What’s Old is New Again!

A few years ago when I first started making dolls, one of the first teachers I did a class with, was Michelle Munzone. Since I didn’t know about our local club at that time, I plodded along learning on my own. It didn’t matter to me if I finished the doll, more important was for me to try. Even today I still sign up for classes and may not finish then, but I have it for later. Sometimes classes don’t come around again, so if you see something and can afford to sign up, do it and go back to it another time.

This is a project that I didn’t finish. She was mostly done but her face was so awful that I left her standing on my shelf and didn’t have the heart to toss her, so there she has stood for all this time. In my mind she was so scared looking I knew at some time she would be reborn and look so much better. And well now she is, at least I think so…

Here are the before and after faces, brace yourself for the “before” look, it’s scary. I must be pretty confidant to show this…;o) On the other hand maybe it’s going to help a new doll maker to see how everyone starts off and that there is hope…

Now she’s finished. I took off her arms and re-stuffed them. I tightened up her legs because I learned how to do the ladder stitch properly. Her wings are on to. The original class includes instructions to make a clay flower for her, but I had these pretty paper flowers from Joggles, so I made a stem with a wooden skewer by wrapping it with ribbon, dipped the end in some glue then micro beads and presto, her look is complete. She stands approx. 12” tall and I may have to revisit her companion “Fineus”.

Although it doesn’t show well in the picture, her wings are actually a brighter green and the decorative stitch I did on them is a little flower pattern. She seems quite happy now, her patience paid off and has given her a new lease on life. Having done this, I have a couple more that need the same make over. So remember, don’t toss those beginning projects just yet, keep them around a while and revisit them later when your skills improve along with your confidence.… I’m certainly no expert, but I have learned by just staying with it and practice practice practice.

Food For Thought

I’m on a rant today….sorry….In our fast paced world these days, we are quickly forgetting that simple things are the best. There are social networking sites where everyone wants to be your friend but that’s more because it’s a race to prove to everyone else that they have the most friends. You’ve seen those shows where people get all excited because they’ve reached “X” number of friends on their Facebook site or some other one. Yay I have a bazillion friends…!!!!!!!!!!!!! Whatever happened to enjoying the friends you have right in front of you, and please don’t spend time with friends texting them when they’re sitting across the room from you. Talk to them, yes, actually talk…speak words.

People don’t take the same pride in their jobs that they once did, a simple thing like a smile is becoming a thing of the past, “can I help you find something”, how often do you hear that anymore. For the most part I can say that here in my small town at least those things do still exist in most places. But really, how often do you hear it. I like this picture, this man looks like he really enjoys his work.

When you watch the news, what do you see.??? “We have breaking news”, and it’s usually some celebrity whose just been sent back to jail or just released or said something off key in a drunken state…

Like why do I care, I want to hear news of the day that has some value, news that has some significance, not news about who is breaking up with who or whose the latest celeb to get caught doing something naughty…Good grief, give me something meaningful to listen to. The one journalist who deserves the title as the “Best” has now retired, and I doubt there will be another like him. You could always count on him to give you a balanced point of view, none of the sensationalism that others think is interesting. He had his facts and best of all, when he brought his guests on he actually let them talk and tell us what we tuned in to hear. Enjoy your retirement Bill Moyers, you deserve it.

I could go on and on about what I see around me, but I’ll stop before your head keels over on your keyboard and I’ve put you to sleep reading all this. But I do have to end on the thing that started this rant. It was this email that came to my inbox this morning. The one line in this that really hit me, was near the end….it starts with…. “She doesn’t know me…and I will leave you to read the whole thing…. Have a wonderful week…and remember to touch base with those who really matter and give someone a smile, it doesn’t cost anything….

The Rain

It was a busy morning, about 8:30, when an elderly gentleman in his 80's arrived to have stitches removed from his thumb. He said he was in a hurry as he had an appointment at 9:00 am. I took his vital signs and had him take a seat, knowing it would be over an hour before someone would to able to see him. I saw him looking at his watch and decided, since I was not busy with another patient, I would evaluate his wound. On exam, it was well healed, so I talked to one of the doctors, got the needed supplies to remove his sutures and redress his wound.

While taking care of his wound, I asked him if he had another doctor's appointment this morning, as he was in such a hurry.The gentleman told me no, that he needed to go to the nursing home to eat breakfast with his wife. I inquired as to her health. He told me that she had been there for a while and that she was a victim of Alzheimer's Disease. As we talked, I asked if she would be upset if he was a bit late.

He replied that she no longer knew who he was, that she had not recognized him in five years now. I was surprised, and asked him, 'And you still go every morning, even though she doesn't know who you are?' He smiled as he patted my hand and said,

'She doesn't know me, but I still know who she is.'

I had to hold back tears as he left, I had goose bumps on my arm, and thought, 'That is the kind of love I want in my life." True love is neither physical, nor romantic. True love is an acceptance of all that is, has been, will be, and will not be.

With all the jokes and fun that are in e-mails,sometimes there is one that comes along that has an important message. This one I thought I could share with you. The happiest people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the best of everything they have.

'Life isn't about how to survive the storm,
But how to dance in the rain.'

We are all getting Older, tomorrow may be our turn.

Enjoy life now-it has an expiration date!

Dying Lace

While I was working away testing Colleen Babcock’s latest design, Snowflake Sprite, I realized that I needed some lace to work with the colour and the pattern of the fabric I chose. Since mine is a Christmas Sprite and because it has kind of a muted black pattern to the fabric, this began to feel like a bit of an “oh oh” moment. I had some of the lace to go around her middle and I had the crinoline type to use around her ankles, wrists, neck and hat…but I needed more to embellish elsewhere.  You can see from the picture that there are many places to trim which makes for a wonderful time spent on the floor of my workroom rummaging through my boxes of trims.

What I needed though was something to contrast with the black because otherwise, to me, it just seemed to much of just red and black. Off to the store and I found some dye for cold water and I picked up some packages of Kool Aid. I thought I might as well work on a few things at a time and try out a couple of techniques. I used two colours of lace, white and ivory. This is the result.

With the cold water dye and the colour, Ebony, I got this result. I don’t know the chemical reason why and it doesn’t matter to me actually. I enjoyed seeing the results and since I’m not so hung up on the details, it frees me up to just play and see what happens. It’s not perfect you can see the odd place where the dye didn’t take quite as well, but it’s fine with me, because I think it just adds to that vintage feel of the lace.

The next examples, I used Kool Aid. I don’t even remember the names of them, but you can see that orange and pink are the results. I absolutely love the results. I used to worry about trying to find the perfect contrasts of colours for projects until I tried this. I was so pleasantly surprized and happy with the results.

I have a collection of tonal laces without the stress of trying to seek them out. The pink set below is the same colour of Kool Aid, but the larger lace is originally ivory and the bottom piece was white, so you can see the subtle change but still within the group….

A wonderful playful moment. Give it a try sometime, just play and have fun. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t have to be what someone else likes, it just has to be a creative moment and it’s all about freeing yourself to not follow the rules. Besides, who made those rules in the first place.

Marie Close up

I should have posted this last time, but I didn’t have a good front view of her. The one picture I had, made the poor thing look like she already knew the guillotine was waiting…. Poor darling….

I also made this tag for the three large dolls I brought. I wasn’t the one that was going to be handling them, so I thought this tag would be a way of helping out those who were so they would know the best way to move them around.

Marie and Louis

Marie and Louis was privileged to be the center attraction of the first table as you came into the Gallery show. They looked so wonderful. I haven’t been out to the gallery to see how things are going, but tomorrow is the final day and we’ll all be there to claim our prized possessions.

Marie ended up with big hair, but I didn’t go to crazy with it. I had wanted to make little individual swirls on her hair, but time was not on my side. I did however add paper roses and cabochons and that  to me looked fine and in balance with the rest of her look. She also has her mask on and is ready to step onto the ballroom floor with her King Louis.

King Louis turned out so well. I hated to part with him as well, but if they haven’t sold, they’ll be coming home tomorrow. I had so much fun working on him because there aren’t nearly the number of patterns for male dolls as there are for females, so it was a nice change of pace. I just gave him a simple ponytail but I did add some ringlets to the side of his face. The jacket is made from a faux ultra suede and to me, it just looks so elegant. Two of the cotton fabrics have the musical notes pattern in keeping with Marie’s love for music.

Both dolls are fixed to wooden plaques, covered with wool felt and simply adorned with either paper roses and/or trims to match their costumes…..

Jesters and Ornaments

The time does fly doesn’t it. I’ve neglected my poor blog, shame on me. I was busy for over a week finishing up my dolls for the Gallery show and with that comes all the labelling, final touches, the once over’s and packing things up.

This is a Jester I started ages ago and is a design by Michelle Munzone. He is meant to be a Marionette but a few months ago I found this cute little castle at Michaels and decided to incorporate him with the castle. I did a stain on the castle and attached him to the top and his name then changed from “Orsino” to “Vigil for His Queen”. Since my theme was Marie Antoinette I was trying to finds ways to make a reference with each doll to that theme. This is his cute little Jester self. He’s a little different in that he’s much bigger than the castle, but it’s the story behind the look that I was going for.

 

The other thing I did was find this wonderful dress form at a local fabric store. Love that store, always such new and fresh fabrics which of course leads to more inspiration. I’m not a quilter in the traditional sense  but I do work on small projects, so they are my favourite resource for quilting fabrics. It always amazes me how those who design the fabrics continue to come up with new ideas for prints.

Since the theme of the doll show is "the figure”, this seemed to be a great fit. I had some ornaments left over from last Christmas that are corsets, I also had some half finished Merry Maubles from Michelle Munzone and her Pierrot Maubles that she gave as a free design to those who purchase her Merry Maubles pattern.

I decided to use this dress form to display the ornaments and it worked out well. The dress form was displayed in a corner at the Gallery so thankfully the ornaments only had to cover the front. I’ve exaggerated the look here by pushing them close together, but it’s just for the picture. They were much more spread out at the Gallery….

This is the last picture for today. I originally did this piece for a shoe art challenge on Joggles, if you’ve watched my blog for a while you will remember it. It seemed appropriate for my Marie Antoinette theme, so I renamed the piece “Preparing for the Ball”. It was a lot of fun to and especially so if you like to bead. More pictures tomorrow I think….so check back. (Toni, tomorrows pictures are for you…..)