A New Doll Size, Milly Dolls

This is Milly, she is a new size of doll with a tiny frame and refined proportions.  I love making my bird dolls and really enjoy the size, so I redesigned a pattern to make a smaller doll and Milly mini dolls were the result.

As always she has a hand painted face and hand embroidered eye lashes and brows. Her hair is hand styled powder pink wool tops and she is dressed in a lovely Liberty Lawn called Poppy & Daisy.  The finishing is neat with organza ribbon and tiny buttons, little leather shoes and a lavender bag.

She is stuffed softly with lavender in her stuffing and  a rose quartz heart for love. She stands just under eleven inches tall and I thoroughly enjoyed making her.  The pattern is quite versatile and I hope to be able to make Milly dolls in different styles, which I am greatly looking forward to. I hope she makes you smile too.

How I Use Stones

When making my girls I nearly always try to include a stone at her core.  I am a great believer in the comfort stones can give and like the herbs I use in their stuffing giving a gentle scent, the stones add to the nature of each dolls.  Each doll I make is unique, no repeats of the same combinations and the stones help to define their characters in my mind.

Rose Quartz - Love

I use rose quartz more than any other stone.  My great grandma taught me about stones and to her they were all precious because they were so hard to get hold of in the early part of the twentieth century.  Now you can pick up a piece of rose quartz for pence but then they were a treasure.  She taught me their meanings and I think she would approve of how I use them.

Rose Quartz if a stone for love, warmth and gentleness

Smokey Quartz - Gounding

Smokey Quartz is another stone I use quite often, it is a stone for gounding, for keeping your feet firmly on the earth and for giving a sense of balance, with Smokey Quartz I sometimes use a tiny piece of Quartz for balance, it makes for a gentle combination.

Amethyst is for peace and tranquillity.  I use it often and I like the feeling it gives.  I always use tumbled stones because they are easier to get hold of but more importantly they are smooth so they won't pierce the fabric.

Amethyst - Peace

 Turquoise come in a variety of shades of well turquoise and I use it for gentle strength.  Its been used as a sacred stone the millennia

and has a warmth & colour like not other stone.  When first out of the rock it is often the softest turquoise but the colour gets stronger when exposed to the air.

Turquoise - Strength

I used to tumble my own stones as well as buy them from local shops.  Quite often in the stones I found around our local woodlands and footpaths were lots of Moss Agate or Tree Agate.  It is a stone close to my heart and I use it quite often.  To me it means hope and joy in the future, a very posititve stone.

Moss Agate - Hope

  It is a form of chalcedony which includes minerals of a green colour embedded in the stone, forming filaments and other patterns suggestive of moss. You would think that moss has been trapped in the stone and preserved.

The others stones shown here I don't use as often and usually only when requested in commission pieces.  If someone wants a particular stone that they use or are fond of I will try to get hold of a piece for their doll.

Jade - Balance

Lapis Lazuli - Clarity or Insight

I also have used Pyrite for protection and Calcite for calming. I like my stones and for me they only add to my dolls.

Tuesday Talent - Rose at Thicket & Thimble

Fenella

 Thicket and Thimble are fine woodland creatures made by Rose in Blackheath, London.

Inspired by the birth of her daughter and memories of her grandmother she borrowed a sewing machine and taught herself how to sew.  Her girls are made with felt, feathers, tulle and lots of love.  There are three characters in her collection, Hebe Hare, Delphine Dormouse and Fenella Fawn.  The detail is very pretty.

I love the floaty quality that the tulle brings and in so many different colours.  The style and the details of the headbands are a great touch, truly charming.  To find more of her work visit thicketandthimble.com and prepare to be enchanted.

Delphine

Hebe

Adeline, A Rag Doll in Liberty Lawn

Adeline is a handmade rag doll made to my Agatha pattern so she is the tallest girl I make at 17 inches tall.  This doll's body is made from a vintage piece of calico, tea stained for age.  The calico is a more open weave and gives her a homespun appearance.  She has a hand painted face with hand embroidery for definition.  Her hair is the softest of browns with a faint hint of pink.

She has a rose quartz heart for love and lavender in her stuffing for a gentle scent.  She is dressed in a Liberty Tana Lawn fabric called Meadow.  This is a lovely 1930s floral design. It was printed as a wood block print at Liberty’s Merton printworks. Meadow was revived in the 1970s and has been on Classic Tana since 1986. It is in shades of soft purples and peaches on a cream background.  Her underskirts coordinate and are a powerloom spun cotton, with a lace underskirt to finish.  She has matching knickers and little leather shoes.  Her whole outfit is finished with organza ribbon and tiny button with a lavender sachet embroidered in sampler style.

Everything about Adeline has the softest feel, she is sweetheart.

Tuesday Talent - Les Petites Mains by Sarah

Lapin Cerise

 Les Petite Mains hail from Montreal in Canada and are lovingly created by Sarah.  For a time she made dolls that hinted at the style of Jess Brown but very quickly they became her own creations.

She states herself that she doesn't like doing doubles so many of her girls are one of a kind or limited edition.  Recently she has moved away from her full sized dolls and started making her mini dolls, better for little hands maybe. These have all the charm of the full sized girls with only half the size.  She has also started to make these wonderful rabbits and cats. They are made with natural fabrics like linen. wool or cotton, with removeable clothing and lots of French Canadian style. Their names are delightful, featured here are Lapin Cerise, Lapin Sanae and Lulu.

Sarah says of her work “Les petites mains” comes from a desire to create things I liked, at my own rhythm and to fulfill my artistic needs. It was my way to slow the world we are living in… I needed to find back the pleasure of working with my hands at my pace.'

Lapin Sanae

Lulu

You can find more of Sarah's work at her Etsy shop or on Instagram, for chic rabbits and stylish cats have a peep.

www.etsy.com/uk/shop/lespetitesmains or instagram.com/lespetitesmainss

Viola, A Rag Doll in Liberty Lawn

  Viola is an Ida Doll pattern so she is only twelve inches tall but still nice and tubby.  As always her face is hand painted and hand stitched and she has a rose quartz crystal heart for love. She has lavender in her stuffing for a gentle scent. Viola has a warm and tranquil expression with soft brown eyes and even softer brown hair.

Her dress in a Liberty of London Tana Lawn print called Ros.   It was designed for the Autumn/Winter collection of 2002 and is now a Liberty Classic.  The tiny violas are a subtle two toned print in pink with her knickers and underskirts coordinating.  She is finished with organza ribbon and tiny buttons with little leather shoes.  Her sachet is stitched in sampler style and is stuffed with lavender.  I like the chinzyness of the fabric and the soft colours of the doll, it makes, I feel, for a very sweet combination.  I hope you like her.

Tuesday Talent - Midori Takaki

 We had a great day out in London on Sunday, going to Ceramic Art London 2017 at Central St Martins in Granary Square.

Becca is in the final year of her MA and is gathering information ready for when she launches herself into the commercial world.  I just like looking at beautriful things and there were a lot of beautiful pieces.  But the lady who stole my heart was this lady, Midori Takaki.  Originally from Japan and now living in England she creates these wonderful dolls that straddle east and west.  The colours are intense and the detail charming, really worth taking a closer look.  Midori says she captures floating thoughts in clay, even writing her journal in clay. Her girls are light and playful with tiny details caught in the clay.  I particularly like her wanderings into the world of fairy stories, Alice and Red Riding Hood I really enjoy.  But her heads filled with spring flowers were so bright they made you smile.

For more information about herself and her work she has a website at www.midoritakaki.co.uk, with a lovely gallery and details of how to purchase a piece should you wish to.

Red Riding Hood

Alice