Alyssa

Alyssa is my second doll from Averil pattern by Deanna. She was very happy all along while I was making her and not to mention very patient. The buttons were so much fun to sew on and the dress was pretty easy to make too. I cut up pieces from another cloth and stitched them on the skirt cloth. Except for the vest, all the other parts of her clothing have unfinished seams with edges raveling. Her only prop is a ceramic bead made by my little girl. I used Tibetan lamb's wool for her hair which I dyed bright red.

New Doll

This morning I went back to the posts from 2006 looking for the time when I first started this doll. I don't think I wrote about her back in December 2006 when I started working on her. I remember admiring a little doll in pink clothes by my good friend at the doll club and that started the whole pink colored "saga". Two of the three dolls that I started were pink. The third one was from a blue fabric. All three were Deanna Hogan's Avril pattern. I decided that I could get pretty fast at the dolls if I make them all together. I did not think it would take me so long to finish them. I love that pattern and I did finally learn to make the doll joints like she teaches. I used those joints for the third doll.

Now there is a story behind the face too. I had taken a face sculpting class from Barbara Willis sometime in 2007 and so I decided to try my hand with sculpting the head. This is my sixth head/face and I am getting a little better with them each time.

This doll has an off white skirt. I used some applique flowers and buds, some beading and a whole lot of echo quilting using a pink colored quilting thread. This doll has a paper clay face and some jazzy dark brown yarn for hair. I tried using magenta colored yarn for her hair. That was baaaad! I am working on the second doll and hope to finish her soon. I do not have names yet. Any suggestions?

Any lessons learned? Yes a few: 1. Don't start three dolls all at once. 2. Do not use the same color on both/all three of them. 3. But do make dolls which you like to make, to play with and enjoy. 4. Also do not hurry. I thought about these dolls, talked to them and created them in my head a lot of times these past couple of years. All of those lovely moments I would not have, had I finised them - all together and all at once - in December 2006.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! May all your wishes come true.

Welcome 2009!

Mermaids for Miss. N

My little Miss N (who isn't that little any more. She is 7!!) and her friend painted the mermaids. They had a ball painting and adding all that glitter. They both picked red hair. It was a pretty simple pattern to make and took very little time. I finished it in 2 days only because I had my kid literally "sitting" on me to finish them. Or else I would have procrastinated as usual.

EPB on My Mind

Of all the books and patterns in that box of goodies from my garage, I was just thrilled to find my "How Many Angels Can Dance? pattern book by Elinor Peace Bailey. I feel very happy and at ease when I work on her patterns. So guess what? I picked a couple of her patterns to make gifts for Miss.N's second grade teachers. The first one is called "Arm Full of Angels" and the second one is called "Little Tyke Angel".

November Pin

November theme at my pindoll club was quilts. I used the traditional quilt pattern called Sun Bonnet Sue and mixed it with the crazy quilting technique to make the pindoll.

I Found it...Found it...Found it..

Finally after a year and 2 months I found my doll books and patterns! Can't believe that I finally have all my patterns. I am so happy. Sometimes what we think simply isn't. I was sure that the books were in a big box and they all turned up in a small one. Go figure!

October Update

Where did most of the year go? It is only beginning of October but looks like Christmas is already here. We went shopping the other day and the stores are all so full of Christmas stuff already. What is going on? I usually love to stretch out this part of year and really enjoy the season- have nice scented candles around decorate and have cozy evenings with family. But I feel hurried to do a whole lot of things all at the same time this year.

I have been working out a bit and catching up on some reading- just light reading. I have also been working on Deanna Hogan's Avril. Looks like I took most of this year to get back to her. I had started working of the masks early this year and it is only now that I am getting somewhere with her. I have not found my box with all the patterns and doll books yet. I know it must be with my husband's heavy tech. books boxes if at all. The boxes got shuffled again and I am not even sure when I will get the patterns and the books. I do hope it is there and I have not lost it in the move. I do miss the books and patterns a lot but the sheer size of those boxes just put me off. So I am winging it completely. When the Avril doll (actually I am working at 3 of them- triplets no less!) is done I will move to other things. I also feel that I have to finish them all before I move on to other dolls. Here is a pic of the mask I made and colored.

August 2008

Well, how long has it been since I last wrote in my blog? About 3 months! I have had a fun time this summer with the kids just chilling and doing very little actually. My parents were here with me for a little over a month. We visited a few people and places and watched a whole lot of movies and chatted a lot of course. I also participated in a few pindoll swaps and did some crochet for an aunt. Unfortunately I don't have the scarf I crocheted. But here are some pictures of the pindolls I made. (Looks like I have problems with this computer too. My old computer gave up on me and this one is too new for me to figure out yet.)

Garden Pictures

I have a five pot container garden on my deck. Here are some pictures I took a couple of weeks ago.

That is a picture of me pulling out weeds. The long grass is mostly gone but the weeds are growing back very fast....