Tag Archives: pirate

pirate with forked beard

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Big News! I will be in San Francisco at the Renegade Market on July 21 and 22. I’m so excited and I hope to see you there!

I’ve had a crazy week that somehow shattered my focus. I seem to be going in all directions and am trying to force myself back on track. I need to focus on finishing all the pieces I’ve started!

Isn’t this amazing skeleton toile? I thought it needed to be a pirate.

I lightened up this photo so you can see the design of the fabric. It started out black and white and I over-dyed it with blue.

a pirate

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I finished him. It turns out he is a pirate. I think it is the boots.

He is a patriotic pirate. He has Ben Franklin on his back and George Washington on his arm.

I used a blue variegated floss for his eyes so they are slightly different colors.

Isn’t this perfect for his hair?

I found this little buckle in my stash. Perfect.

Things don’t always go smoothly when I’m putting the dolls together. I cut this tattooed man out last spring and sewed him up at the end of May. Now I stuffed the body and did the face embroidery. I sewed the fingers and then stuffed the arms. I was about to sew the arms on when I realized they not the same size. At all. I put everything aside and went to Vermont.

Today I unstuffed both arms, back to the hands. Then I carefully retraced the pattern onto the bigger arm. There was a bit of fiddling on both, sewing, taking out, resewing. Fixing mistakes often takes much longer than you’d ever expect. And of course I don’t have enough fabric to just make new ones.

But, he made it through the reconstructive surgery. He did not end up in the pile of not-sure-how-to-fix problem dolls. Phew!

 

 

gentleman pirate

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This poor fellow has been sitting around, waiting to get made since I don’t know when in 2008. Here is the first one I made.

His hat comes off. He has a bit of (handkerchief) linen around his neck.

I made him a felt flintlock pistol.

The coat front and tail are lined.

I’ll be cutting out some more men in the next few days but have to do some more dyeing first. Also, I need to let my poor fingers have a break and heal from sewing cotton. I find wool so much easier to work with. Anyway, off to Etsy to post all the fellows into my shop.

gentleman pirate

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the coat with tails made me think of Mr. Darcy– Mr. Darcy gone bad. Although, if any of Austens heroes were going to go the pirate route, it would more likely be Captain Wentworth from what I must admit is my favorite one of her books.

I like him without his hat on-

He can carry it under his arm.

I had to underexpose these photos so you could see the details.

I love this guy! He has been waiting to be made for a long time. There were a lot of fiddly bits to figure out which is actually what makes it fun to work on.

he was suppose to be a pirate

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but he turned out to be more of a biker dude. That happens sometimes. Well, actually a lot. I start out making one thing and it turns into something else. I’m not one to have it all planned out before I start.

I made him a vest- red paisley from a Liberty shirt that had belonged to my Dad. I made his head tie out of it too. The vest just wasn’t working so I ended up using the fancy paisley side for the inside. Now there is a surprise inside.

I like his blue hair.

sepia pirate

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I’ve been thinking about some different ways of approaching the men dolls. I got this idea about old photos- black & white and sepia tones. And also trying some other characters- hence this pirate.

He is various shades of browns. It was harder then I expected to get the browns right.

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