Rockin Round Robin Challenge

I participated in a Round Robin challenge with my doll club this year.  We each made a doll body and blank head and placed it in a brown paper bag.  The doll was then passed from dollmaker to dollmaker, each artist completing one of the dolls features.  One worked on the face, another the hair, etc.  This has been going on for months, but today we got our original dolls back!

I chose Ute Vasina's Little Folks pattern for my base.  He is made with doe suede, a buttery fabric that hides seams well.  I needle sculpted an extra face in case the first person to get my bag was afraid to needle sculpt.  Then he went into a bag and was hidden from me for nine months!    

I was particularly happy with the work on did on some of the other dolls.  I had never worked on  finished a flat face before.  Painting the features on is a challenge for me.  I don't have control of the amount of paint or the movement of the brush and I give up before I really start.  I had no idea how I was going to make this work.  

I'm Gen X, I figure I can use technology to help me with anything, right?  So I took a picture of this pristine white face on a one inch grid.  I scaled the photo so that it printed exactly life size.  I even found faces I liked and used transparent overlays to find features I liked.

I printed one out that I was satisfied with, folded it in half and pinned it to the head.  Then I drew a mirror of the printed image.  Over and over and over again.  So, eventually the face was drawn in pencil, but so what?  That's not presentable...  I decided to try colored pencil instead of paint.  I have a lot of Prismacolors, and assembled the colors from their portrait set.  AND I checked every dollmaking book out of the library and followed every direction for coloring faces I could find.  

It took layer upon layer of colored pencil to get the effect I wanted, but I was so happy with the results. I hope I can replicate the process with some of the unfinished dolls I have in the closet!

So here's the big reveal.....

It's Snickle Fritz!  Fritzie for short.  

He likes to play tricks on, well, everyone.  

And he's kind of crotchety, but like the old man in Up, everyone loves him anyway.

Face by Julie G, clothes by Mary, hair by Nita, embellishments by Ann R, shoes by Ann C, and presentation by Julie W.  Thank you all for such wonderful work!

We all worked on Fritzie, but I'm glad he gets to come home with me!

To see all the other round robin dolls, visit the Indy Cloth Dollmakers blog.

My Chinny Chun Woo

My doll club was fortunate to have Leslie Molen come for a workshop.  She is an amazing instructor, if you have a chance to learn from her, take it!

We chose to make a little Chinese doll named Chun Woo.  Our homework was to have almost the entire doll and costume finished.  We were working on the head and assembly of the body in class.  I made her shirt and hat from beautiful Anna Griffin fabric, and the pants coordinate so well with huge blossoms on them.

Here are her hand painted buggy eyes.  Chun Woo has a needle sculpted face that is covered with another layer of cloth for a cleaner look.

It's hard to believe the difference that eyelids and some makeup made!

And here she is all finished!  I love her so much.  The experience was amazing, from the new techniques that I learned to the little tips Leslie had for making a face more innocent.

Thank you Leslie for being a great teacher and for designing such beautiful dolls.  If you haven't yet, please check out her website or blog.

Quilts in Progress

I have a bunch of projects that I started and put down for one reason or another.  I hope that posting them for all the world to see will force me to finish them.  Here are three quilts that I would like to finish in 2011!

My Sister's Wedding Quilt

This is my sister's wedding gift, but her wedding was in 2009...  I have the top pieced and I started stitching in the ditch to quilt it.  I am about a quarter of the way done with quilting, but Guterman stopped selling the color thread I was using.  After I ran out of thread, it got boxed up and forgotten about.  My sister has been very patiently waiting for long enough!  It's time to pull this out of the closet and finish it already.

My Daughter's Crib Quilt

I wanted a Muppets theme for our nursery, which meant making most everything.  You can't just buy a Fozzie Bear bedding set at Babies R Us.  I have this applique quilt and matching curtains almost done.  I just have to finish the decorative stitches on the curtain panels and machine quilt the blanket.  I want to learn free-motion quilting for this project, which has honestly scared the bejeezus out of me.  So I put it aside.  

(Actually, I just left it on the dining room table for the last 5 months.)

But I want to finally take some pictures of B on it while she's still a baby.  She just turned 6 months old, time to pick it back up!

My Niece's Crib Quilt

I have loved every step of making this Clamshell Quilt.  My neices' nursery is ocean themed, get it?  This one is just time consuming because each clamshell has to be hand-stitched to the shell below it.  I work on it when I go to various craft nights, but same story as my daughter's; it's going to have to get finished before her first birthday!

My goal is to finish these and some handmade Christmas gifts, B's halloween costume, a scarf for me, and some more fairies to sell at my doll club's annual Show and Sale in December, all by the end of 2011.  I think I need a drink.