The Magic Bean

Cover Girl

Christmas has come in May!  My stuffing arrived from America (finally) and the new issue of Stitch magazine arrived too!  And even better - Patti Medaris Culea is the cover girl!  There are 6 whole pages of Patti - three on how to use stamps to create fibre postcards and ATC's (that is, Artist Trading Cards to the uniniaited) and three pages about Patti herself accompanied by some fantastic colour photos of Patti's dolls. Mmmmmm......dolls.  Excuse me while I drool.

The stamps Patti uses are her own designs.  The company that produces the stamps, Ready Stamps, provides employment for people with special needs through the Cerebral Palsy Foundation.  So when you are happily buying up Patti's stamps you ae also helping a great cause.  You can buy Patti's stamps from Rainbow Silks in the UK and from Joggles in the US.

There is a great post on Pattis blog about stamping on fabric with some other fun ideas about what you can do with stamped fabric.  Check it out by clicking here.

Flower Child

I am on a roll!  As I sit here not so patiently waiting for my stuffing to arrive from America I must still find something doll-related to do.  (It's kind of like inhaling and exhaling after all).  And as I have all sorts of problem with my hands, I have to get going when the going is good. 

So here is another contribution to my doll club's display board.  I bought this fabric and trim with Barbara Willis and Betts Vidal on a terrific buying spree in San Francisco.  I saw a very similar trim in MacCullogh and Wallis in central London recently for £15.75 a metre.  I bought this trim for 75 cents a yard at what Barbara and Betts call the 'cheap and nasty store'.  I personally think it should be called the 'cheap and fantastic' store.  If I ever go there again I may have to genuflect at its entrance.

The pattern is a great one designed by Jill Maas.  Even better than cheap, it is free! The fantastic thing about the internet is that there is an abundance, a plethora, I would even go so far as to say a glut, of free stuff out there for doll makers.  One great way to get free stuff is to sign up for the Doll Makers Journey newsletter.  It arrives once a month with news on challenges, conferences, tips, new patterns being released and yes, free patterns.  You can still get this pattern by clicking here. 

Beady Eyed

I have been waiting for stuffing to arrive from the states for 2 weeks now (two weeks!).  And I've worked on my Venice inspired doll a bit, but very frustratingly, I need stuffing to continue and I refuse to use the terrible stuff that bunches.  (I have a closet full).

So, it was a giant blessing that my doll club are doing a couple of display boards to put up in Rainbow Silks where we have our meetings.  I was asked to do a face with beading.  And decided to pull out Creative Cloth Doll Beading by Patti Medaris Culea, Laura McCabe and Annie Hesse.  I pulled open Annie Hesse's chapter which focuses on bead embroidered faces and look what I came up with!  Holy Beading Fun Batman!

Off with their heads!

The last meeting of the Rainbow Doll Club did not involve gruesome medieval execution but rather a demonstration by Wendy about how to make a head in Barbara Willis' style using a knit fabric.  Wendy even made this gorgeous pin doll using Barbara's style of head for our first pin challenge. (Check out the Photo Album on the side bar for more pin dolls from other members).  Unfortunately, I couldn't make the meeting, which was held at Chris' (one of our members) place of work, Blue Haze in Chesham.  Normally, meetings are held at Rainbow Silks in Great Missenden (hence our club's name). 

Luckily for me though, I have taken classes with Barbara herself when she has visited Britain.  If you were not lucky enough to catch one of Barbara's classes or to see Wendy's demo then I have it on good authority that there are two places left in Barbara's course this fall at Teresa Malyon's studio in Clacton-on-Sea.  Barbara will be teaching this gorgeous doll using the very same method that Wendy was talking about at the meeting, along with all sorts of other fabulous Barbara tricks.   Isn't she adorable!  If you are interested, contact Teresa.

The next meeting of the Rainbow Club Dollmakers is scheduled for Wednesday June 13th at 1:30pm at Rainbowsilks.  At the moment we are talking about having a demo on stuffing body parts. And I am shamelessly and selfishly begging for help with basic crochet so I can make little doll embellishments.  If you are interested in coming along to drink tea, learn new things, talk to fellow doll addicts and of course, shop at Rainbow Silks then please contact me or Wendy.  We'd love some new blood and I promise - no be-headings, only head-making.

Are you mocking me?

I do not think well in two dimensions.  I can draw, but I think better in three dimensions.  So when I am developing a pattern I have to make a mock-up.  I had done my head pattern, but when I did an arm and body I realised the chin was too pointy, so I grabbed a bit of fabric, pulled it under and stuck it in place with a pin (wouldn't it be great if you could that to yourself?).  Then I played with faces and mocked up the lower body.  She's a very far cry from where she is going to end up, but she is getting there.  When i redo the head I'll play around more with the face painting.

The lower body is going to be based on the architecture of Venice.  Complete with chipped stucco, roof tiles, exposed brick and windows with peeling paint.  Plus, my dad is working his magic again and coming up with an easy to put together staff made of wood to look like the striped poles they tie boats to in Venice.

I am so eager to really push forward but I am at an empasse - I ran out of Fairfields stuffing.  I have tried 3 other brands.  Let's just say I decided to 'stuff' the other brands.  So I am waiting for my Fairfields to arrive from America.  I was contemplating waiting on the doorstep for the postman, but thought that would look too desperate.

Why is Fairfields so good, I hear you ask?  Because it doesn't go in lumpy, it sculpts well and it stays put over the years.  Mmmmm....Fairfields.  Can't wait.

Headcase

I've just finished my Bea in her Bonnet pattern and I'm off and running again!  This time I'm making a doll inspired by Venice and I was so eager to get going.  So this weekend I spent hours coming up with head patterns.  And it took a mere 6 versions to get what a wanted.  A doddle really.

I wanted a version with a chin gusset.  Ages ago, I tried drafting a head with a chin gusset similar to the one on the advanced doll in Patti Medaris Culea's first book.  It worked, but that was just copying.  So this time I tried a different shape.  Of course, in one of my first attempts I sewed the chin gusset to the forehead - not a good place for the chin.  Here she is with her chin where it belongs: 

I stuck her head on the end of my stuffing fork.  They don't look like much when they are just on a noggin on a stick - except possibly Celine Dion.

Testing, testing 1,2,3....

Well I am the first to admit that I can be a bit anal.  So after finishing Bea in her Bonnet I decided to test my pattern and my instructions.  I am offering Bea as an online class on the Cloth Doll Connection and I would hate for someone to being doing the class and find a major, glaring boo-boo.  So I made Strawberry Pavlova as a test. 

The idea behind Bea in her Bonnet is that the bees might be busy but it is really the fairies who add that extra bit of sweetness to the honey.  Bea is one of those fairies.  while she was sitting on the edge of a honey jar to conduct a taste test, she slipped backwards.  And we've caught her just at that moment when she has found herself in a stitcky situation!

With Strawberry Pavlova I changed the theme a bit (juste pour le fun).  This time our fairy finds herself in a bit of a jam.    Literally.  Besides testing my pattern I decided to try out some different materials to see how they compared.  The most interesting experiment was with the wings.  I used acrylic felt on Bea with Galactica paint by Stewart Gill as a resist.  With Strawberry Pavlova I used polyester felt, namely Kunin felt and Stewart Gill Metallica.  I actually preferred the acrylic - it burnt more evenly and much more quickly.  Plus, it is cheaper. 

I also played around with the hat pattern so that i came up with this wonky crown effect. I painted the Fibretex on the outside with acrylic craft paints and used Stewart Gill Metallica on the inside.  The Metallica paint resists burning into holes whereas the acrylic breaks up much more readily.  The cool side effect of this is that the outside burned to reveal the green Metallica underneath.  If I had used all acrylics the effect would have been different again - lacier.

The best part about making a doll for an online class is that I get to claim that making dolls is 'working'.  I 'have to' make dolls.  I 'have to' make another one to test my pattern.  Oooh, life is hard.  Sigh. 

The Weird Animal

I'm not talking about the naked mole rat - although that is a pretty weird animal. I am talking about creativity.  Some people say they don't have any and some people think they have it because they once made a paperweight out of a rock.  Thing is, I think we all have it.  The trick is just finding it.  Then actually doing something with it.  Then believing in yourself enough to continue to do it.  No wonder some people give up.

I can't say I ever gave up.  But a year and a half ago I decided that I wanted to design my own original cloth doll pattern.  I took an online course with Patti Medaris Culea.  It was great because I learned the techniques, but I was still making Patti's type of doll.  No matter how I furrowed my brow, I couldn't come up with an original thought.  Even my standard 'wallow in the bath' technique did not prove inspirational.  So I went back to the patterns of others.  I didn't give up mind you, I just thought that if I acted disinterested and distracted I might just catch creativity unawares.

I ended up visiting a great shop when visiting San Franciso called Kati Koos (http://www.katikoos.com/).  I could have moved in there.  It seemed like I had found creativity's hiding spot.  My mind started working.  Less than a month later, I was looking at Dawn Schiller's website http://www.autumnthings.com/main.html.  Dawn does mostly polymer clay dolls along with some cloth.  I can't even say what about her site finally brought out the ideas - my resulting dolls look nothing like hers.  Maybe it was that Dawn and the woman who owns Kati Koos seemed be be having so much fun.  Once I let go and started to have fun the ideas really started to come, one after the other in a flood.

And I finally finished my first original design.  Nothing easy is ever worth having.  Bea in her Bonnet was worth the wait!