TWO NEW DOLL BABIES

I’ve been playing in the sewing room and have two new little baby dolls to add to my doll family. Now that I think about it I seem to have a habit of doing two of whatever it is I’m making at a time. I wonder if that means something……. probably not.

For whatever reason my dolls are almost always children but it’s been years since I made baby dolls. Back in the 1980s I took commissions for Cabbage Patch style dolls and all of those were babies or toddlers but since then these two little dolls are my first attempts at making babies.

Both of these babies are barely over 10 inches long which makes them much smaller than the ones I used to make. Jamie is a chubby baby boy with pale blue eyes. Since he has no hair and this house is quite cool this time of year I’ve made him a cap to match his sweater. He still needs some booties or shoes but right now he’s at the age where he’d be trying to pull them off and I do so love sweet little baby feet.

The baby girl Kimie is not as chubby and is dressed in only a sweater and diaper. I’d thought of making her a bonnet or hat but why cover all of that honey blond hair? Her eyes are a darker shade of blue than Jamie’s.

The way these two have been constructed allows them to be posed to assume many positions.

As fun as it was to make these two I don’t know if I’ll be making any more. Two seems to be my limit these days.

The other day I broke down and visited the craft store. I know I said I wasn’t going to go until I used up some of the supplies on hand but I’m weak and have no self-control!  I’m kidding.  I actually have tons of self-control. Really I do. Serious self-control… Anyway, back to the trip to the craft store. I went for one certain item, make that two items. A set of water color pencils and some water color paper.

I may have superior self-control but I'm also very suggestable.  After seeing what two of my friends posted on their blogs showing what they had been doing with water color pencils I wanted to join in on the fun. So far I haven’t had much success so I won’t be showing you anything right now. Maybe I’ll never have anything that is worth sharing but I am having fun playing around and wasting paper.

You should visit my friend Karen Anne at Ireland Brady and see the beautiful series of Bitty Betta Fish she’s just finished. They are amazing.  I also suggest that you visit Pam at yoborobo to see what she has been doing with her new Inktense water color pencils. These two talented artists have made working with water color pencils look easy but it really isn't so easy for some of us.  

Wishing you a happy week and as always, thanks for stopping by.

NOT A SINGLE SPARK

I didn’t give up my sorting and cleaning after my last post like I had planned on doing. I’d told you the heap blocking the closet door wasn’t a concern but I fibbed. I was just tired of cleaning and thought that since that heap wasn’t in the center of the room I could live with it for a while longer but once I’d acknowledged its existence I found myself becoming obsessed with it. I couldn’t get my mind off of it. That’s what happens to me sometimes. I become obsessed with things. So the mountain went from this

to this.

You’d be amazed by how much lighter it is in here now that the window isn’t being blocked.  

I can actually stand in front of the closet and open the doors which I haven’t been able to do in a very long time. Once I was able to open the doors there was a closet behind them that was begging to be organized and I knew that I wasn’t going to be happy until I did something about bringing order to the ciaos. I even made that trip to drop of all of the junk donations I have been gathering together for the thrift store. I have to admit that I nearly dislocated my shoulder patting myself on the back for finally taking care of that mess.  I’m now way ahead on my spring cleaning.

After all of the work I found myself completely lacking any spark of creativity or desire to do anything artistic. Not even the slightest flicker of inspiration. Nothing, Nada, zilch!!   The whole brain had become one big dead zone! The pile of doll parts didn’t cry out for my attention. The stack of canvases wasn’t calling my name. I’d thought about starting a quilt but couldn’t make up my mind on pattern or fabric. I gave up the quilt idea after spending one whole day cutting up fabric and then deciding I wasn’t feeling in a quilting mood after all.

My next thought was I could start making those beaded ornament covers that I want to decorate my tree with next Christmas and give to some of those special friends but since that would mean a trip to the craft store for supplies I nixed that idea for the time being. One of my goals for the new year is to use up some of the supplies I have on hand before buying anything more. Let's see how long I can do that, shall we?  

Then I considered working on some ACEOs hoping that I would start feeling creative. Even a little spark would be welcome right about now and since they are so small  it wouldn't even have to be that big a spark. Once that was decided I got out the boxes with my pens, pencils, paints and papers and actually managed to do two before deciding that I wasn't feeling it so that was the end of that!

The little bear cub looks a lot like I feel lately. Ho hum....

I guess I’m suffering Christmas withdrawals or maybe it’s just the January blues. Whatever it is, I’m in a slump. To try to get myself out of this slump I told myself I had to pick one thing to work on and then keep working on that thing until I felt like I have gained a mastery of whatever I chose to do.  Sounded like a plan to me but that’s as far as it went until yesterday morning when I talked myself into working on making some of these

 

I know that this makes little or no sense since I have no need for any more heads rolling around waiting for bodies and clothes. Could it be I like working on faces more than I like sewing clothes? Probably. I figure that if I make a head a day by this time next month I’ll have had my fill of them and then I can move on to making something else. I find that working with colored pencils on fabric to be quite challenging and I have no idea why it's taken me this long to discover how well the two work together. Who says old bags can't learn new tricks?

Now that I think about it, last year at this time I was sculpting heads using paper mache clay and didn't get tired of making them until I had about 2 dozen of the darn things. (Five of them still waiting for bodies.) Here I am doing the same thing only now I'm sculpting with fabric.

Am I the only one who is going through a dry spell? Are you feeling creative or are you like me and in need of a little spark? When you get in a slump what do you do to get out of it? I've always said that I never get bored because I never can find enough time to do all of the things I like to do. Maybe this is what it feels like to be bored. Maybe I've got to find something to do that I haven't got around to trying yet just as long as it doesn't require supplies I don't already have.

Take care and be creative if you can and as always, thanks for stopping by.

NOW WE HAVE TWO

I finished the second Irish lass, Penny's little sister Phoebe. Unlike Penny this little one is not a shelf sitter and is able to stand unassisted. She's made of muslin and is button jointed so she can be posed.

I decided to go with the 'Pumpkin' yarn for her hair which is thicker and longer than Penny's. 



Sampson and Katie decided to join the sisters for some play time. I think the colors in this photo are much truer than they were in the photos I showed on the last post. 

 

I'm hoping to be able to work on one of the paper mache bunnies this afternoon and I just might be able to start painting it tomorrow if I have time after I help Bellamine and Wendy bake some cookies. They have a new cookie cutter they want to try and they think baking cookies is a way of helping out around the house. I think cleaning the bath rooms would be a better way of helping but that suggestion got vetoed so I guess it's still my job.

Well, it's about time for me to get back to work. I've got a few messes to clean up so I can make a few more. I think I'm over the doll making bug and will be concentrating my efforts on getting those bunnies finished. It'll be Easter before long and I'll still be trying to get bunnies painted.

As always, thanks for stopping by.

Hugs,

Maddyrose

ONE OF THOSE DAYS

I'm having one of those days. You know the kind. Everything goes wrong and what doesn't go wrong takes forever to do.

The last post I did was nearly a week ago but I haven't been sitting here twiddling my thumbs. I've been busy but seem to get nothing completed. That is until this morning and I finished up a little Irish lass and was getting her photo session done when my camera battery died. That wouldn't have been so bad if I'd remembered to charge the other battery for it but I must have had one of those senior moments because it never got charged and now I have to either use the camera I don't like or use my phone if I want any more pictures or I have to wait until I have a battery charged up.

Since I've got too many other things to tend to I didn't want to wait so I thought I'd go ahead and post what I had.

Okay, I booted up my computer and intended to work on my photos a bit and wouldn't you just know it?!? The computer shut itself down. I have no idea why. So, I rebooted my computer and did my photo editing and then got ready to do my post and blogger said, "No way lady, no signing in for you."

I've messed around for nearly a half an hour and finally I'm all set. I think. So, here's one of the things I've been working on.

Remember when I said I don't make dolls? What was it, about a week or two ago? Well, it seems I do make dolls. I even make patterns for dolls. I guess I really should have said I don't normally make dolls. I call this little lass,  Penny. She's a shelf sitter and is made of muslin with a painted face and boots. I've dressed her in three coordinating fabrics and she has the most darling little unders that I'd planned on showing but there was the battery dying and all. As you can see off to the right of Penny is the old wooden bowl with a few of the pitiful shamrocks and the leprechaun that were experiments that the results were less than stellar.

Penny's hair is 'Paprika' wool worsted weight yarn that I've unraveled.  If you thought I named her Penny because of the hair, that isn't the reason. I'd have called her Paprika which just might be the name of her sister that I'll be working on later today.

She got her name from being "penny weighted". I found I had nothing on hand to weight her fanny so I decided to be inventive. Penny has 20 cents tucked into her backside.

The next doll that I'll be working on will differ slightly from this one as she will not be shelf sitter. Her hair may be Paprika or I might decide to use Pumpkin, I haven't decided yet.

I'm hoping to get a paper mache bunny or two finished before too much longer and now that I've started making dolls maybe I'll do a bit more experimenting and refining and who knows, maybe I'll be a doll maker when I grow up.

I sure hope you're enjoying better weather than we're having where I live. It's so windy I'm expecting to see a polar bear go flying by.

As always, thanks for stopping by.

Hugs,

Maddyrose

USING UP MY PINK FABRIC

First off I want to thank everyone who made suggestions for solving my blogger dilemma. I switched my browser and it seems to have corrected the problem on most of the blogs where I couldn't leave a comment. There are still a couple of them that aren't giving in that easily but I'm persistent and will eventually get to the bottom of this.

Now that I've started making messes in my work area after the "Great Cleanup of 2012" I've decided to keep at it. Since the pink fabric was just laying there on the table I gave some thought to what I could do with it.

At the beginning of last summer I stayed with my sister Maggie for a couple of weeks and while I was there she gave me a few things that were in her discard pile. I have no idea why these things were being tossed aside as they are really cool items. One of the items she gave me is a cloth doll with painted head, breast plate, forearms and boots. When I came home I tossed the doll related items into a box labeled doll supplies. After doing that I pretty much forgot about her. Now that I was trying to come up with an idea for using up some of the pink fabric I decided to give the doll a second look.

I make most of the patterns I use for sewing so I chose some fabric to work with, one solid and one small print and I started cutting and fitting paper and came up with this.

The dress has a dusty pink drop waist top trimmed with white lace hearts and a printed skirt and jacket. The jacket and skirt are fully lined in the pink solid.

There are a couple of you who seem to enjoy seeing pictures of fur kids so Sampson volunteered to join Mildred for the photo session.

I hadn't planned for Mildred to be seated in the bowl of hearts but was told she preferred sitting on pillows rather than the hard, cold marble. I can see how that would be preferable. I think I'll make her a cushion as her sitting in the bowl makes the hearts impossible to see. 

After making the cushion I think I might leave any more sewing for some future date. I'm not sure which direction I'll be heading next but will end up finding something that tickles my interest, no worries there. Perhaps later this morning I'll cook up some paper pulp and make a batch of paper mache clay to work with. I have a couple of pieces that have been around since early November that need to be finished.

My Christmas stuff is still waiting to be put away. I have high hopes that I'll have some help with that this coming weekend. It's a bit difficult trying to decorate for Valentine's Day with Christmas still hanging on. Wish me luck.

As always, thanks for stopping by.