Fabric leaves

Today I was raking leaves and the thought occured to me that some of the leaves would make interesting shapes for fabric leaves. I made freezer paper templates and cut them out from fabric, added some snippets of contrasting fabric and used orange thread to create the veins with free motion embroidery. I cut out some shapes in the fabric leaves to suggest decomposing areas of the leaves.

Now what to do with these! I may just have to make a fall theme doll and incorporate these into the dolls costume. Stay tuned to see what materializes!

Fabric Leaf project

I found just the right fabric for this project, hidden deep in the bowels of my studio. i suspended some snippets and fibers between the fabric and some fine netting and did a surface design using free-motion embroidery.

I decided to use my Altered Astrid stump doll body pattern. I love using a stump doll body as a canvas for embellishing, as it lends itself to surface design very well.

Here is the fabric after the surface design has been stitched and the sewn and unstuffed doll body.

Spirit of Autumn

I am very pleased with the way she turned out. The finished doll is very textured with the free-motion embroidery, surface design and additon of the fabric leaves. I had hoped to capture the look and feel of the fall season, with the natural colors of decomposing leaves blowing in the wind.

I have called her the Spirit of Autumn.

Play time at doll club

At our last meeting of Reining Dolls and Bears I taught a mini class on Apoxie Sculpt. I used my Atered Astrid stump doll body for demonstration and others applied the medium to wood boxes, doll bodies, metal objects, etc. Everyone had a grteat time playing with the medium and of course great food was enjoyed by all as well.

Hoffman Doll 2006

This was my Hoffman 2006 entry, and she wa untitled for the traveling exhibit. She was returned to me today and I have named her

Bella-Rena. . She has an armature in her leg which allows the doll to pose. Bella-Rena has fabric hair, cotton fabric body, hand painted features and delicate beading on her dres which is from the Hoffman fabric.