Sweet Child

Well.......in my last post, I think I promised some progress shots of this sweet child as I was painting her - and then promptly forgot to take them, when I got carried away with the painting process. Sorry 'bout that if you were waiting for them! Next time, I'll try and remember.
So this child is finished except for her clothes, which I will start on tonight. I'm planning a warm Autumn outfit for her with some knitted and crocheted garments as well as this snug little bonnet (unfinished) that she is already wearing.
The tomato inundation is continuing apace.......I'll let you know how drying them goes. The sauce I made last week is mighty tasty!

The Problem Of Joints

No, I don't mean sleazy bars, the kind some people smoke or the arthritic ones that some of us are plagued by...........I mean the problem of creating joints in dolls.
There is no doubt that any form of jointing in a doll is a bit of a compromise - you usually have to sacrifice some of the sculptural purity of your piece to achieve that joint mobility.
Of course, you can completely avoid the problem by completely avoiding any form of jointing, but it could be argued that a fixed figure is more a piece a sculpture than a doll ("doll" to many people implies a degree of interactivity and it is hard to interact with a rigid piece of sculpture, but that is an argument for another day. Suffice it to say that some things occupy a space somewhere between "doll" and "sculpture".)

Fixed figure - is it a doll?

You can create successful joints quite simply by sewing hinges into your fabric limbs like this:

Simple hinge joints - dolls can be very posable

Sometimes I like to create dolls with disc jointed hips and thread jointed shoulders:

And neck joints:

Sometimes I experiment with knee joints, which require a bit of forethought to be successfully executed in fabric.

Cloth knees

Some people are complete masters of the jointing problem - I'm thinking of those patient people who spend months making a BJD (ball jointed doll) with up to fifteen joints all strung together with elastic for total posability.....I'm in awe of that prodigious achievement! Maybe when I have a lot of spare time I might have a go at making one myself!

Oh No! Nekkid!

This is the little "green head" beginning to look quite acceptable and now I'll be spending the next few evenings getting her decently clothed. A couple of my readers asked how I attach the head to the body. This is one way: I hope it is clear enough in these pictures - just make two holes in the front and two holes in the back using an awl (give it your awl!) and attach using strong thread. Make sure you start and end it off very securely, otherwise your doll might suffer a terrible beheading! This little doll has disc-jointed hips and thread-jointed shoulders and needle-sculpted toes and knees. The wig is strawberry-blonde Tibetan lamb.

KK Doll Gets A Body and Serendipitous Socks

Worked at the weekend to give this new doll a body. Although not strictly a reproduction Kaethe Kruse-type body, it's a reasonable facsimlie. I haven't been able to work out just from old photos exactly how her bodies were constructed, but the were quite complicated with lots of seaming to give them the characteristic shape. For example, each leg alone had four seams and the feet were constructed from separate pieces. Also, she used "nettle cloth" (don't know what that is), and reindeer hair for stuffing (where am I going to get THAT from!!)
So this week I am going to work on an outfit for this doll - I've been looking at pictures of original Doll 1's to get some ideas. I already had these vintage socks which I bought in 2003 - they have never fitted anything I've made, but serendipitously, they fit this doll perfectly.

Later this week I'll be posting about the upcoming giveaway, so stay tuned!

Viola and the Big Wind

Here is the doll I was working on this week almost done. Her stockings are painted - I just need to make her some little leather shoes, underwear and a little crochet tan cape. Her simple dress has a bit of hand embroidery and the gingham binding at the bottom of the sleeves to liven it up a bit. She's called "Viola Rose" and she has cloth over clay head and lower limbs and cloth body and upper limbs.
We've been having a quite  a "traditional" cold, snowy, wet, windy winter this year - like the winters of more than ten years ago. Recent winters have been much milder with hardly any snow in the mountains and not much in the way of wind. This is what we saw when we looked out on the morning  of July 4th after a night of particularly wild, stormy weather - our little greenhouse blown off its footings and just a mangled wreck of aluminium and broken glass! Fortunately our insurance covers it, so we will be able to get a new one before summer.

Serene little Viola

Viola closeup

After the storm!

Not quite finished, but.........

Here is the little doll I was working on last week while I was looking after my son's children. In between cricket, circus practice, homework supervision, art activities, cooking, washing etc. I managed to steal a bit of time to do some of my own work. I'm still working on the clothing (don't look too closely - you'll see unhemmed edges), but she's finished enough to show her face here. I enjoyed crocheting the little lacy cap and I'm planning to give her a white apron with a similar crocheted bib front.

And here's a piece from my sketchbook - unfinished - that I've been working on. If you want to know what it is all about, click on the image in the Flickr Photostream to the right and it will take you right there - all will be explained!

I've Been Featured!

Dixie Redmond is a wonderful selfless artist, dollmaker and researcher who does so much to promote dollmaking, especially re-creations of the cloth dolls of the past, through her website, blog and Ning group. She has been running a series of "interviews" with dollmakers who use antique cloth dolls as their inspiration. Today, she posted an interview with me on http://www.maidatoday.com/. So if you want to read a bit about what makes me tick, head on over there and have a look. While you are at it, check out her blog, (http://www.northdixiedesigns.com/) where she often features techniques and works-in-progress and maybe you might even like to join up at http://www.maidatoday.ning.com/ for a great forum about antique-inspired dolls. You can even take an online class there.

One of Dixie's faithful Izannah Walker style dolls made from patterns she produced after painstaking research on original dolls.