History

When Leta Benedict was here a couple of weeks ago, I had a chance to spend a day with her just wandering around. I asked what she wanted to do and one thing she wanted, was to go to a cemetery. So okay, off we went. The most historic cemetery here is Ross Bay Cemetery. The monuments are quite beautiful, many statues and varying themes. The head stones and monuments in days gone by were so meticulously crafted. Many well known people from this area are buried there. Emily Carr the famous painter, known around the world, Robert Dunsmuir and so many more. Follow this link to read more. RBC   Some of the graves we saw dated back to 1812 and possibly older, but there wasn't enough time to view the whole area.

A bit of ghostly information....

Ross Bay Cemetery Victoria

Ross Bay Cemetery is the final resting place for many famous people of Victoria and the scene of several ghosts. The spirit of Isabella Ross can be seen, usually looking out over the water. She owned the land where the cemetery was built. There is also the sighting of an unknown lady dressed in white. The misty clad apparition of David Fee is spotted from time to time. He was murdered outside of St. Andrew’s Cathedral in 1890 on Christmas Eve. The ghosts of a couple dressed in Victorian clothing have been seen floating around the west side of the cemetery. Visitors have sometimes spotted a lady darting around in a panic looking for her lost child.

Read more: "Victoria Canada Ghosts: Graveyards: Haunting's at Old Burying Ground, Ross Bay Cemetery, Pioneer Square" - http://ghosts-hauntings.suite101.com/article.cfm/more_victoria_canada_ghosts#ixzz0BMyttLPV

One grave in particular caught our eye. It's that of a black woman, born in Philadelphia in about 1808 and died 1873. Her name was Rebecca Gibbs. What we saw first was a poem she wrote and it was on one side of her grave marker. The other side tells who she was. A little more searching around gave me a little more information about Rebecca. She was a poet laundress and nurse. She moved to Barkerville  BC, and lived there during the Gold Rush Era until her house was destroyed in the fire. She came back to Victoria where she died in 1873. It was hard to find a lot of information due to the time lines. However what I did find out,  I enjoyed. The link above to Barkerville is a lot of reading, but if you like history, you will enjoy it.

There is so much interesting history to uncover that it makes walking through a cemetery not quite so imposing. Take a walk sometime and see what you might find out about your own part of the world...

Calamity Kim

Calamity Kim is having a great big giveaway on her blog April 1st. She is being really generous, wait till you see all she is giving away, it's quite amazing. What creative soul wouldn't want a chance to win.

Kim is celebrating her apron being published in the new magazine, Apronology and wouldn't we all want the chance to be published for our hard work. Stop by and visit Calamity Kim and enter to win her giveway HERE. The only stipulation is that you must post to your blog or twitter etc. to enter and leave the link to that post when you comment on the giveaway....

Dying Fabric

I've never tried dying fabric before but there's always a first time. Colleen asked me to test her newest pattern, "Treasures of the Deep", and I thought maybe I would try coming up with my own flesh colour. I have different shades of white (and yes there are many shades of white ), but nothing much in flesh tones in my cupboard that I like. And there are also so many different flesh tones with such a diverse world, so off I went to find some fabric to experiment with.

First it got washed to remove sizing. I used a cold water dye and two different types of cotton or cotton blend fabric. I filled a bucket with cold water and added the package of powder that you need for setting the colour. Then the dye went in. I didn't measure anything. Just mixed those three things together and went for it, after all that's when most happy accidents happen. The fabric went in and got swirled around for about 10 minutes. Then it was submerged completely and left for an hour. After that I just squeezed out the excess water, rinsed until the water ran clear and put them into the dryer, then heat set with the iron.

One isn't quite tight enough a weave to take the pressure of stuffing (I know because I tried....oops). The other worked out great. Here is one of the samples. The next is below. The colour here doesn't look so much different, but when you feel the fabric and see them in real life, they are quite different. The last picture is showing the two fabrics side by side to see the difference. One took the colour darker than the other and both have a subtle mottled look. I love them both. The colour and brand of dye is Cafe' Au Lait by Dylon #17 and is the cold water type. The hot water ones are right beside it in the display, so watch for the ones that say cold if you decide to try this. I would guess that if you followed the directions for measurements exactly, the colour would be deeper, but I'm happy with how these turned out...




















but which one did I use for this design ;o))) Guess Colleen will have to wait and see. I know how patient she is....

Spring has sprung

The first days of spring have not exactly been nice warm and sunny days. The first day was off and on showers, then whoosh a great big wind blew through, repeat for the rest of the day. The next day was a bit warmer, but still, the temperature in the morning has been -1 C. The best I can offer for flowers right now are these brave little crocuses. Nothing stops them in the quest to be the first blooms each spring. About the same time, the pretty little blooms of the Rosemary bush open up in anticipation of the Orchard Mason Bees. Poor bees, it's still so cold they are hesitating breaking out of their cocoons.

The flowering currant is out in full bloom and the perfume is so sweet. I can't really describe it, a bit like carnations perhaps...but soon there will be non edible berries and leaves to cover the bush and no more sweet fragrance.

Yesterday was our last trip out to Sooke for the season, to get firewood. It was a really long last trip. It was so cold to start off and keeping your feet firmly planted was a chore at best. A heavy frost on the wood does not bode well for getting the load of wood together in any hurry, it's a chore just to keep from falling on your fanny.

During one of the many intermissions (the chain saw was not behaving either), I managed to forage for these pussy willows. There they were just waiting for me to come and snip them off and take them home. I think my wizard is puzzling out what the heck he's supposed to do with these things.

We stopped on the way home for a couple of large coffees from Tim Horton's and I think it was just enough caffeine to get through the rest of the job. Once we were home the wood got unloaded and re stacked, cleaned up the truck and ourselves and collapsed for the rest of the day. One nice little touch that finished off the day, I found this chunk of wood out there and added it to the load. It wasn't until we were unloading that I realized it was the shape of a heart. Other people find heart shaped leaves and rocks, I find heart shaped wood...

My first thought was, "with love from Mother Nature"..... ;o)

Signs !! Pay Attention to Signs !!

When the universe is trying to tell you something and you're not listening, it starts throwing signs at you in a way that makes you take notice, hurling in my case. For months now I have been trying to track down a cloth doll designer through someone in the US that I thought would be able to do that. Having made several requests and getting nowhere, I had resigned myself to never being able to locate this designer. Little did I know what was coming.

About 10 days ago I had an email from Andrea at our local fabric store to pass along some information from the doll club in Victoria. They were having a guest teacher for this past weekend and would she pass the information along to anyone that might be interested. Well you could have knocked me over with a feather. Who do you think the guest teacher was???? The very one that I had been trying to locate.

Then a couple of days later a lady from the doll club emailed me with the same information. I had to write back and say that I already had the class she would be teaching and how I had been trying to find this lady for so long... Then I contacted the original person who had told Andrea about the class, and told her the same thing. That it was such short notice, that I couldn't afford the class and that I already had it. The next thing I know, both ladies wrote me back to tell me to come to the class over the weekend to meet the designer and then I could speak to her about why I was trying to find her.

Well okay, I'm all over that, so off I went on the Friday. I went into the place (not even 10 mins from home....talk about the universe throwing this at me and boy I better take what's being offered) and there she was. Leta Benedict the designer whose doll (The Secret)I have adored for the past 3 years but never felt confident enough to take on. She gave me a hug and we chatted like we had known each other forever. Have you ever met someone for the first time and your conversation just flows as if you were picking up where you left off. That's what happened here....Amazing, I was on tippy toes the whole time. I got to meet some of the ladies from the doll club and felt comfortable with that, so signed up with them. So another thing that the universe obviously thinks I better do.

This is the doll I am going to be making, you may recognize her. Is she not the most beautiful doll....and continue below the pictures to read the rest.

Off I went after telling Leta what it was I was trying to find her for but not before getting her contact information. Saturday comes and hubby and I are off to get firewood. At the end we were soaked through from the rain, but I at least had a dry jacket to change into. On the way home, still soaked through with my slacks and shoes, I asked him to stop at the class as I want to speak to them. I went in and the first Leta did was laugh at me and said "Hi Cinderella, love the boots".....To funny. Dirty old sawdust covered boots...

I asked the ladies, if it were possible to pay for one day and allow me to sit in on the class for Sunday. Yes, no problem, so off I went again on tippy toes.... Sunday came and I brought two stuffed heads and a whole lot of enthusiasm. The fabric I brought was not good for doing the cloth overlay for the face so near the end of the day Leta spent quite a while with me doing the overlay with fabric generously offered by someone in the class, and she applied the first steps of the face since I had missed the technique on Friday.... This doll will never leave this house now... ;o)) This is what she started for me. I did the sculpting, and Leta showed me the technique for doing the overlay. I have done it with stretch fabric, but not cotton, so it was great to have it demonstrated. I finished the face today and have added it below the first part.

Now I have never taken any classes with a teacher other than online, so this was just so exciting to just watch her build up the face and with her technique. I was in awe to say the least. The day came to an end with me feeling so much better about how to create this doll. It isn't the costuming that I was concerned with, it's the face. If the face is poorly done, the whole doll fails no matter how well you do the costuming. I asked one of the ladies to take a picture for me with Leta and my surprize weekend came to an end.

BUT...that's not the end. We are going to get together Thursday morning and do some shopping or whatever she'd like to do while she's here. I will aim for another picture or two on Thursday.. So are you bleary eyed from reading, I am exhausted from being on that high all weekend...lol Can you imagine it, months of searching for her and she appears practically on my doorstep....Now those were signs I am so grateful that I listened to...

Samurai Second Stages

Well I'm a little further ahead. Now the Samurai is looking a bit more real now. I've got his face and hair done. He doesn't look terribly threatening to me for a Samurai, maybe we reflect ourselves in our dolls... ;o~

Samurai First Stages

My poor blog, I've so neglected it. I think it's just been one of those weeks where I've been wandering around aimlessly, getting nothing much done. Ever have those times...?? Anyway, this is a new week and I must get some things done and on to their new destinations. This is as far as I've gotten on my Samurai.

I really love this pattern for the body of the male doll. I didn't make the belly button or use the chest template because his outfit will completely cover him anyway, so why make extra work for myself. This pattern is from Dollmakers Journey, "A Dude for all Seasons". Just scroll down this page to find it. MALE PATTERNS. There are a number of patterns for male dolls out there, I just happen to have used this one because the costume for the Samurai by Edwina Sutherland, is made to compliment this particular pattern.

So here's where I'm at. Nothing terribly exciting yet, but soon I'll have him dressed and then he's off to join his Geisha at the tea shop. Janet gave the Geisha a name, she's calling her "Ping"and I thought that was a really good choice, it made me think of gentle and delicate feelings, so maybe it means that....