Back in the house

I've been away from home for a very long time. I had a fire in July and have been staying with the most wonderful sweetheart a girl could ask for. He not only took me in, he also took in my cats - all 7 of them. I lost Tucker two days after Christmas, but the other 6 are strong and healthy.

I haven't been making any art to speak of, but I am actively working on changing that.

More to come...

Garden Party

Isn't she wonderful? This doll was made about a year and a half ago (yep, still catching up on posting my dolls!) in a class at Art Is...You with the amazing Annie Hesse. If you ever get the chance to take a class with her, do it! She's so talented and so much fun.

Her face, obviously, is all beaded. That was fun. I'd never really done any beading before. What a way to start! I had a blast. Her hair is all different kinds of yarn and her skirt is long streams of fabric and ribbon. I use this face as my face on Facebook. She gets lots of interesting comments.

The "books" in the case she is sitting on are CDs. She's not huge!

Harbinger of Spring!

This is my latest creation. She is my "Harbinger of Spring". I made her for a challenge in my "Art Is...You" yahoo group. We do challenges once a month or so and she is for the March challenge which was simply "Spring".

The basic pattern for the angel/fairy is an epb pattern that I received as the February doll-of-the month. I love this pattern. Her hair was glued and pinned from a package of ribbon roses I bought at JoAnn's. And her garden implements came from a web site my sweetie found for me while he was looking for wood toggles for his boat.

Out of the Box

I won an Honorable Mention with this guy in a Joggles challenge a couple of years ago. The original pattern was of a jester in a box and we were to use a few bits of trim and beads that came with the pattern and to use our imaginations to make him fun. I immediately saw him jumping out of the box. I made him a body and used a dowel from the bottom of the box up to his shoulder to give his arm strength. I thought of the "Sshhh" gesture and thought that would add another touch of humor. Julie McCullough (pattern designer) said he made her laugh out loud.

This is the first doll I ever sold. I brought him to my local dance studio to show him off to the owners - great guys - and they fell in love with him. One of them made me a very generous offer which I happily accepted. Made me feel pretty proud

Meet Marie

This is Marie. I used Mimi's Victoria Rose for the body and gown. The hair was fun to make. I took small bits of wool and glued them around a skinny straw, making a tube. When it was dry, I slipped the tube off, snipped it into half-inch long sausages and glued her hair on.


I must confess, Marie is one of my favorites. She lives in Philadelphia, on my brother's mantle. He says she gets lots of attention. I have also made similarly appointed and posed Mary Queen of Scots, Anne Boleyn, and Lady Jane Gray. I call them my "Heads of State" Collection. They all

live with my brother who truly appreciates them.






OK, now I've shown my sick side

Another Day Another Doll

Say hello to Hans and Eli. Hans (left) was made during one of my first doll classes. This was a wonderful class with Monica Shedden at "In the Spirit" which was a weekend mostly doll making event that only lasted two years. I think Hans was made in 2004 although my backward counting may be off. We had two years of "In the Spirit", one year with no local event and then last year ArtFest for the Soul began which has gloriously morphed into Art Is...

Hans is a storyteller. The original pattern had elfin ears which just didn't fit with the image I had in mind. His cloak is made of what I've heard called confetti fabric. It's a piece of muslin with oodles of scraps free-motion stitched on top. No muslin shows through. I used metallic threads. multi-colored threads. and lots and lots of cut up small pieces of fabric. A really fun technique. I've used it many times since. Hans came out great and he is proudly displayed in my living room. He is one of two dolls I made that weekend, the other being my Inner Godess that I made in ellen legare's class. My Godess actually took me over a year. I kept changing my image of her and she went through several iterations. I can't find a good picture of her
but I'll take one and post it another time. I just love the way she finally emerged.

My friend mary's daughter Samantha had a birthday coming up and Mary asked me if I could make her an elf or something. I took the Storyteller pattern, reduced it to 1/3 size, modified his nose, included the elfin ears and created Eli (left). His mushroom is a big, firmly stuffed "yoyo" with a stump. I made his boots from a Mimi pattern I embarassingly can't remember the name of. I love the curled toes. Samantha was tickled and came across the street to personally thank me.

This guy has no name. At least, none that I am aware of. He was a Christmas gift last year to my boyfriend who is a real nature boy. He likes hiking, birdwatching, identifying rocks and plants. As well as a thousand other things he likes to do. I adapted the pattern from several I had laying around and made the patterns for his clothes from paper towels until I had a good fit. The binoculars are made from paper clay and his hair is needlefelted wool. He looks nothing like my sweetie except for the clothes. He was really tickled with this gift and it is proudly displayed in his living room on the book shelves - in one of the few spaces sans books. This Christmas he is receiving a 20 yard bolt of floral canvas that I will be using to make seat cushion covers for his sailboat. Unfortunately, I haven't had time to trace the cushions to make templates in the short time since the boat came out of the water and the cushions came home. As long as he has them by spring, he'll be happy. Floral, you ask? He actually likes tasteful florals and he said he wanted a woman's touch in the cabin. So - floral it is!