Tuesday Talent - Api's Dolls

Have just found this little doll shop on Etsy, Api's Dolls is a new shop from the North of England.  I know nothing about the artist but found these little ladies very sweet.

There are a range of dolls from chic super fashion girls with removable clothes to little cats, rabbits and mice, many using lovely Liberty fabrics.

They use yarn or wool for hair and have delicate pretty faces hand painted in acrylic.  Great detail.  The dolls are so new there are few links to Pinterest but there is a Facebook page, so have a peep there and at the Etsy shop for these adorable rag dolls.

Tuesday Talent - Sophie Tilley

Sophie Tilley is an artist that I greatly admire, she is the maker of one of my dolls to own list.  She is a doll maker, illustrator and story writer from North Wales. At one point she made beautiful cloth dolls with black bobbed hair and the sweetest expression but now she has a signature wooden doll dressed in cloth and paint - a reworking of the traditional peg doll.

This little lady is just lovely with bright blue eyes and a rosebud mouth, I particularly like the ones with the headscarf.  Now if you want to see more of her dolls you cannot go wrong with Pinterest or with her website www.sophietilley.com but if you want to buy one you will have to be patient.  They don't seem to ever be readily available, the Etsy shop seems to have shut down and the web site has great pictures but no dolls to buy.  I do confess I just enjoy looking at them, their stylish outfits and colour combinations appeal and give me inspirations for colour choices I might not have made naturally.  Sophie's mother was French and she seems to have that effortless continental flair.

I would like a finished doll using Sophie's fabulous pick of fabrics but for those who like a do it yourself approach there is a kit featuring a plain wooden doll for you to make your own.  Keep an eye on the website for developments if you are interested.

Little Red Riding Robin

 I have wanted to do this for a while and spent the weekend making Little Red Riding Robin.

She is my normal embroidered Robin doll with the addition of a sampler style pinny and a red silk lined cape.  Her pretty dress is made of a Moda cotton called Petite Odile by French General and it gives the doll a gentle balance of reds and pinks.  She also has some pink to her embroidery to tie everything together.

She has coordinating underskirts and knickers with an embroidered lavender sachet.  Her dress is finished wih silk ribbon and buttons to the back. Her hood will sit nicely on her head but looks better down to emphasise her head with all the embroidery and this enables it to hand from the brass hook on her back.  She is only tiny, being around eight to nine inches tall and this gives her a delicacy that I like with these dolls.  I think I am going for an Alice ( in Wonderland) Blue Tit next.

Tuesday Talent - The Magpie & The Wardrobe

 The Magpie and The Wardrobe is a shop run by artist Sam McKechnie and she makes the most wonderful 'Fairies'.  They are all around the same design but their costumes are delightful and never reapeated.

She sells through the Designers Guild and through Selvedge Magazine but her girls are like hen's teeth very rare and quite hard to buy.  Her website is very stylish and every bit as attractive as her dolls, you can find her at 'www.themagpieandthewardrobe.com' and it is well worth having a peep.

She has also written a rather excellent book on folklore and natural magic called The Magpie and the Wardrobe A Curiosity of Folklore, Magic and Spells.        'It is a lovingly curated compendium of time-honoured traditions and curious customs that have bewitched us for generations.'
Nothing sinister just a collection of old fashioned ideas like peeling the skin of an apple and throwing in over you shoulder to find the initial of your true loves name.  A little gentle hedgewitchery.  I have a copy and it is so beautrifully illustrated that I use it as a source of colour ideas.  All in all this is a very elegant lady making very lovely dolls.

A Red Riding Hood Moment

By Willowynn

I have wanted to make a series of dolls based on fairy stories and on favourite literary people for a while. I have started with my most favoured character, Red Ring Hood. It is not so much the story that grabs me as the images created by the story.

There are some wonderful interpretations of her character and I have been collecting other peoples doll ideas on Pinterest. There are so many and if you want to take a look it is at 'https://uk.pinterest.com/carolbarwell/little-red-riding-hood/' There are 427 pins to date and growing!

The story of Red Riding Hood has origins as far back as the tenth century, one of the earliest is The False Grandmother or La Finta Nonna. Charles Perrault's version is the one more commonly known and is the first version to include the red hood, his version is known as Le Petit Chaperon Rouge is from the 17th century. In it there is no happy ending as Red Riding Hood climbs into bed with the wolf and is eaten. The first version to include the hunter or the woodsman is The Brothers Grimm story in their collection Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales (1812).  The story as called Rotkäppchen and is very similar to Perrault's version except the huntsman save the day.

There seem to be versions of this tale from all over the world, even a tale called The Grandaunt Tiger from China.  The big bad wolf is sometimes a giant or an ogre even a werewolf in some versions but the moral is still the same, if you are well brought up maiden don't trust a stranger you meet in the woods!

Becca Thorne

Alan Dart

Magpie and the Wardrobe

Tuesday Talent - Bobby Hawcutt

 BobbyDollsBoutique is an Etsy shop run by the very talented gentleman Bobby Hawcutt from Lincoln and that is all I know.  He doesn't have a huge Pinterest presence but there are more dolls to see there and it is worth a look.

His glamorous fashion dolls are dainty, Mademoiselle Lobelia, just right, is only twelve inches tall but beautifully detailed.  The faces are hand painted and accented with glitter paint. The hair is hand styled wool tops.  They have an internal wire armature so they can take gentle poses.  Mademoiselle Lobelia is every inch the glamour puss but some of his girls are more natural with flowing hair and high fashion outfits.  Pistachio took my eye on Pinterest as did Miss Blackberry below.  Have peep at him on Etsy or Pinterest he really is very good, great style.

A Grand Day Out - Bowes Museum, Co Durham

Described as the Woman in Black

The Bowes Museum is a grand French style chateau high in the hills of County Durham.  It is essentially the collection of Josephine Bowes and her eccentric husband.  We have been regular visitors for years and over that time the collection has been refined and developed, the displays have been vastly improved and they have started holding significant exhibitions.

We went to see 'Pleasure and Pain, A History of Shoes', which was great fun and beautifully staged. Sadly we could not take pictures but the exhibition runs until the ninth of October and is worth a visit.

We spent the morning doing that, had a lovely lunch in their award winning cafe and then went on the hunt for more to see. Having the time to wander was such a boon, it afforded me the opportunity to really look at some of the stunning pieces they now have.  Pretty soon I found myself looking at the images and sculptures they had that captured the beauty of the feminine.  Their picture galleries are now fully open and there are some very beautiful images of women of all ages and tucked away there are sculptures that hold your eye. All in all a really great day, its easy to find, lots of car parking and so many interesting objects well worth a visit if you are up that way,

She made me think of Snow White!

Amazing detail of the lace

Marie Antoinette hand painted onto a vase

A mourning piece