Next!!

I’m onto my first need to be done Christmas projects. These are the starts of my “Little Singers” by Jill Maas. Aren’t they crazy all lined up in the egg cartons but it seemed like the best thing to do to keep them from rolling all over the place. Thankfully the cat is to old to care about little heads rolling around, she has enough trouble staying on her feet now, poor darling..

As you can see, they do not by any stretch of the imagination, have the same size mouths, but then none of us do either. I think it’ll give them more character, some of them have more teeth than others to…They’re so funny looking right now.

I have all the little zip lock bags lined up with their bodies, arms, knitted scarves and touques and I made the little carolling books. But for now the faces are getting done and then onto the hair and so on. Some are gifts, some for sale at a local shop. Fun fun fun….

I’ll send pics as these progress. 

Arley Berryhill Workshops

Well, Arley has come and gone but what a great four days we had with him. As with all good teachers, he gave us great instruction, paid attention to everyone and shared his tips and tricks.

One thing I really appreciated, was that at the very beginning of the first day, he made it known, that when he’s teaching, nobody talks but him. That was perfect. There’s nothing worse than when you’re trying to hear what the teacher is saying and people around you are talking, then of course because they weren’t paying attention, now they want you to fill in the gaps….NOT!!  I just refer them to the teacher, I’m not going to be blamed for the wrong information…I figured out a long time ago not to give anyone help like that, ask the teacher, that’s what they’re there to do.

So getting back to the workshops. Of course it’s never possible to finish your dolls completely, at least not if you want to make them the best you can. These are pictures of where I’m at with them, but for now they have to go on hold for a while. I have several things to finish for Christmas sales and personal items for gifts, so I need to do those. Then back to these ladies.

Here’s the mermaid to date. I’m heading down to the waterfront sometime this week to find a nice piece of driftwood to display her. I have a ton of beadwork and embellishing still to do on her, but I’m happy with how far I got with her.

And here is my Candlestick Diva so far. I was quite impressed with how I managed to work out the faces on both of them. Of course, not the fine detail that Arley seems to manage, but I’m not unhappy at all with what I’ve done.. As with the Mermaid, still some things to do. but when they are done, I will post the finished results.

Arley Berryhill Workshops

Arley will be here tomorrow for four days, to take our doll club through two workshops. The first will be his gorgeous Mermaid..

The second one will be his Candlestick Diva. My favourite of the two, but will look forward to learning his techniques for both.

My homework is done. I pulled out two different stands for the Mermaid. I won’t know which will work until I have the whole Mermaid put together. The one I prefer is something I found at a local general store. It reminds me of driftwood on the beach and thought it would be an interesting way to display her. We shall see. If it ends up being the candlestick so be it, but I think I can make the driftwood piece work just fine because her tail is wired so I can hopefully make it bend enough to fit and the driftwood pieces can be made a bit taller.

My homework for the Diva is done. I love the candlestick, I found it at the dollar store, who knew…

I might paint some colour onto it later, but I’m going to wait and see how the whole piece looks when it’s done. Usually less is best…I think she will appreciate me adding her arms, kind of reminds me of that comedy movie will Meryl Streep  and Goldie Hawn. Long time rivals and they both wanted the same man because he had the magic elixir for eternal youth. Long and short of it, they both died but they continued to exist in a funky way. Sad part is, their body parts kept falling off and they had to rely on each other to put the parts back in place…. Okay, sick sense of humour, but it was a funny movie. You would have to suspend your disbelief to watch it….lol  Death Becomes Her

Today will be spent putting together all the things to embellish these ladies, put all my supplies together and off early tomorrow for fun fun fun…

 

An outing and long post

We went on an outing Friday to Salt Spring Island. We live on an island already but we have so many smaller islands between us and the mainland of British Columbia called the Gulf Islands. There are to many to count and most are uninhabited other than the wildlife that live there.

For anyone who doesn’t know about our ferry system, it’s considered the busiest in the world. It’s not just based here, there are terminals all along the coast and connect our island to the gulf islands and the mainland of BC.

Salt Spring is considered by us to be kind of last bastion of the hippie era. It’s a different kind of life style, very laid back and easy going. It’s a wonderful place to be and the Saturday market in the summer is a sight to see. We started off with breakfast at one of our favourites, the Tree House Cafe. It’s built up a lot since our last visit, but essentially it is built around a big tree in the courtyard.

I always have to stop in at their quilt shop which is not just a quilt shop, but a wealth of inspiration. They have moved to a building that is so much more interesting. There are smaller rooms off the one and each one is dedicated to a specific theme. One is for silks, another for knitting, a paverpol area, mixed media and more. It’s just a great place to spend time and enjoy the surrounding.  Click here for Stitches.

We did a little shopping, came away with a couple of gifts for friends, then headed up the road to see what else was going on. We were told about this little place for lunch so we went walking to work up an appetite. The food was very good and we had live music by way of Jock who, back in the day, played his flute, clarinet and sax during the big band era with all the greats. Here’s a link to the restaurant and be sure to click on “Area History” when you get there and look through the pictures. I love those old pictures… Raven St. Market

There is a wharf nearby that we went for a walk along. Although this isn’t the best of pictures given what I was trying to photograph, I did manage this. There was a fresh spawning of Perch and from all sides of the wharf, thousands and thousands a little Perch. We looked down between some pylons and could see many sizes of Perch and most probably momma Perch. They were feeding on the barnacles that grow on the pylons and all the other little things that live in the water. And yes, I had my camera cord firmly wrapped around my fingers.

After lunch we headed over to Ruckle Park, near the ferry terminal. There is always beautiful scenery everywhere you look. I especially love our provincial parks, they hold such peaceful energy and mystery at the same time. I love this tree, it’s like something out of a spooking Halloween movie. Doesn’t it just feel like someone in a mask is going to pop out from behind it.

I spotted mushrooms everywhere, all sizes,  due of course to the climate of the park but unless you know which one are edible, you never try them. This was the biggest one I spotted and it was about 10” across and they were sized down to the little ones about 1/2” across.

Then I found out who it is that does enjoy the food supplied by Mother Nature. We watched him for a while. Have you seen these guys before, they are called Bannana slugs. He was really enjoying his meal.

Getting ready to leave the park and head to the ferry, I took this picture. It’s my desktop, picture perfect. Couldn’t you just sit and enjoy the view forever.

Here comes our taxi to take us home. It may appear that this is a big ferry, but in fact, it’s a very small one that is used to go back and forth to Salt Spring. The ones going to the smaller islands, use even smaller ferries.

For perspective, the ships captain had to give the right of way to the larger ferry on the way home. It’s a very busy waterway between us, the gulf islands and the mainland and if you’re in a small boat when the ferries are going through, you better respect the regulations of the waterway and get out of the way because the ferries will not and cannot veer off their course. Many small boats have met head on with ferries and yes, fatalities have occurred.

You can see the cars on our ferry and I’m not sure, but I’m guessing maybe 50 cars or so. On the big ferries, you don’t see the cars, trucks, buses, semi’s and more, they are down below and easily 200 plus vehicles and their passengers. It’s a wonderful ride across Georgia Strait if you ever make it here. If you’re really lucky as I was a couple of times. you might even get to watch a pod of Orca Whales travel alongside the ferry for a while.  A great day out, short but sweet…. So until next time, go out and enjoy what’s around you. It’s constantly changing.

Ophelia

My Mummy Dearest project with Cindee Moyer is done and as you can see her name is now Ophelia. This was a fun project because the costuming was so simple… No seams to match…lol  She will make a great addition to Halloween decor.

I’m not sure how much longer the class will run at Joggles, but check it out if you are interested. It doesn’t take long to make and is a fun project to put you in the Halloween state of mind.

 

Haste Makes Waste….

Have you ever done something so stupid that if you had just simply STOPPED, taken a breath and then continued but more slowly, things would have been so different.?  Yeah, that was me yesterday. We were going out for dinner last night and in keeping with the promise I kept to myself, I was working on some new clothes. Very simple pants and top.

I was busy screaming along at Star Trek warp speed 10 finishing off the seam edges, when it happened. I see this happen on Project Runway and wonder how they could do that. Now I know…. Thankfully hubby was home and could fix things for me.

See this needle, and see the broken part. That measures between 1/4th – 3/8ths of an inch. That’s the piece I slammed into my finger. Holy Moley and would you believe it didn’t even hurt and still doesn’t hurt this morning. Hubby had to use some really fine tweezers and was able to eventually get one part of the tweezers under one side and grab the piece and slide out as well as a piece of thread …

If you look at the small hole at the tip of my finger, that’s where the needle went in. I have no idea how the other happened, perhaps the broken part of the needle that also bent, must have banged into my finger and cut the skin. Stupid stupid stupid….Don’t do what I do, it’s not fun and so avoidable.

But on the lighter side, I did get the outfit finished but at a much reduced rate of speed….

Two new projects

This first one is Mummy Dearest. A class I’m doing with Cindee Moyer. Cindee’s dolls are sweet and for anyone who likes to do dolls that aren’t to embellished this is the way to go. She has a style all her own and it’s always fun to look at her site and see what temptation she is highlighting this month. Some are patterns or classes, some aren’t, but they are all just perfectly Cindee. So this is her Mummy Dearest, one more lesson to go and she’ll be finished..

The next doll is from a pattern by Judy Wellnitz. This is Emmaline, one of the Stump Sisters. I’ve done more on her since I took this picture, but I was especially happy with how the face turned out. Same with Mummy. As we all know, the face is what people will look at first and foremost, so the better that is, the more they stay and look… Will post the finished looks soon…