Doll

You may or may not have heard, but we’ve been getting a lot of rain here. Record amounts. Luckily for us, the roof is sound and the basement is dry. The backyard has another pool but that will be gone in a few days. I wonder how the flowers that have already come up will fare?

Yesterday, when the rain was really coming down,  I went to see how a local stream was looking. Pretty full-

Today we had a little excitement around a downed wire- it involved sparks, smoke, fire… The firemen showed up and kept an eye on things until the electric company arrived to deal with it.  We chatted. It came up that I am an artist. I showed them what I do and told them I needed a photo for my blog.

Thanks guys!

I went out to my favorite local cemetery which happens to border on some woods, and took more photos today.

This one looks like a Christmas card family picture. You’d think that since the dolls can’t get up and run away, it would be easy to get a decent photo. No way! I spent so much time arranging and rearranging and took loads of pictures to get one I liked.

I took this one in my studio on Friday-

Before the cemetery, I went into Boston to buy some 2mm felt from FilzFelt. I’ve got an idea I need to try out.

Delicious colors and all wool!

*update- all the forest girls are in my etsy shop now*

She is the last of this group. I am cutting out more girl dolls but am not sure who they will be yet. I hope to spend some time this weekend taking photos with the four forest girls. The dolls will go up in my shop on Monday.

I spent a bit of time on the embroidery on this one.

The closure is a pin so it can be moved.

The airy piece of fabric that I used for the cape/shawl is something I picked up all the way back here. It was a sample from designer Jack Lenor Larsen and is all wool.

I am putting some other photos of her in my Flickr photostream.

All covered with her cape-

Sneak peak of her brighter clothes underneath-

Here she is without her cape-

I played with a new way of making hair- several layers of wool.

Here is her cape, laid out. You can see her skirt and underskirt, which is made of another printed sweater of an angora/wool blend- so soft.

And here are the 2 girls together. These girls are making me very happy.

Hurray- girls again! I am excited about this doll and the 3 more I am working on.

I have had this idea for girl dolls in my head since last summer- forest, woodland, fairy tale, wood nymph… I am not really sure what words to use. Sort of a darker, more secret version of Little Red Riding Hood?

Here she is without her shawl-

I finished these up over the weekend and this morning. Enough for now.

Two woodsy ones-

and two fairy houses-

*okay- they are all in my Etsy shop now*

Now, onto the girls, who have been waiting very patiently.

Hurray! I found out that I will be going to Renegade Brooklyn. See you there in June!

Yesterday was my doll club meeting- topic, making doll hats. Lots of ideas, styles, examples.

Two people showed up with dolls made from my patterns- so neat!

Lois made Purl girl-

And Pat made 2 fish-

Obviously I should have spent a minute taking one good photo, but I did not. So, here are 2 bad photos and maybe you’ll get the idea.

I would really like to be on one of these right now-

This was the first one I got started on. The blue-green swirl glass was obviously perfect for a water scene, but the clear cup was a challenge to design around.

This second one is made on a cup I found at the Goodwill on Wednesday. Liz and I went there after the meet-up. Now, I know that you need to approach thrift shopping with an open mind. If I am looking for something in particular, I can be sure I will never find it. Something else wonderful, but never that thing I “needed”. As I walked into the store, I said to Liz, What I really need is some more teacups that don’t have flower designs because I am working on water scenes. Well, that should have killed any chance of finding what I need. So, imagine my surprise when I found not one, but two of these pretty celadon cups with a goldfish embossed into them. Perfect, and a thrifting miracle!

And one more-

These are going into my shop now.

and some other notes.

One more tiny world done-

Another meet-up this morning and it was fantastic! Thanks for showing up ladies- Liz, Crystal, Louise, Linda, Lisa, and Kerry! Next one is April 14. Hmm, the day before taxes. Wonder if anyone will show up?

And, a book report. I bought myself a book about the circus. It is gigantic!

I’m not sure how I first discovered it. Maybe an Amazon search? I discovered that one local library has it as a reference book so I went to look at it. I literally gasped when I opened it. 600 plus pages of inspiration. But… wow, it cost SO much. It took me over a month to decide to buy it. First I thought I’d wait to see if I lost interest. When I didn’t, I checked out all the used book sites, watched on ebay, and then discovered there is another book of the same name by the same author but smaller… That was when I finally decided to just go for it and buy it on Amazon. I am not sorry.

and like I said, 600+ more pages!

And another book- this one I got out of the library, but I think I’ll be looking for a used one online.

Someone posted about it on their blog a while back- sorry but I don’t remember who. When I saw the book, it brought back a flood of memories. This book was the one I was using back in 9th grade when I made this sampler-

It is so much fun to page through the book and see how it influenced me. It is inspiring me once again – this time I am using the stitches on my tiny worlds.