Delphine Completed

This has been such an enjoyable project because I have been under no pressure to get it completed in between quite a few summer visitors and social occasions. Sometimes deadlines are the enemy of enjoyment!

"Delphine" (not sure if this is really her name, but it will do for now) is complete and I'm quite happy with the outcome. Just to remind you, I made her to wear the antique baby shoes given to me for my birthday a year and a half ago by my sister Linda. I wanted her to be a bit special, so I painted her head with oil paints - there is just that little added something using oils instead of acrylics. 

"Delphine" is a 22" (56 cms) jointed cloth doll with a sculpted cloth-covered head. I made her wig from lincoln sheep fleece. 

She is wearing the combinations and smocked dress that I posted about previously and I have added commercial cotton baby socks, a petticoat which I trimmed with a crochet edging, a winter coat with stitched detail edging and hand-knitted mittens, scarf and beret. She's dressed for mid-winter, even though it is high summer here right now! A little shoulder-bag with an embroidered hankie inside completes her. 

A SUMMER PROJECT

I usually find that summer gives me some spare time to work on a special project or two. This summer, I decided to make another large oil-painted (head) doll to fit a pair of antique child's shoes that were a gift. I made one a while ago as a special order and thoroughly enjoyed the whole process. I'm now retired so I can make things at my leisure and as I choose. This doll will have a jointed cloth body and will probably end up being around 21" (53 cms) tall. 

                                                               The antique child's boots

I sculpted a head from air-dry clay after working out the approximate size it needed to be, using the boots as a guide. 

                                              The head sculpt. 

The sculpt was covered in cotton knit fabric, which was sized, sanded, gessoed and under-painted ready for the oil painting process.

The prepared head, ready for painting.

Oil painting takes quite a while, because it is done in multiple layers, which require drying time in between.

The first layers of oil paint.

                                                                  Subsequent layering

While I was waiting for the layers of paint to dry enough to continue, I drafted a pattern - hopefully it won't need to much adjustment. I've also been working on the wig. And thinking about clothes and finishing touches. 

Long Time!

I haven't posted anything here in quite a while - my bad! Life seems to get in the way of regular blogging and I'm not sure the limited traffic on blogs these days justifies the time spent writing them etc. Despite that, I'll try and be better and more regular, because I DO like writing a blog - if for nothing more than that it is a kind of potted diary of what I'm doing. 

Here's some new work:

Rueben and Daphne.

These are two cloth dolls completed earlier this year.

Two knitted frogs - DotPebbles pattern

These were great fun to make.

And finally, just to show evidence of the cold snap we had this past winter, here are some pictures of frost tracery on my back porch windows after a week of hard frosts.

Two Cloth Dolls

Spring is really in the air after a particularly mild winter - my fruit trees are in blossom about three weeks early and bulbs are flowering everywhere. Time to come out of hibernation and get into the garden! I am usually quite productive over winter, and this year is no exception.

One of my winter projects was the making of these two all-cloth dolls. They are a bit experimental in how I made the heads. They were needle-sculpted in wool first and then given an overlay of knit cotton fabric, which was catch-stitched to the form underneath. It was a lovely way to work. Both dolls are around fourteen inches high and finished with all the usual hand-made detail.

 

Recent Work

Autumn is slowly drifting into winter, so I'm starting to spend more time inside when it's too inclement to work in the garden. Autumn came late this year, but now, a few days before winter officially begins, the trees are almost leafless and grey, rainy days are more frequent.

More inside time means more working on dolls by the fire, which is a lovely thing to do. Here are two dolls I've recently completed. The little boy in the sailor suit was commissioned and the striped-dress girl was started last year as a needle-felting experiment. The head on this doll is needle-felted then covered with fabric which is catch-stitched to the felted form underneath. I'm quite happy with the result and may make more dolls like this.

New Stuff

Here are some things I've been working on in recent weeks - some of these are available in my Etsy  store (link in side bar)..........some special little "Sukeshi" dolls and a couple of needle-felted critters. Always busy!