5 heads and torsos. First coat of gesso.

When we did the stash dive at doll club last week, my friend Lois gave me a sweet embroidered baby slip and a wonderful antique, very long baby gown. The baby gown is soaking to whiten it up. I wrapped the baby slip onto this lady- it is a great scale for her. I will probably turn it into a dress for her.

I am working on new head and body designs. I am aiming for an older child or early adolescent look.

You know how when you first start into some new art form, you come to it with a freshness and perspective that is often hard to recapture later on when you know more? I made Esther very early on. I made her within 6 months of my first painted doll. I was just working- no notes, I kept none of the patterns. Very disorganized… so when I want to go back, there is nowhere to go back to. Now I’m really careful- I keep all my patterns and I also keep all the head designs I don’t like- otherwise I just keep making the same mistakes. So anyway, I’m trying to recapture this head/body look-

Here are 2 of the heads-

and here are the rejects-

I got bombed this morning by trackback spam. After erasing more then 50 trackbacks (and they kept coming in as I was erasing), I had Ben turn off the trackback option.

I’ve done some work on these ladies-

I am finding it frustrating though- I am not pleased with the proportions, or the faces ,,, for now they are sitting on the window sill, watching me do other things. I went down to the grocery store before dinner and I loved seeing them in the window when I came back.

I have pulled out my patterns again.

This project is once again being led by doll hair thoughts/ ideas (like Autumn). I bought a piece of cashmere goat skin. It is very straight, long hair. I am itching to make a doll with this hair. I’ve got to figure out how to dye it successfully. I want black.
I’ve been spending some time looking at the Volks Super Dollfie dolls. There was a lot of photos in the January 2005 issue of Haute Doll magazine… a magazine I’ve never bought before- not my usual area of interest- it says on the cover- Haute Doll, the magazine for dolls who love to shop. Funny.

I am finishing up kitty #4. She is a black and white kitty, knitted with mohair. This turned out to be harder then the other ones. I couldn’t see my stitches and that made keeping track of what I was doing very difficult. On the other hard, it hides any mistakes!

I first tried to follow the same basic pattern as the other kitties. Unfortunately, knitting in a white nose just wasn’t working out. The white mohair I had was thinner then the black.

I took this out and decided to knit a separate piece that would become the sewed on nose. I finished up everything else and when I stood her up, I had a serious case of mushy feet. The black mohair knitted up into a great (for this purpose) dense fabric. The white was too soft, especially for feet.

Off with the feet! I cut them off, picked up the stitches and reknit them.

Much better!

I found perfect button eyes for her- after much searching through my button stash. I forgot I had these. My stash is mostly single buttons, which rarely turn out to be useful. Now that I look at the picture though, I think I need to adjust the eye placement a bit… something looks skewed to me. Tomorrow I will post pictures of her dressed. I made another little crocheted hat and it is drying right now after starching and blocking.

Snowstorms leave me feeling very unsettled. We ended up with 30″ of snow after the weekend storm and now it is snowing again. It has been all day. There’s nowhere to shovel the snow.

Here is my main workspace, now that I am out of the attic until warm weather returns. That is kitty #4 in the pile- Black and white mohair. Last night my family asked me- what is it with the cats? I guess it’s time to get back to people dolls.

I brought the paints down and worked a bit on these. I had to repair some love bites that my alive kitty made. Apparently doll hands are a delicacy.

Everybody looks better with hair.

Try number 3. The yarn I used was recycled from something and I decided to wash and block it when I got done with the head, body, legs part.

Then I attached the arms and tail and stuffed it-

I have been using black stuffing for these last two darker colored kitties. I did more shaping on the legs for a more realistic(?) look. Now for facial features and clothes.

I’ve got another one knitted but not dressed. That ring around the neck is just a piece of paper for her dress pattern.
I made the nose on this one in a different way- the orange cat has a nose made like a heel of a sock, the black cat has a nose like the shoulder increases on a top-down raglan sweater! -then deceases. Now does that make sense to anyone but me?! I am working on a third one, grey this time, and trying the sock heel method again. I like it better. I am trying very hard to keep track of what I’m doing in a notebook… that is really not part of my nature.

Wow! This is actually working out!

Here is the inspiration-

I can not believe that he is actually sleeping in the kitty bed!

I’ve done a little bit of work on these- Gesso is done- 2 coats, sanded. The base coat of skin tone is on the arms and heads. I can’t do the legs until I costume them. Since the socks and shoes are painted on, I have to wait to see what they are wearing.
I found a new place to hang them while the paint is drying- from clips on the side of my ironing board!

I have also managed to get my act together enough to work on something for Marta’s Tsunami Quilt Project.

Usually, when I read about a project like this, I have very good intentions to get involved, but somehow, when I get up to my studio, it flies right out of my head. I am trying to be better. This is probably also a better time of year for me to try some of these group endeavors. Here is my start-