The Little Acorn Child......

......is done!

We're into the last few weeks of winter now, with the promise of Spring all around - warmer days, wind, sun, blossoms. It feels great to be alive!

Here's another doll I'm working on:

And look! The other day my husband came home from a little shopping trip with a guilty look on his face, saying, "I did something very bad". Bad, bad Bob! Look at the size of that baby! This is what happens when children who had chocolate-deprived childhoods grow up!

Decisions....decisions!

What to wear?

Maybe a little smocked dress from the print fabric.......with little matching bloomers, a cardigan from the red wool, socks and sandals.......and she's asking could she p-l-e-e-e-e-a-s-e have some little crochet flowers on her hat!

One of the online groups I belong to is hosting a "Not My Colour" Challenge - The challenge being to create a doll in a colour that is not what you see when you look in the mirror. So using my recent pattern and face-mask, I'm making this little brown child. I suppose I could have gone with purple or green, but I think she's a cutie!

Hannelore

This is the fourth completed doll I've made using my "Pensive Child" face mould. Although they have all come out of the same mould, they look quite different with very different hairstyles. This one reminds me so much of a German child from the 1930's, that I had to give her an appropriate old-fashioned German name - Hannelore. She has custom made leather shoes, hand-knitted socks and cardigan, a dress made from reproduction fabric and a little batiste apron with feather stitching. She will be listed in my Etsy store shortly

S-L-O-W Bob!

I'm happy to say that after about a year of neglect, my husband has finally started to seriously update the blog that I helped him with............at last!
I added some gallery links to the top of his blog - don't know what he thought of my titles - all I got was a wry look when I told him that I called one "Sunset Swoons" - and then he told me that some were sunrises! I notice that he hasn't changed it, though.

http://bob-mytasmania.blogspot.com for more.

Unfinished Business

Here are some of the things I'm working on......since taking the photo, some of these have been completed, so I'm chipping away at the pile!

I've been helping my friend, Loretta, turn one of her sculpted face-masks into a complete doll - here's the progress so far. Top photo shows the mask turned into a head with the features pencilled in and the lower picture shows the head, cloth-covered and painted with the beginnings of a wig. I'll keep you posted about progess and let you know how you can buy one of Loretta's face masks when I get a bit more done.

Winterlude......The Joy Of Music

I have just spent a weekend away on a winter music camp organized by our community orchestra. Around fifty five enthusiastic instrumentalists gathered at Ulverstone for an intensive few days of music-making.

This is Willem van der Vis, from Melbourne, who was our conductor and mentor for the weekend - he managed to squeeze a reasonable facsimile of a Beethoven Symphony from us by Sunday afternoon!

The ensemble

Fraser - a study in concentration.

An uncharacteristic quite moment in the brass section!

A "backache of basses"!

The loneliness of the long-distance percussionist!

There was time to fly.........

.....play a spot of golf

or just stroll on the beach.

It was a wonderful weekend full of music, laughter and cameraderie. Can't wait to do it again!