Ellen - in green ferns and grey

 This is Ellen, a tubby Nora doll that sports the wonderful new fabric from The Botanist range by Lewis and Irene.  As always she has a tea dyed calico body and a hand painted, hand embroidered face.  Her hair is hand styled wool tops from the Clover range of natural wool roving and is a pleasing brunette.

Her ensemble is finished with beads and ribbons and she has a hand embroidered lavender bag around her shoulders picking up the pattern in her underskirts.  I have started using machine made cord to finish the lavender bags as it gives a good texture to complement the ribbons.

To make machine made cord, take some perle 5 weight thread in a complimentary colour, around 5 strands, and twist them together.  Set you machine to wide zigzag and reduce your stitch length.  Place the thread under the presser foot with a tail that you can hold.  Start stitching and pulling the cord through the machine, twisting at the same time with your other hand.  I sounds complicated but it really isn't and you can get some really pretty results - just a change from shop bought ribbon.