Christmas is a Speeding Bullet Train

Many were the good intentions for making oodles and oodles of prims and fairies for our local "Hometown Christmas" bazaar, which happened on December 6th. Back around Halloween, I'd committed to sharing table space at the December event with two friends... and was rip-roaringly motivated to sew, wrap, stuff, paint and embellish up a winter storm to make a little shopping money. Well, "LIFE" had other plans, which diverted us (by ambulance, with a little side jaunt to the ER) to a "weekend retreat" in the pediatric ICU at Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Portland, in early November. Many seizure drugs, antibiotics and a pneumonia diagnosis later, Katera took two weeks off from school to recover, throwing a king-sized monkey wrench in Mommy's ambitious crafting plans.

I did manage to finish three prim dolls from Donna Veal's fun patterns... a Santa, an Elf and a Butterfly doll... plus four Salley Mavor flower fairies, which worked just fine to fill up my spot on the table.

By sheer happenstance, we were given THE plum spot in the building... leading all the day's foot traffic directly to us. I sold all three prims in the first half of the day, and all but one fairy by the end of the day. I did price everything quite reasonably, given the economic slump of late... (and given the expectations of our usual "home town" attendees). Still, I noticed quite a few other vendors did not sell much of anything, so I was quite pleased.

Skully's other brother, Skully

I simply can't put this Halloween season to rest without showing off the Skully doll I made for my niece, Portia. Today... the Day of the Dead... happens to be her tenth birthday, so this seemed a fitting gift.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PORTIA!!

Hallowe'en Prim Madness!

I have Donna Veal to thank for my current addiction! I was working furiously right up until Trick-or-Treat time last night, making sure that OUR house had at least one great Halloween prim to deck out the porch.

This Trick-or-Treat cat is one of Donna's great patterns, and is the second one I made this week. I finished one (below) for Sarah the day before... so much FUN!

Here's a close-up of my kitty... wearing the skeleton key that actually fits our own front door (pre-installation of dead bolt)! Is she fun and a LITTLE bit scary, or what?

Now it's time to start whipping up some Christmas prims!

Vampires!

Since I'm currently into reading the "Twilight" series, this project was very appropriate. :)

This Vampire Bat is another great pattern from Donna Veal of Moonchilds Primitives.
Mine didn't turn out as nicely as hers... but I'm going to make a couple more and "tweak" my technique.

"BAT" is a primitive "make do", made from painted/stained/aged muslin. His wings are wired... head and body are stuffed with polyfil and he's standing on a candlestick base that I picked up at Goodwill.
No... I didn't make the fun chenille pumpkin... I bought it last fall at Lily Wiggins in Ridgefield. But I may try to copy it! :)

Skully

Finished just in time for granddaughter Iris's ninth birthday party yesterday, this Halloween skeleton "prim" was made from a pattern by Donna Veal of Moonchilds Primitives.

He was easy to make, but involved some new techniques for me. It was a whirlwind project, as I only settled on making this for Iris three days ago, and really didn't think I would get him finished in time. Just went for it!

Skully is about 18 inches tall (probably more, if we include his hat)... made from muslin, painted with acrylics and "aged" with sandpaper and a coffee/cinnamon/cocoa powder stain. His "friends" include a snake, a mouse (looking warily up at the snake) and a spider.


I'm starting another of Donna's fun Halloween prims today... this time, for OUR house. :)

All better!

Ahhh.... that feels SO much better, now... doesn't it? New hair, hat back on, new sash, ribbon rose straightened up. She'll be released from the hospital later today.

I feel a sense of accomplishment in finally getting around to this repair! (Sorry so long, Sarah!) I needed to get "unstuck" and get things rolling, and this did the trick!

A Trip to the Doll Hospital!

One of the wee dollies I made for my granddaughter had a very unfortunate adventure recently... tumbling from her shelf as bedding was being stripped one day. She went through the entire wash/dry cycle along with dear granddaughter's sheets! So, this is what a Wee Folk fairy looks like after going through the wash. Not too bad, really!

Her curly Romney fleece locks have felted into a flat, matted toupee... she'll definitely need new hair and a re-glue of her wool beret. Her jacket has shrunk a bit, petal skirts are in disarray, ribbon sash and trim needs to be pressed, re-tacked and/or replaced. But, other than that, I'm quite impressed that she's still recognizable! Stay tuned for "after" photos. :)

The Babies

An upcoming issue of Soft Dolls and Animals magazine is requesting photo submissions related to the theme, "Babies"... and I'm thinking this one might fit the bill.

This is a pin doll that I made for a shower gift for Sarah, when she was expecting twins, Ruby and Larkin, in June of 2007.

The baby dolls are made using techniques learned from Salley Mavor's book "Felt Wee Folk".

They are 1.5" tall (yes, you read that right) and are made with pipe cleaner armature, wooden bead heads... hand-painted faces, wool felt dresses and bonnets, wool fleece hair. What do you think? Should I send it in?

The Wonders of Wire

I was fascinated by the black wire sculptures of Leigh Pennebaker (www.leighpennebaker.com), after seeing her work in Home Companion a few months back, and tore out the article to save in my endless pile of "ideas and inspiration". It resurfaced during my recent "upstairs studio" move, and needing something creative to dive into, I simply couldn't stop myself from buying some black steel 19 gauge wire at the hardware store and seeing what I could do. It was FUN and FAST... and I actually ended up with something that faintly, though rather crudely, resembles Pennebaker's incredible wire-sculpture gowns.


This first attempt is 15" tall. I even made a few of the tiny wire coathangers. Am thinking about experimenting with adding fabric and ribbons... weaving some different materials in with the wire, and/or creating an actual full doll figure with wire, and taking it from there.

In progress...

Here are two dolls that are still "in the works".
On the left: I call her "Trust". This was my attempt to get around my perfectionist nature and just quickly throw together a "prim" doll, without using someone else's pattern. I very quickly traced this out by hand... on the fly... and managed some pleasing proportions. TRUST... is the word that popped into my head when my "self-critic" tried to take over and tell me I couldn't possibly do this successfully. I forged ahead and "just did it". Her skin fabric is cut from a vintage bedsheet that I found in between the front and back of a log cabin quilt I bought YEARS ago at a garage sale, for $1.50. I used my own version of Donna Veal's recipe to "age" the white cotton... with espresso, cinnamon and cocoa. She still smells WONDERFUL! Her limbs are button-jointed, and I now know that I need to buy a LONG needle for accomplishing this in the future. The felt heart is covering a hole that sort of got bigger during the stuffing and rinsing and whatnot. She is still waiting for me to conjure up some sort of appropriate clothing.

On the right: "Aqua Girl" - This one is made from a Patti Medaris Culea pattern, from her book, Creative Cloth Dolls. I had no skin-colored fabric on the day I was driven to put her together, so I used a great aqua/teal batik fabric I had on hand. I absolutely LOVE the legs on this particular pattern. They are capable of so many flattering poses! Her face is drawn on with Prismacolor pencils and Pigma Micron pens. I refused to follow the book's face formula, and just did it my own way, finishing it off with a purple jewel bindi. The hair is Romney wool fleece, hand-dyed to this exquiste deep burgundy color by my fiber-artist friend, Eileen. It needs a bit more tidying up, and perhaps some hair ornaments glued in. Her blouse is made from an already-beaded Indian cotton top I picked up at Goodwill and cut up... her skirt from Fabric Depot remnants; burgundy satin and teal tulle. Her waistband is a jade bead necklace that my neighbor, Diane, bought for me in China. I think she wants me to finish her off with a corset made from a thrift store jacket I bought recently... a very thin rose-colored suede. This would greatly enhance the illusion that she actually has something other than a totally FLAT chest!

They both perch up there on the top shelf... beckoning me to FINISH them... while I am drawn on to other projects.

New mini studio!

I am way behind on keeping this updated.... blogging is time consuming! And sitting on my a$$ in front of the computer is not good for me, so I try to do less of it these days.

Here is my new upstairs mini studio space... complete with bright ORANGE wall... which is supposed to inspire me to sit down and work, but so far, has only enabled me to do small amounts of mending. Some of Katera's stuff is still housed here, which will hopefully keep her from clearing all of MY shelves.

See my beautiful new IKEA storage boxes? Such a bargain at $1.50 each!

Gigi

Here is the Parisian girl that I finished for Angie after she returned from the City of Lights in May of '08.

I'm not sure what she's decided to name her, but I was thinking "Gigi" was appropriate. Madeline was already taken. :)

She hasn't yet found her bags and passport, so she's a little frantic at the moment... or maybe she's planning on marching in the streets, protesting the war?

I was so inspired by the color of her stockings, that I painted the wall of my new "mini-studio" this very shade!

Parisian Fashionistas!

May 2008- These little dolls were a custom order, made for a special group of friends who were traveling to Paris together.

The design and construction was very much inspired by the techniques in Salley Mavor's book Felt Wee Folk, but the costumes are original designs of my own. They are 3 inches tall... and dressed in wool felt, with wool fleece hair and black wool berets. Each carries a bag containing her own tiny passport, and stuffed full of wee Euros! They are ready to shop.... mais oui!!

Aunt Mimsy - 2006

This is the first doll of my current collection that is entirely finished. The design was inspired in part by Denise Marie Warner's Oh La La Garden Fairy, which was the cover feature in Art Doll Quarterly's Spring 2006 issue.

Aunt Mimsy is constructed from a basic wire armature... foil, tape and cotton batting... wrapped with cloth, attached to an old candle holder base. The head is cloth, with a sculpted mask made from polymer clay, detailed and accented with acrylic paint. She is clothed in wrapped strips of lush velvets and skirted with velvet, tencel and ribbon. Details include a snippet of antique lace that belonged to my grandmother, an antique button at the bodice, and a "dingle ball" for her little handbag (dingle balls have snaps on them and were once for holding mink stoles in place, circa 1930-ish). I've used various ribbons and silk flowers for her collar, bustle, underskirt and bonnet.

She was exhibited at the Columbia Gorge Art Festival in Corbett, Oregon in May of 2006.

Starting Somewhere

This will be the first installment in this blog, totally dedicated to my artwork... and especially doll making.

Celebrating taking myself seriously today. On orders of Julia Cameron, I'm supposedly practicing reading deprivation this week... but I'll assume writing is kosher. My next assignment is to describe myself at age eighty and list some things I did after fifty that were "fun". Daunting INDEED!

Many thanks to Anne for the nice visit today... for appreciating my humble work so far, and for sending me away with many goodies to play with. I liked your elven gal very much, and hope you'll assemble her, despite the blood stains! That just adds character! I loved her slender fingers, loved her ears, loved her eyes, loved her funny feet... and especially her mossy hair. Pllllluhhhh, to all the people who don't get it!

I'm forcing myself to set things in motion... and so, fear aside! Universe... consider them moving!