Doll

Fish 1

and fish 2

2 fish for April.

this is where we started-

And this is where we are now!

In between, I tried a giant bow, and I tried some embroidery to highlight the mouth. It looks like some scribbling.

I moved the bow to the side-

How about a flower?

Maybe with some leaves?

That was definitely too much ruffles for one pug. How about a simpler flower-

Nope, back to bows-

Finally I decided that one small bow was just right. Also I restitched the mouth, over the black, with a warm gray so you can see the facial features (not in this photo but notice in photo #2). Much better- now I am satisfied.

And here she is, enjoying a beautiful day!

a 2 color dog-

In my head, this dog looks like a classic childrens’ book illustration of a dog from my childhood.

So many possibilities with dogs, so much variation!

I was trying for a corgi but he is not stocky enough- especially the head. I think he is so cute though that I will just assume he is a corgi/??? mix breed.

I love his corgi non-tail.

Thanks so much for all your input on the dogs. I’m still working on the pug. I decided that Liz’s comment about the dachshund’s “arms” was correct (they were too long) and so I’ve shortened them here-

Yes, Better! More dogs and tweeking ahead!

and now a dachshund.

He is a challenge to photograph!

He’s got a soft cashmere nose and ears. And a wired tail.

Okay, I tried a bow on her- what do we think? I’m not entirely sold.

And this was yesterday afternoon, pre-bow. Mango was supervising the photo shoot.

And the tails!

Here is the first of the pattern tweeks. I cut the pattern down the center (lengthwise) and added about one inch in the middle. Then new nose, new tail, shorter arms and slightly different ears.

Voila! A pug!

I put a pipe cleaner into the tail so I could make it curl.

I am still wondering about the mouth. The black stitching doesn’t show up in the photos- I’ve lightened it up here.

It is all pretty dark in real life too. I might have to think about highlighting it. I’m still thinking. Also, she might just need a giant bow on her head…

This lady is the last of the partially finished tattooed ladies that I had stacked up. She was the one who needed the most love and came very close to ending up in the trash bin. I put her together many months ago- last summer I think? She was “done” but I wasn’t happy with her face. I kept looking at her. Eventually I decided to un-pick the embroidery, a little at a time. Maybe it was the eyebrows that were wrong. Nope. Try taking off the eyes. Still not good. On and on until the face was gone. And then the hair too. There ended up being a sort of shadow where the embroidery had been. I tried washing. Well, that faded the dyed fabric of the face. At that point I tossed her into the think-about-later pile and there she stayed for many months.

I used a very traditional fix on her. I cut out a piece of new fabric and carefully stitched it onto the front of her face. This is a technique used to fix cloth dolls for many generations. When I first got interested in doll-making, I did a lot of research into early painted cloth dolls. Apparently when some of these dolls came into museum collections, they were found to have many layers of painted faces. How fantastic is that!

So now she has a new embroidered face and a new hair-do and I couldn’t be happier with how she turned out!

I’m pretty excited about this!

I bought a big piece of Linoleum and put it down on the floor of my studio. My chair rolls around with no obstructions. WooHoo!

It was a fun weekend. First, the new floor. We had a visit from my SIL and SIL and ate delish Middle Eastern food. On Sunday we went to Craft Boston- the kind of show where they have special tags for artists to label items that cost less than $100. I know, I shouldn’t laugh! In between I played with my wool scraps and colors and made some flags and garlands.

All lined up for sewing-

Another on-the-wall photo. I use a type of drapery hook to hang them- called tieback pins. Here is a photo in use.

I had a hard time with the photos. I might have to go get some other color backdrop boards! She ended up being so pale against the white background.

All three ladies. I love how they come out different sizes even though I am using essentially the same pattern. It all has to do with the stretch of the fabric.

Thanks for your input so far on online classes- it is really helping me think about the big picture as I am taking my class. I won’t be making any decisions for a while. And here is my next lady-

I watched a video tutorial about taking photos for your Etsy shop. The person talked about taking a photo of how the product will be used. That gave me the idea of taking a photo of her on the wall since that is how most people display them.