this week

I was away for a few days and when I got home, a nice pile of mail was waiting for me- The highlights were my calendar from Camilla and my “prize” from the Vintage Cloth Dollmaking list challange. It is a Yahoo group that I belong to. There are regular challenges- to do a doll in the style that the group is interested in, or from a particular vintage pattern. People donate “door prizes” which are distributed by choosing names out of a hat. No winning or losing. Sometimes there are enough prizes donated or few enough dolls posted that everyone gets a prize- that makes it lots of fun! The Fall challenge was to do an old style Santa. I made the wool Santa which started me off on the whole group of wool dolls. Here is what I got in the mail-

buttons

It is a button box- from Ike Putney. What a treasure trove! I have been enjoying going through all the goodies. My personal challenge will be to find some way to use the really big buttons- they are fantastic, but not suitable for the dolls I’ve been making.

I have been doing the boring stuff since the sale and being away- trying to get my studio usable again (what a mess!) and the rest of the house in some order enough to start getting ready for Christmas. Now that the kids aren’t little, I just don’t care that much about it… As usual, I am running very late on all the Holiday prep. I am thinking about cards or ornaments though and have been fooling around with a mini sweater baby-

card

I tried it out of fabric and now I’m trying paper and card stock. You’ll see if I get anything I’m happy with.

back from the fair

table

The Craft Fair was fun- I saw lots of people I knew, my kids teachers from elementary school, neighbors and friends. And I sold some stuff! Not surprising- no one asked for the “blog discount”… I thought it was unlikely, but a fun experiment.

I made a gallery of the wool dolls. Email me if you are interested in any of them. US shipping is free for this month- that’s my Holiday marketing! Actually, contact me if there is anything in my finished project catagory you are interested in…

Big men

I finished 3 more big men.

Big Man 3

bigman3

closeup 3

Big Man 4

bigman4

closeup 4

Big Man 5

bigman5

closeup 5

This is probably the last bunch of dolls for a while, but who knows, the studio might draw me back… instead of holiday stuff that I ought to be doing!

Craft Fair!

This is the Craft Fair I am doing tomorrow- if you tell me that you saw this in my blog, I’ll give you a 10% discount on anything you buy from me. I’ll have my new wooly dolls and also bug pins and who knows what else- I’ll be deciding as I pack up the car!

craft fair

Bishop Craft Fair and Bazaar!!

This Wednesday, Dec.7 from 5-10pm.
Sons of Italy Hall (behind Paper & More) Lots of free parking!

Over 25 vendors and crafters.
Lots of unusual gift items — Shop for friends, family or yourself!
Cash bar. FREE hors d’oeuvres

sweater babies- done

The babies are done, but I missed out on the minute of decent light and so didn’t get them all photographed.

all babies

I did manage 2 decent enough pictures though-
Sweater baby 2-

sweater baby 2

and sweater baby 3-

sweater baby 3

These babies are approximately 11 inches tall. They are stuffed with polyester except for sweater baby 1 who is stuffed with wool.
They are $55 each including shipping.

grandma, babies, and atc’s

I finished Grandma on Wednesday, but between bad light and being very busy, I hadn’t had a chance to show her! A close-up of her face at my Flickr gallery.

grandma

and this is what I’ve been working on yesterday and today- more sweater babies-

babies

they are made of recycled shrunken sweaters- wool, cashmere, angora or whatever I can find.

and I made some more atc’s-

atc windows

well, actually, I had to. My doll club has a holiday swap every year and usually we make ornament dolls. This year I suggested we try atc’s. Then I’ve gotten totally absorbed into making these new woolen dolls and the meeting was Thursday and it was Wednesday and I still hadn’t done anything- yikes! So, Wednesday at 3 pm, I cleared a space on my table ( a challenge in itself!) and redirected my efforts. I already knew I wanted to work with the idea of windows.

I made 11 new ones. You can see them all at my Flickr atc set. The new ones are the last 11. If you are interested in trading, let me know.

Geesh, I have been flaked out lately- I am doing a community craft sale next week- all along I’ve been thinking it was Monday night, but today I thought I better check out the particulars and I found out it’s on Wednesday night! Wow! 2 extra days!

grandma, babies, and atc’s

I finished Grandma on Wednesday, but between bad light and being very busy, I hadn’t had a chance to show her! A close-up of her face at my Flickr gallery.

grandma

and this is what I’ve been working on yesterday and today- more sweater babies-

babies

they are made of recycled shrunken sweaters- wool, cashmere, angora or whatever I can find.

and I made some more atc’s-

atc windows

well, actually, I had to. My doll club has a holiday swap every year and usually we make ornament dolls. This year I suggested we try atc’s. Then I’ve gotten totally absorbed into making these new woolen dolls and the meeting was Thursday and it was Wednesday and I still hadn’t done anything- yikes! So, Wednesday at 3 pm, I cleared a space on my table ( a challenge in itself!) and redirected my efforts. I already knew I wanted to work with the idea of windows.

I made 11 new ones. You can see them all at my Flickr atc set. The new ones are the last 11. If you are interested in trading, let me know.

Geesh, I have been flaked out lately- I am doing a community craft sale next week- all along I’ve been thinking it was Monday night, but today I thought I better check out the particulars and I found out it’s on Wednesday night! Wow! 2 extra days!

gnome 4 and 5

I finished up gnome 4 and 5. These guys are bigger then the first three at 19 ” tall and considerably fatter!

gnome 4

gnome 5

gnome 5 face

There are a few more picture here on Flickr. I am planning to put together a photo gallery of all these dolls to try to sell them. Soon, I hope… The smaller gnomes will be $65 and the larger ones, $80.