as the Alumaloy armature wire.

So I ended up using four strands of that jewelry making stuff, Wild Wire, for the hands - seems to have worked pretty well so far. Instead of using pipe cleaners and twisting them together, which makes for a rather thick wrist, the pattern called for twisting the wire into a hand shape. Interesting process. Then the wire I found for the body (which was a 4 foot coil) wasn't long enough to reach the feet when bent in half. Of course I didn't realize this until I got the leg skins on and noticed that the wires reached the ankles and that was it!

Would have been really hard to put the feet on that way .. and now that I have a right and left foot I really want to use them! Lucky for me my husband has all types of welding equipment, so I had him weld an extension to both leg wires . I trussed up the doll in foil until it looked like some strange shaped pot roast and then left, I couldn't bear to watch.

I also couldn't afford to have sparks make holes in her, hence the pot roast couture! I wish I took a picture to share because it really looked funny.

But now I have wires that are long enough to work with. Can't wait to see what the next stumbling block will be!

Three left feet

Yesterday I was working on a doll that I'm making for my final in my Color & Design class. The pattern I'm using has a two part foot; you sew the heels together on the sole before you add the top of the foot. The toe of the foot has a definite curve so you have a shapely foot for sculpting.

I cut the pieces out at the same time but didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the pieces before I began sewing. Just peeled the first pieces off the freezer paper and began to sew. Then picked up the next two pieces and put them together - no thought involved, just sew.

I made two feet and when I turned them I realized I had two left feet. Oh well, not a problem I'll just cut out another one and sew a right foot. I looked at the finished piece, while it was right side out, and played with the new pieces to make sure I was sewing a right foot this time. Not sure what I did but I made ANOTHER left foot. Grrrrr.

So I cut out another two pieces but this time before I started to sew I turned one of the left feet inside out so I could make sure I was sewing the pieces in the right direction. Moral of the story: Make sure you lay the pieces out on the table before you start to sew instead of leaving them stacked.

When I'm done with this little lady I just might have to make a dancing doll ... with two left feet!

More practice faces

I've been playing with water soluble oil pastels since Patti Medaris Culea introduced me to them earlier this year. If you like using watercolor pencils on your faces you'll love these. They blend like the pencils but the colors are more vivid.

The brand I have is Portfolio - you find them in with the Crayola crayons. If you want to see what the box looks like click here. The link will take you to an Amazon.com page. I've been drawing faces on fabric the last few nights just for fun. I like to practice making faces this way rather than stuffing heads - much faster. Anyhow - my doll club has decided that we are all going to make a fabric postcard and put it in our exchange bag for our holiday party. I decided to use one of my faces on mine. I'm not the best artist but with practice I've gotten much better. Here's my postcard.

The background is a piece of fabric covered with leftover threads and then tulle and then free motion embroidered to hold everything down. I think it still needs a little something - maybe a bit of hair.

The butterfly is an iron on and I'm not really pleased with the placement but I was afraid to get it too close to the edge - that it would interfere with the presser foot when I did the satin stitch around the outside.

Duh - it's an iron on - I could have placed it when everything else was done.

Sometimes I just don't think!

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Practice Heads

A rose is a rose is a rose ... what do you do with extra heads?

I am making a garden with mine. If I have a good head that I'm not using for a doll I frame it with silk flower petals. Then I hang them on the wall.

I suppose I could eventually put them on dowels and put them into a flower pot - I think that would look great. With this last flower I discovered a great way to add the hanger. The flower had so much hot glue on it that I had to use my heat gun to melt it to take the petals apart.

I couldn't get the very bottom unglued though but I was able to remove the stem. What I had left was a round plastic disk with a hole in the middle that was attached to a couple of leaves and petals.

The hole allowed me to put my hanger (a braided piece of embroidery thread) through it and then I attached the whole piece to the doll's head.

Oh those wobbly doll heads

We have been having quite a discussion on Doll Street regarding wobbly heads, or more specifically, how to avoid wobbly heads.

Seems that the most popular method to use is to put a stick of some sort in the neck and pack stuffing around that. Some folks like popsicle sticks and some just use dowels.

I like to use a short piece of dowel myself, the size depends on the size of the doll.

One trick that I didn't see mentioned is to keep the length of the dowel/stick fairly short depending on how you are going to joint the doll. There's nothing more frustrating than trying to get your needle through the body only to run into a solid piece of wood! So keep it small and you shouldn't have that problem.

Make sure to put a bit of stuffing into the top of the neck before you insert the dowel too - helps keep it from trying to pop through.