October's Meeting

We had our monthly meeting on Saturday and we worked on our Halloween project. We agreed at our last meeting we would all make a witch. The witches that were not completed were worked on while we chatted about everything that came to mind. The photo to the right is Jean's witch she named Prada. As you can see she is going to be a very fashionable witch, hence the name. She used a pattern designed by Julie McCullough. It's still in the construction stage and we can't wait to see it finished. Sandi chose to use a pattern designed by Patty Culea. She also worked on completing hers along with Vivian while we all chatted. I didn't get a photo of Vivian's doll this time but will have it in the next post when it's completed. I had finished mine and had it up for show & tell. I used a free pattern of a witches head used for a pin doll from Mary Tressler's site. The rest of the doll was my own. I call her my spider witch. Next Sandi suggested a pattern we should try. It's the free pattern offered by Judy Skeel for her challenge. We decided it will be our Christmas Holiday doll. It will be our project for December. Next month's project will be a doll made up with 2 colors picked from a bag. There was some interesting color combinations drawn . The pattern we will use is also a free pattern offered by Rivkah Rosenfeld called Francesca.

They should all turn out great.

September's Meeting

Our September meeting started with show & tell. This month's show & tell had quite a few dolls because we didn't meet last month. Some of us attended the Doll Day function which fell on the same date as our usual meeting. So during that break, we all have been busy making dolls. There's my Charmed Cobra and Ethiopian Queen in the photo on the right. The doll on the bottom left with the brown curly hair was made by Jean and the striped doll is also mine, both made from the Annie LaBouche pattern. At the bottom is Sandi's Etta Mae and friends. In the photo on the left. Sandi's Ethiopian Queen was added. We all had a good laugh listening to Jean's story about how she got Etta Mae fever. She blamed it all on me because I made them also and brought them to show & tell for a previous meeting. I'm glad I was able to get your creative juices flowing Sandi, you did a great job on all of them! At our last meeting I had mentioned some hats I had made a few years ago from an online class. I said I would bring them for them to see. Now I'll have to make dolls to wear these hats. Our project for this meeting was to make the How's My Hair? doll. It was a pattern from the July 2007 issue Soft Dolls & Animals magazine. We thought it would be a fun pattern to work on and it was. Four of us completed the doll and we decided we would submit it to the magazine.

Next on the agenda was my needle sculpting demonstration. I was asked to demonstrate to the members how to do needlesculpting. Sandi and Vivian wanted to learn how it's done to incorporate it in some of their future dolls. It was fun seeing how each face turned out. Nice job ladies! What we've decided to do for our next meeting is make a witch doll. Since it will be ghost and goblin season, why not? It doesn't have to be a typical witch so it will be interesting to see what we come up with. This concludes September's meeting. We had a lot of fun as usual.

July's Meeting

July's Meeting began as always with show and tell. We all brought in our completed mixed part teapot dolls from our last meeting. As you may recall we swapped parts we each made from different fabric and took them home to complete. Here are the finished pots. They all turned out lovely. From left rear to right is the pot made by Vivian then there's Sandi's pot. There's mine (Venus) and then Jean's. We all agreed it was a fun project. Sandi brought in a project she was working on which is turning out fabulous. I can't wait to see it finished. It is also a project I am looking forward to working on. It's the Ethopian Queen, a Kookie Davis pattern. Sandi is doing a fabulous job. Jean showed 2 dolls she completed since we last met which are adorable. She made a doll from the EttaMae pattern and one from the Annie LaBouche pattern both a free pattern designed by Kate Erbach. They are so cute!

Everyone has been busy, busy, busy. After taking a little snack break along with a little chit chat, Jean showed us her next project. It was a pattern from the July issue of Soft Dolls & Animals called How's My Hair? She showed us how she strip pieced enough fabric to fit the pattern pieces for the doll. The pattern called for either strip piecing or crazy piecing to add interest. It definitely looks like an interesting doll to make so we decided it will be a project we will all work on and have completed by our next meeting. Jean has hers already cut out stitched and ready to go. I guess we will all have to catch up. I can't wait to see how they all turn out.

June' Meeting

June's meeting was cancelled.

May's Meeting

We had our monthly doll club meeting yesterday and as always we started with show and tell. I brought in two of my latest projects which were made from a free pattern designed by Kate Erbach. She has named the pattern EttaMae. All of the ladies in the group fell in love with these two. Our project for this meeting was to make a cloth teapot. We used the teapot pattern designed by Sherry Goshon which was also used in one of her past challenges. What we decided to do to make the project a little more interesting and a little different, is we each made the parts of the teapot using different fabric with different colors. We each stuffed each part and wrapped the parts individually in tissue paper and labeled them. Once we got to the meeting, we put the parts in designated bags to mix them up. Each member then picked from the bags to each part of the teapot. Once we all had our parts we unwrapped them to see what we had to work with. It was quite interesting to see how they turned out. The photo below on the left is what Jean had to work with.

The photo on the right are the parts I picked. As you can see the fabric choices were vibrant and interesting; which was the whole idea for doing this project. We didn't just want to make a teapot doll. We wanted to make it interesting which I think we accomplished. They all came out pretty interesting. The dolls are not in their completed stage yet. This part was to see what we had to work with. It was lots of fun. Here's Vivian's doll all assembled.
Below is a group photo of the assembled dolls. From left to right is Jeans, Sandra's...she has even added some hair, Vivians, Zaida's and mine...Venus.

The next phase of this project will be to complete the doll. Each of us now have the parts we've taken home so we can add our personal touches. By our next meeting we will have the faces and the embellishments done for the finished product. It will be interesting to see how they all will look once completed. Our next meeting will be to have these done and to work on any UFO's we may have.

April's Meeting

We had our monthly meeting yesterday where the focus was on making wings for our dolls. We began our meeting with show & tell. The highlight of this month's show & tell was Debra's doll. Debra brought in a doll she made at a workshop given by Sherry Goshon using paverpol. For those who don't know what paverpol is, it is a liquid with the consistency of glue. Once it dries, it is as hard as a rock. Debra explained how the doll was dipped and the clothing fabric was manipulated while still wet and then allowed to dry. The photo shows how beautiful her doll turned out after she painted and embellished it. She says the only downside to using this technique is it's very messy, but the end result is gorgeous as you can see. She would recommend this technique when making smaller dolls. Next for show & tell was a doll I made named ClaraBell. It was from a pattern by Judi Ward called A Reproduction In Cloth of an Antique Carved Wooden Doll. I've shown this doll on my blog but wanted the group to see it in person. In the photo I'm think I'm explaining the fabric I used with the wood grain already in it which cuts down a lot of the painting called for in the pattern to make the body appear to be wood. The ladies loved how she turned out. The next order of business was the topic for this month's meeting which was making wings. We were to make a doll we wanted to be a fairy and then learn to make the wings we could attach to the finished doll. Debra gave a demonstration of how to make wings using a sheer fabric and beading wire. The wire is cut to the size you want it to be and then shaped the way you want it. Glue is applied to the the wire and allowed to set until tacky. At this point you lay the fabric over it and allow it to dry. She explained the wings can be embellished at the point or you can repeat the steps for the other side before embellishing. Once the wire is covered on both sides, cut them out close to the edge and then you can seal the edges with paint or whatever you want to use. In the photo is one wing using the technique explained. This one is not embellished yet, but shows how it looks before completion. The embellishment possibilities are endless. You can cut up pieces of metallic threads that can go between the fabric, add veins and so on. So now we can take what we've learned and make our wings for our fairy dolls. Jean holds the wing she made next to the doll she's going to use as her fairy. It will be interesting to see what each of us come up with using this technique. As usual between the club business we talked and laughed about everything under the sun while we worked on our fairy dolls. The gatherings are always fun and inspiring.

March Meeting

The doll club had it's monthly meeting yesterday. We usually have our meeting the 2nd week of each month, but had to postpone because of the bad weather we've been having here on the east coast. Well, Saturday turned out to be a beautiful spring day and we had a very nice "gathering" as one of our members Jean so eloquently put it. She said she doesn't think of our time together as a meeting but more as a gathering. So gathering it is Jean!
We began our gathering with Show & Tell as usual. That's when we bring in dolls we may have been working on outside of the club projects. I brought in my two Divas. Jean showed a doll she is presently working on and Sandi brought in her finished angel from a previous group project.
Our project for this month's gathering was to make Elinore Peace Bailey's Yuko-San. She is a Geisha doll in a sitting position. The pattern we all agreed was a little challenging at first. But, once you get through it, it turns out to be a very simple pattern which is actually cute when it done. We discussed what part of the pattern gave us the most difficulty and worked it out amongst each other. So while we worked on Yoku-San, we talked about everything under the sun while listening to music Jean wanted to share with us. Nice selection Jean! It was a fabulous day. Sandi and Vivian continued to work on their Yuko-San dolls while Jean worked on a doll she hadn't finished. At the end of the gathering we lined up the three Yoku-San that were finished. Starting from left to right is my doll which was said to be the regal one. The middle one which was Sandi's doll was said to be the cute serene one and Jean's doll on the end was the angry one. Jean said she was angry because she was the smallest one. Imagine that, a Japanese doll with a Napoleon complex! We had a lot of fun at this gathering. It was a beautiful day and a fabulous gathering. For next month's gathering we will be focusing on fairy wings. We will be working on the doll bodies and then work on wings. I believe Debra is conducting this lesson so we will be looking for more info from her. So, until then........

February's Meeting

This month's meeting had to do with working with clays. The club members expressed an interest is using face molds with both air drying clays and the clays that need to be baked. The members brought whatever clays they had along with any tools and molds they had to work with the clays. Before we start our meeting with the topic for the month, we have show & tell. This is when the members share what they've been working on outside of the projects we do specifically for the meeting. Four of the members had projects we wanted to share. First, they was Jeans Angel. This was a project we had for last month's meeting she was still working on at the time. She had completed it and wanted us to see it. Boy! She really turned out lovely. I brought my two ladies with me; AfriCoco and Hibiscus. They were made for a fund raiser which was cancelled at the last minute. I was disappointed because of the work I put into them for the auction but another part of me is glad I get to keep them a little longer and show them to the club members in person. Tonya brought some of her cards she hand makes. Photos don't do these cards justice. They are absolutely gorgeous! The members decided one of our future projects will be based on Tonya's cards. That should be pretty interesting. Jean is holding up one of the cards for the members to see. To get a better view of the cards; go to the link at the side bar. Last but not least for the show & tell portion of the meeting is Debra's 3d quilt piece. What can I say about this piece but absolutely gorgeous. Debra's does beautiful work. Tonya is holding up the panel for all of us to see. Now for the meeting project. As I mentioned earlier, we worked with clay for this meeting. Most of what we did is with molds. What we learned was how to prep a mold before inserting the clay. Debra explained the preparation of using talcom powder in the mold for the release of the clay to be easier. What she also explained is how important it is to make a point at one end of the clay to be sure the clay gets into the nose portion of the mold when making faces. Tonya demonstrated had to use the pearlex powders to add to the clay for the metallic look which can be done before or after the clay is baked. Deseria brought in a silicone mold for us to see. It was a mold use more for freehand sculpting with clay, but gave you a premade shape and starting point. We were then shown by Debra how to go about making clay hands without using a mold. She explained using an armature which would help prevent the fingers from breaking easily and to put the clay on the armature piece by piece slowly "building" a hand. Today's meeting was very informative and I'm sure some of us will be incorporating what we learned today into our dollmaking. Here are some of the faces and hands made from molds.

First Meeting For The New Year

We had our first meeting for the new year today. Attending the meeting was our newest member Tonya Dyce. Tonya creates beautiful one of a kind fabric art which can be seen at her website http://www.paintedthreads.com She is new to dollmaking and has joined our group to learn more about the art. Welcome Tonya!

Today's meeting we had show and tell of the Angels we made from the Sherry Goshen's pattern. They were displayed in various stages of completion. As some of the members continued to work on their angels, we discussed different topics such as books we've read or would like to have regarding dollmaking, techniques we would like to learn or have learned. Dollmaking is not always the topic. We also share life experiences as we work on our dolls. We share, we laugh and have a good time.

Zaida is admiring the angel made by Jean. Zaida also brought 2 doll figures made with a wired figure dressed like brides. They were gifts made for a sweet sixteen celebration. Both were beautiful pieces. Below Sandi demonstrates how to use a very useful gadget called a needle threader.

Deborah is holding a doll made by Jean. Jean refers to this doll as her "Hoochie" doll. She told us a hilarious story of when she took the class offered by Kookie Davis at the Wee Folk Conference back in 2000.

As the meeting wound down, we discussed what we would be doing for our next meeting. We will be working with clay and learning how to make clay faces using push molds. We will also be making clay hands and shoes. We are all looking forward to next month's meeting.