Shoes

During the last meeting of the Textile Tarts, a member demonstrated how to make shoes using Paper Clay. These are the ones that I completed. They are quite small, only about one inch high. They are made of air dry clay, embroidery floss laces, and thin black ribbon. Now I need to determine the "person" that is wearing these shoes! Fun!

  

Seagull

Made this seagull just for fun.

March 19: Although I liked this seagull, I always though something was missing. He just seemed a little plain to me. So today I went back to him and added a bit of embellishment. He now has lace on his webbed feet with a tiny white pearl on the top edge. He also has a piece of deep blue lace on his tail feathers embellished with small black beads. And I also embellished his wings with small white pearl beads. I like him better now....is he finished??

Penny

I finished my 10th wall doll- Penny.  She holds a lucky penny!

Swap Finished

We had our December meeting of the Textile Tarts which included the Tilda Swap so I am now able to post the doll that I made for this swap.

I especially like her blue suede fur topped boots. She has a new home now and my desire to make Tilda style dolls is done- at least for the near future. They are a lot of fun to make though, so there's no telling what the future could bring.

Tilda Swap

Last month I pitched the idea of doing a Tilda theme for our Textile Tarts December swap. People were receptive, and there were no other ideas on the table, so a Tilda swap it will be!
The internet is full of Tilda's- every style imaginable.  It was decided that each member could choose any size and style Tilda that they wanted to make- the sky's the limit! It should be fun to see all the Tilda dolls.

Last May I joined my town's garden club. They also have a swap at their December meeting so I decided to make two Tilda's- one for each swap! That way I get the fun of making two, but don't end up with two after all is said and done. Actually, I will end up with a new one created by someone in the Tarts.

                                               

This is the one I am going to use for the garden club swap. I picked the dress fabric first- it's very sheer so I doubled it creating a puffy skirt. I thought all the flowers said "Garden Party".  After that it was just a matter of pulling colors out of the skirt to make the rest of her outfit. She is a very simple doll to sew so it really is all about the costuming.   

 After I finished the doll, I realized I had the perfect chair! She is only 13 inches seated or 17 inches standing. The Tilda doll patterns from the books are much larger, but I do like this size.

 I know I am taking a chance bringing her to the garden club swap as they are not necessarily fabric doll people, but I'm going to do it anyway. She is holding flowers so there is a connection. Once I see what people bring this year, I will know what is expected for next year.

Dragon

I put all my plants outside during the summer months which leaves lots of "empty" places inside. I noticed an empty pedestal not long ago and decided it needed a dragon. So I made this one.

The head, neck and tail are wired for flexibility and allow posing. The teeth and nails are made using Paper Clay that I varnish once dried. And the eyes are glass.

Here he is at home.

The Duchess

My third and final bottle doll for this summer- I need to make someone with feet pretty soon!

I call her The Duchess. Constructing her had its challenges. First. I only had a tiny amount of fabric. Actually, the red satin brocade fabric came from a sample book of different fabrics which meant I only had about an 8 inch by 10 inch piece. I fussy cut the bodice to get the design centered on her torso which left very little extra for sleeves and skirt. When I finally did get to the skirt I switched to the gold fabric with a red lining- also from the sample book. So....challenge #1: no room for error on the fabric.
Challenge #2 was getting the skirt attached to the bodice. The neck of this bottle swerves in and out so attaching a gathered skirt was no easy feat. I don't know how many times I thought I had it only to flip it over and find half of it unattached. Very frustrating. In the end I managed to clothe her in high style. The beautiful rhinestone belt she wears is a left over piece of bling from my daughter-in-law's wedding dress as is the circular button attached to the seal on the bottle and her earrings.  The red ribbon and the seal are part of the original bottle so my colors were dictated by that.
Well, enough about her construction...here she is.

I stole the fan she is holding in these pictures from one of my other bottle dolls so I could take a few  pictures and be done. But I will be making her her own fan in the future. Otherwise she is finished.