I finished Agnes today. She is named after the heroine in Wilkie Collins’ book, “The Haunted Hotel”. I was listening to it on tape when I was making her. She is inspired by American folk art portraits, and dressed from about 1860’s. Since my goal in the doll-making seems to be always use what I’ve already got in the house, I did pretty well with her. The only material I needed to search for outside of my stash, was for the socks. I could have used something I already had, but I really wanted the stripes. I went to Salvation Army and bought about 5 different striped t-shirts. I did some testing with over-dyeing and ended up using a med brown to get what I wanted… perfect!

I made her shoes using an idea I got from Lois. I painted some light canvas with gesso and then a few layers of black acrylic paint. I cut out the shoes from that fabric. It is a great weight and texture- I could use that idea a lot. The shoe design is based on the ones the children were wearing in a book I looked at of photos by Lewis Carroll.

The dress and hair is based on the Folk Art paintings I looked at.

2 great books- Dressed For The Photographer by Joan Severa
and American Folk Portraits – from the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center- this book is out of print but I got mine at half.com .

I don’t think I ever would have attempted to make such a big doll (33″) if I hadn’t made Judi Ward’s “Emma Rose” pattern. It gave me the confidence to try it, and I learned from some of the mistakes I made doing that doll. When you make a bigger doll, you need to use a fabric with more body or substance, otherwise when you stuff it, it sort of turns to mush- it won’t hold it’s shape. I made this doll’s body out of cotton duck (from Joanns fabric)- I don’t really know why this is different from canvas, it looks pretty much the same. It worked well and was great to paint on. I will probably try it with some smaller dolls, although I love working with the Southern Belle.

I posted photos of her on my gallery here . I need to get a good face shot though…