Dorothy and Toto!

It appears the ebay selling season has begun so I thought I better start working on my best Fall/Halloween ideas. Here is my first one, a costume party in the pumpkin patch! I'm very pleased with her, and Toto too! She is very large, 28" tall. I have adapted her from my Jubal Davis pattern. Click on the ebay link to see more pictures of her, especially her shapely gams!

Izzy #2 is on ebay this week.

I like this pic of her. She looks a lot larger than she is in this picture. I am working on a 3rd doll and then I'm thinking about doing a larger one. I'd like to do an authentic 18" size.
See Izzy 2 on ebay here.

2nd Izannah in my series

Here is my little Izannah #2. She is the same height as the last one at 13 1/2" tall. This time I tried a new crackle medium suggested by Cindi of CLC dolls. Thanks Cindi! It is very subtle, not sure if you can even see it in the pics, perhaps if you click the pic to enlarge. Next time I will try putting it on thicker to see if I can get a larger crackle. At first I was going to just put her into her antique white underwear, because I just love the beautiful underwear old dolls wear and think its a shame to cover it up sometimes. But when I finished it, she really needed some color, so I had to continue on and make her a dress. I love the way it turned out, it looks so 1860's!

And now for something completely different

I am making some dolls for my daughters from Patti Culea's book "Creative Cloth Dollmaking". This is a wonderfully inspiring book! The doll itself is interesting with her bead joints and I love all the diagrams on how to make faces using a grid technique-very cool!
My sister and I went to the Stitches Midwest knitting expo last Friday in Chicago. She is a big knitter, though I have never been able to do it! But I found some lovely yarns to use for hair and embellishments for these more artsy type dolls. I also bought some Miyuki beads which are SO beautiful! However I was quite well behaved and didn't spend much money at all.
This is a picture of the new doll I am making and some of the wonderful yarns and fibers I found for hair and embellishments! Yummy!

And here she is!

She is on ebay all this week. I can hardly bear to let her go! Her name is Penelope, and she is the first stump doll I have ever created. I plan on doing several more, with different costumes from different time periods.

Love this...

Beautiful Ribbonwork

Why does everything take so long?
Well, I've been working on my regency costume doll for some time now. I thought she would be done for ebay last Sunday, but here I am still not finished on Tuesday. Of course I went crazy adding silk ribbonwork(which I have learned is not the same as silk ribbon embroidery) to the bonnet. Part of what has taken so long is sort of learning this ribbon technique as I go. I checked out a wonderful book from the library called, "Ribbonwork; The Complete Guide, by Helen Gibb." This book is wonderful, and I will have to add it to my library.
The stump body in the foreground of this picture is the body I am using for my costume doll. She will have a paperclay head and lower arms and will be fastened to a wood base. Her costume is of the Regency period, with a high waist and puffed upper sleeves. She will also have a straw bonnet with silk ribbon embellishments.
She is almost done, but you will have to wait until she is done to see her! Coming very soon, she only has to be attached to her base!

Paperclay work

Ready to go live....

And already sold! Isn't that one for the books! Hooray! Hope the cat wasn't too usual, I just couldn't think of anything else to give her to hold. I hate that about deadlines! Now that it's too late, of course, I can think of lots of things. Those darn accessories are so hard for me. I spend so much time on the doll and her costume I just can't wrap my mind around the little extras. I do think they can sometimes be so important to make or break the whole doll. Gotta work on that!