Raggedy Progress

Here are the ones that are just about done, clothes and all. While out garage-sale-ing today, I cut out and sewed three pair of the smaller bloomers--DH drove, of course. The FiberFest is the second weekend in October, and so I need to work hard if I'm going to have a good selection of my wares to sell.

What IS it about young men and dolls!!!!???? Every time I show one of my dolls (this was the cloth-over-vinyl head in the last post) to a young man (today's young man is 35), said young man says, "That is SO creepy!!!" WHAT?!?!? How can ANYONE say my dolls are creepy?!?! I'm sorry, but my dolls look sweet to me (except Screamer, perhaps, but even he has his own charisma). I asked him if he thought it was creepy because it didn't have a body, but he said, no it would be just as creepy WITH a body.
More than one person has said Screamer's Cute Baby is creepy, too, and hard as I try, I just can't see the creepiness there!

Someone explain these guys to me, PLEASE!!! Have they just seen too many "Chuckie" movies? Does it creep them out to see faux humans?! I just don't get it!!!

More Progress on Alabama Baby Boy and a Bit of Doll History

 Many old dolls (I'm assuming they are c.1920-1930, only a somewhat-educated guess) had arms shorter than what would be considered "anatomically correct." Here are two examples (above) of such dolls fom my fairly small collection. When I first saw dolls like this, I thought some unskilled, unknowing person  had replaced the original (correct) arms with arms that were too short. However, as I looked at pictures of many old dolls, and actually acquired a few myself, I saw many with similar short arms, and  realized I'd been wrong -- those arms WERE the originals. The makers were just not overly-concerned with realism, I guess. It just wasn't that important to them, I'm assuming. If it HAD been, they would have made longer arms!!

     However, I couldn't stand those too-short arms on my doll and I haven't observed abbreviated arms on the original Alabama Indestructible Baby Dolls, either. So I guess their originator, Ella Smith, DID care that her dolls had arms that were correctly proportioned to their bodies. I added a piece to each upper arm to lengthen them; earlier I'd also added a (lower) section to his torso, too, as I felt it was too "square" and not proportional to his head.

     Here is my poor boy, stretched out on a pull-out breadboard in our kitchen, with the front of his legs gessoed and drying. He's very patient.

     ( I've "claimed" this breadboard for my own artistic purposes, as I have much of our big old hundred-plus-year-old house. I've been told by one of my offspring that I'm being unfair to my husband, and should give him a room of his own rather than hog 85% of the house for myself, but I have, as yet,  too much stuff (mostly sewing/art supplies) to be able to do that.)

     The next step will be to apply gesso to the back of my boy's legs, and tomorrow, I will lightly sand them and apply a second coat. I also need to paint fingernails on his hands. Then, his arms and legs will receive a spray of clear-coat matte finish and he will be done.

     Then I will need to make some clothes for him, and fairly soon, as he's bound for a show at Six Rivers Gallery in a week or so . I've decided to make him a white shirt, white underwear, and a brown thin-wale corduroy suit. This suit will signify that he has been toilet-trained, as in days of old, boys wore dresses until they were. Recently, I received a picture of my father( born in 1914) at the age of two, and he was, indeed, wearing a dress.



Bunnies and More: Latest Projects

Sock bunnies are easy and quick to make. Here are a few examples:

 This little guy was made from the sleeve of an old sweater:

 This big girl has a bottle gourd, unpainted, for her head, and "dreds" made from strips of an old wool sweater that was felted in the washing machine. When I add her second foot, she'll be done, after patiently waiting a VERY long time.

It's a Boy! And Black Girl Doll Almost Dressed. And Another Suitcase

Well, once again the doll has its way! It decided it was a boy, not a little girl. That's Ok, I'm going to make him wear a Little Lord Fauntleroy suit!! Or maybe just a corduroy one. His ears are white because I just gessoed them--they are made separately and glued on. Tomorrow, they'll match his skin. I also sanded him some, so his face is rather battered looking. That is temporary; he'll look better soon. I still have to lengthen his torso, too.

This little girl is now dressed. All I need to do is sew snaps on the back of the dress. She'll be going to the gallery on Saturday, when I go to work the morning shift there. Finally!!! I started her in 2008!!!!!!

This is a small metal case I picked up at SA today for a dollar. I was half done covering it with canvas when I realized I had, yet again, forgotten to take a "before" photo of it. So this is the best I can do. Not sure how I will decorate this, or exactly where it is going, or what it is going to hold, but I don't have to decide that right now anyway. It's a nice size; bigger than a standard lunch box but not as big as a cosmetic case, or as heavy either.

OMG!!! Her legs aren't the same length!! or Playing God

Oh, well, she'll have "surgery" later. Right now, I just want to finish her and get some clothes on her. That will hide her "disability" until I fix her. I can always use the removed leg for something else; it's fun playing God. Everybody should try it, on a small scale and on nonliving forms.

More dogs

If you know anything about dachshunds, you will know that they love to burrow in blankets. Ours like afghans, because they can still see out. Ours do this every evening, year in and year out, but in the winter, on cold days, they burrow in the day, too. Grace, the red one, is less a burrower than Wiener, the black one, or Poki, the dapple. They are also very fond of our natural gas fireplace and will leave a lap when they see the fire come on.

I am working on a doll for an auction (see Cici's auction on The Fisch Tank), so will have a pic of that soon.

I'm also making six cowboy boot quilt blocks that I'm mailing to TX today. Will show pics of those later, too. AND I got 12 JoAnn's 1999 quilt blocks (BOMs) for 25 cents each at a rummage sale last week, on the SECOND day, no less. I've basted about four of them together while watching The Olympics. Pics to come.

The lost is found!!!

I am SO happy!!! Last night I found the Round-Robin-Doll-in-a-Bag I'd been looking for so hard for the last two weeks!! I went to a doll class and the owner of the doll told me it WASN'T in a brown paper bag like all the others were. It was in a green and white cotton bag. I found it in our entry hall, partially hidden, without even looking!
I felt like I had won the LOTTERY!!! It was terrible to have to tell Sandy that I had not found her doll yet, and it was the FIRST DOLL SHE HAD EVER MADE, too. I was losing sleep over this every night, trying to remember if there was anywhere I hadn't looked!!
So my wish today is for anyone who is looking for something lost: may you find it today, or at least very soon. The moral is: know what you're looking for; if you aren't looking for the right thing, you won't find it!! Have a good day/week everyone.

Welcome to my blog.

I am a doll maker and love making dolls just about more than anything. I have made dolls for about 60 of my 65 years, and wanted to even before that. Often, I balance making dolls and quilting, but I have been working on dolls pretty steadily since January; the quilting is going nowhere, but that's the way I am. I work on what I am in the mood to work on. I mostly make cloth dolls, but have also used gourds to make heads or heads and bodies for dolls. This is the case with the doll to the left, who is named Screamer. His head is a gourd that arrived broken (from Nebraska) and the hole reminded me of a screaming mouth, and so thus his name. Right now, Screamer is doing his screaming at the Six Rivers gallery in Hoquiam, WA. This is a first for him, although he has been in several displays and has attended four Cousins' Reunions, the first as a head/body sans limbs. The cousins five, plus my little sis, INSISTED that he have arms and legs for the next reunion, so he did. You don't mess with my cousins OR my little sis! I obeyed.