Bought Myself A Birthday Gift

A few weeks ago, I purchased a clothes pin doll on etsy from dollproject.com. The artist’s name is Jessica Hamilton. She makes different kinds of art dolls but I am completely smitten with her pin dolls- they could not be sweeter. She calls them pin dolls because they are made from wooden clothespins. I have been dropping big hints to my family about my birthday (halloween baby) coming up and how much I love love love these little treasures..time will tell.

Rag Doll

A friend of mine recently asked me if I would make a rag doll appropriate for a 3 1/2 year old to play with as she is refinishing a doll crib from the 1950’s and wanted to put a doll inside the crib to give to this little girl for Christmas. I have never made a doll that a child would actually be playing with so it was a challenge. I searched the internet for examples of rag dolls/patterns. There’s lots of different styles out there. I decided I wanted something a bit modern without the traditional yarn hair used on many rag dolls. After over an hour of looking at everything on line and not seeing anything that I really wanted, I was minutes away from just drawing a patten myself when I came across the pattern for this doll. It is featured on Martha Stewart’s website. There is even a video of the designer creating it with Martha. She has an etsy site called theblackapple.etsy.com. She offers this pattern free (when used for self or gift- not to be sold) on Martha’s site. My version is basically her pattern with a few added extras - I changed the size so the final product would be 16 inches and added the skirt and jacket. She turned out great- soft and loveable and best of all completely washable! Her skirt has an elastic waistband and her jacket is removable so the little girl will be able to dress and undress to her heart’s content. I hope she loves her!

After completing this doll I decided to make a second one. She has a bit of a different hair style but otherwise the same. She will also be a Christmas gift for a little girl.

The Big E and Art Doll Quarterly

My submission to this year’s Eastern States Exposition,”A Day At The Fair” received a First Place ribbon- very exciting. Since I blogged the entire creation process I felt it was only fitting to announce the results.
I also heard from Art Doll Quarterly this week. They have accepted the photo submission of my Vintage Spirit dolls to be part of their Bottle Doll Challenge. The results of this challenge will be published in the February Issue. I look forward to seeing which photos/dolls of mine they will use as well as what style dolls other people have created incorporating a bottle. Art Doll Quarterly is a superbly constructed magazine published by Stampington that showcases the work of mixed-media doll artists. I am honored to be included in the next issue and highly recommend subscribing to this magazine.
I am not working on a doll currently, but feel the pull to start the next piece tugging at my brain more and more each day. I have been thinking of another bottle doll (maybe one that features the art deco style?) I’m just not sure what direction I want to go. My knitting shop on etsy called Fuzzy Knits (fuzzyknits.etsy.com) takes up lots of my time during the fall and winter months so extra time for doll making is slim. Also. with the holidays fast approaching I need to design or find an ornament pattern I want to make for my children’s stockings as well as my co-workers at school and get them constructed. Last year I was still beading ornaments the day before Christmas and I definitely don’t want to find myself in that position again this year