Thora, Twyla and Tessa

Thora

I have been having a play with my patterns and using a mixture of fabrics both new and recycled I have made three new dolls of varying sizes. Thora, the first girl is my old pattern and is wearing an old print with cabbages, I think it was a a Rohan Fabric by the designer Martha Negley. All the girls are wearing this, it was a gift from a friend of my aunt when she was winding down her workroom.  Thora, Twyla and Tessa all have stripy legs thanks to one of David's shirt that gave out this summer and the pink blouses are from Aunty Irene's new summer blouse which she covered with fence paint.  It is a great fabric to work with and I would have liked more. A pyjama top of Becca's made Twyla's and Tessa's knickers and underskirts.  The girls sit well together and are nicely coordinated. Twyla is a very tall girl, she is 50cm and is the tallest girl I have made, when I elongated the pattern, it elongated her head quite considerably and I am not unhappy with the result.  She is stuffed soft and that gives a light cosy feel.  Overall I am quite happy with the long pattern but I am not sure I will make more.  Tessa or ten ton Tessa is an uber tuby maid, I played with the pattern and pulled her wide, she stands 40cm and a good 20cm at the waist.  I like her but I am not sure she will be a good seller but I am happy to make more if she is well liked.  It is interesting to play with patterns and see what you get, I wish I had more time to play but needs must as they say.  I am working on my wedding orders and starting to make a few pieces for Christmas but I need to explore my fairy tale girls and I am thoroughly looking forward to it. I hope everyone is enjoying the season, we are getting some lovely colours but the nights are starting to pull in here.  Best wishes to you all.

Twyla

Tessa

Autumn Birthday Doll Cards

I was asked to make a 21st Birthday Card for a customer to accompany a birthday doll in Autumn colours for an October birthday.  It had to be something doll based and I was a little at a loss to know where to start.  Then I found Julie Nutting's book on couture fashion paper dolls, that led me to her stamps by Prima Marketing and suddenly I have a whole new interest!  I can once more play with paper dolls.  This was an abiding passion of mine as a child, a new paper doll book kept me quiet a long time.  My Grandma Ida used to go into Chorley to an Aladdin's Cave of a Newsagents cum book shop cum card shop called Rigbye's on Eaves Lane.  This card shop was amazing, you had an occasion and they would have a card for it.  I once bought a special birthday card for my cat!  But they had all kinds of old fashioned notions and that included a regular supply of paper doll books.  One I remember was a collections of fifties outfits for a Connie Francis Paper Doll and this was in the seventies!  Why Connie Francis I don't know but it inspired me to revisit her paper doll collection during my City and Guilds, where I was exploring printing and made the papers all into doll outfits.  You could still find the original paper doll online.  Happy, happy days.  However, the stamps by Julie Nutting are just wonderful, there are so many, in so many styles and you really can make them individual.  It is just so much fun and you get to pick lovely papers and play with them. For once it is me who is raiding Becca's stash, rather than the other way round.  She is being very gracious about it and has even had a go at making an old fashioned victorian school boy, with black hair and cut out cat eyes.  I cannot recommend Julie Nutting's books for inspiration and so many pieces inspired by her stamps on Pinterest.   I enjoyed making these cards so much and they fit so well with my dolls that I think I will continue to make them and slowly add to my collection of Julie Nutting stamps.  This is my first foray into card making for anyone other than family and it is a whole new world of colour and pattern, I hope you like them.

Autumn Embroidery

 I have had such a busy summer, lots of lovely trips out in July and some serious hard work in August.  Lots and lots of lovely commissions, mostly for weddings but also some interesting ideas customers wanted.  Its been good, hard work but enjoyable.  I've had a few days to myself and to look around and our leaves are starting to change, the horse chestnut leaves have gone, the acers are going and the beech are starting to go.  We have had a nip of frost that has touched the geraniums and our glorious summer looks like it will be a lovely autumn.  This little piece of machine work was inspired by the delightful painting by Gustav Klimt of a grove of silver birch trees in all their autumn glory.  It is worked on a piece of wonderfully rich orange cotton velvet, machined, appliqued with fabric, silk, satin & synthetics, cut into tiny pieces, all in tonal colours and finally using romeo water soluble to create an edge of swirls and circles.  I have used a lighter to burn into the velvet to create a loose pattern of holes.  Here it is simply laid on a piece of black cotton velvet. Well, looking forward to a colourful autumn I am going to start work on some dolls for the shop and hopefully on a series of fairy tale girls, using the Rhoda doll pattern.  I have had a lovely few days working on an autumnal girl as a 21st birthday gift for a young lady in October and the customer has asked if I could make a birthday card to accompany the doll.  This is a first for me and such a great idea, that it has set me off rumaging in my stash and in my daughter's card stash.  I does you good to have a change, gets the creative juices flowing!

Potfest in the Park, a grand day out in Penrith

What a day we have had up in Penrith at Hutton in the Forrest.  My daughter is in her last year of a ceramics degree course and is doing research for her dissertation on Figurative Ceramics.  So we have been to lots of fairs and shows looking at the most wonderful work.  Earlier in the month we went to Hatfield for Art in Clay, which was fantastic.  Try to to to the show but if you can't go to the show, Hatfield House is worth a visit. So is the show at Potfest in the Park, lively, friendly and just lovely.  

 We have been having unseasonal weather here in Lancashire, it was near 28 degrees today, which is not the usual soggy summer that we get.  So wandering around a ceramics festival in the dry in Cumbria was a surprise but forgetting the scorching sun it was so worth seeing some of the work on show.  I can't start to describe the talent we have in this country, it was a real pleasure.  If your about the North Lakes this weekend and fancy a different day out I can heartily recommend Potfest in the Park.  Next weekend, 1st to 3rd August is Potfest in the Pens in Penrith and I am told this is jolly good day too - no doubt I will find out on Friday.  Being a doll maker and liking the figure so much the two artists that I have included were my favourites but there was so much good work.

Christy Keeny

Sally Macdonnell

 

Evadne, Little Miss Pink

This young lady is in the Rhoda series of dolls, she stands 50 cm and has a nice slim profile, with, of course, a large bottom!  She is wearing Tilda fabric, it was a gift for my birthday and is a joy to use, such subtle colours.  Her underskirt and knickers are also Tilda fabric and her legs are a shabby chic linen I found on ebay, trimmed with a gentle pink gingham ribbon.  She has a little linen scarf to her neck and a crocheted pink hat.  Her hair is Trimmits natural wool roving and I just love the colour.  It is a proper candy floss colour and very sweet.   

 I am hoping to do some more Rhoda dolls in differing colours for my Folksy shop and for stock but I have been so busy with work for weddings I feel I have neglected my blog and my shop. I am not complaining, all work is welcome and I do so enjoy it.   I am about to start a series of fairy character dolls for a lady in France and I am going to try and do two of everything and see how that works out.  One for the order and one for the shop.  I still have dreams of going to a craft fair and having a stall but that hasn't happened yet.  I would be interested to know of any really good craft fair organisers people have used.  Some where in the north of England.  We have had the most glorious summer so far, as I write we are baking in a heat haze, luckily the trees to the back provide some shade but it is so hot.  We are definately not used to this in Lancashire, it isn't raining which is not normal, and hasn't rained for nearly a week, very uncanny.  Becca, who lives in jeans, at all times, is actually wearing shorts - I can see her legs, amazing. So sitting in my little cabin slowly baking I send you all my warmest thoughts and best wishes.

Tilda, a little tubby lady.

This little lady is Tilda, she stands twelve inches tall and is made from tea dyed calico.  Her dress is made from fragments of fabric I discovered whilst having a tidy up after a big order.  The new style of Rhoda and Connie dolls are selling well but I had the urge to make an older pattern and Tilda is what came about.  I have made a girl very similar in the past and I love the whimsical and nostalgic fabrics in soft duck egg blue and berries.  Her knickers and underskirt are my Aunty Irene's kitchen blind fabric, (which I had fun making). Her stripy legs and little heart are what is left from a shirt of my husband's and the fabric makes great legs.  He has a red stripe one that I am trying to persuade him is going at the collar and then I can lay claim!

I think her hair is a little dark but it sits well with the fabric and her stripy heart, I couldn't find the perfect match. I will keep looking out for a different shade of wool tops and maybe have a change. 
I have discovered a new range of wool tops, 'Trimits Natural Wool Roving' it sells at Hobbycraft of all places and comes in small amounts just right for doll hair and is really quite cheap.  The range is very good and it is lovely to use.  I think they do the best yellow blond I have seen and I find blond hard to find, it's always too yellow like a sunflower or too cream.  Having found the pattern I have the urge to make a few more like her and put them in my craft fair stock, all different fabrics but all with lovely stripy legs.  Hope you like her.

 

 

Orla, Florrie, Maeve, Livia and Polly Dolly Brooches

I have made so many of these little ladies just lately, all for a wedding of a lovley couple from Dumfries - a little bride and groom, five pink silk skirted bridesmaids and thirty six little girls in pink as favours for the ladies, Janine the blushing bride, gave them to her guests before the wedding to wear as corsages, she collects dolls and had a doll themed wedding. Great fun, so I thought I would make a few more for my Folksy shop. They are lovely and fiddly to make and I settled on using net as a underskirt to reduce the weight, they stand at just slightly over 11cm or 4.5inches with a little brooch back. They look great on denim and an aunt of mine wears hers on her summer fleece and it looks good.

I am thinking of trying out some more summery versions with summer dresses and short bolero jackets without the winter hat and with maybe a head scarf - I am still working on the idea and will post one as soon as I work it out.  I am refining the bride and groom and will definately post the happy couple when I've worked them out more to my liking.
I hope you like them and would love to hear more of your comments. All the best, Pook.