Me^Ladee, Hoffman 2011 Challenge doll

Me^Ladee is my Hoffman 2011 challenge doll. She is a Renasiance era lady, with an ample bosum! To create her "assets, I applied paperclay over a cotton woven cloth body and added an outer skin of a stretch knot fabric. Working with woven cloth is out of my comfort zone, so it was a bit of a challenge for me. She balances on one leg, with a full body armature that extends through the straight leg.

The flowers for her costume were created from long strips of organza, clipped and burned, tthen gathered and drawn together to form the flower. Her hat is lined and coated with Paverpol to create to permanent form. She balances on one leg, the other is bent slightly and she has cooridinated blooms gathered at her ankles. Me^Ladee's features are dwawn with water color pencils and sealed, and her hair is Tibetan wool.

More amulet bags

                                           BEADED ON VELVET, CLAY FACE

                                    BEADED WITH CLAY FACE

Pattern by Elise Peeples

Amulet Bags

I have not updated my blog in ages! So thought I would sahre some of the ittle amulet bags I have made to sell at AFIC conference where I will be teaching2 classes April 29-May2, 2011.

Penny Drinkard

Penny Drinkard is a commissioned piece I made recently. the customer wanted a doll that she can travel with and promote a teen age image that embodies healthy living, good choices, with somewhat imperfect features. A Barbie doll type she did not want! She sent me a collage she made of Penny, and I must say I was very challenged by the thought of even attempting to put this into a 3-dimensional figure.
She wanted Penny to have a small but athletic body, very oversized head, one eye larger than the other with rose petal shaped iris. I must say I had a very hard time making they eyes asymetrical, it was so against my my artistic values when doing faces!
Penny was to have red capris, black and white tennies, and turquoise top. Also she wanted  her to have red hair, a hat, and holding a cat.
So this is what I came up with, and never have I had a customer so pleased with a commissioned piece.
This was a bit out of my box, and not the type of doll I generally make, but she was fun, I must admit, to bring to life!

I attached the collage the customer made and then the finished Penny drinkard doll.

Penn

Mixed media gourd piece

I felt like being creative this week so I wokred on a mixed media gourd piece with a tribal theme (my favorite) The clay mask is from my own original sculpt mold, and the gourd is decorated with leather, beads, feathers, wrapped wire and fibers.

Alice

This is not a new design, but one I created for Doll Crafter and Costuming magazine in 2008. I sold the ones I had in my inventory during the holidays, so needed to make one for a pattern sasmple. she is all felt and holds paitned Cheshire cat.

Halloween Challenge

We are having a challenge for our next meeting at the Reining Dolls and Bears doll club. the challenge is to make a Halloween themed doll from a vintage 1948 rag doll pattern. I did not like the head, so that determined the direction of the doll, sho needed her head painted and covered. lol

It's been a logn dry spell for me as far as dolls are concerned, so hope my muse is back.

Her name is Ghoulie.

Kitchen remodel- Before pictures

Herer are a few pics of our kitchen before we started the remodel.

To see the after pictures, visit my Picturetrail album:

ttp://www.picturetrail.com/pattidolls

Kitchen Remodel-History

After years of living with a fairly primitive kitchen, we are finally on the road to a remodel! Yeah!!

Don't get me wrong, I did have running water, a fridge and range, lol. It's just that my vintage ranch house did not have any modern amenities. And the cabinets were old, old! They had been painted over many times, the latest being my hunter green.

Our house sat on Hiway 30 South of St. Helens and was built in the 50's. Oregon Dept. of Transportation wanted to put a weigh station in where my house sat, so they purchased the propery and offered the houses for free for anyone who was willing to move them.

A man named Bob Harris moved our house. Local knowledge says that he was known for his hairbrained schemes. Bob decided he waanted to move the house to his 5 acres of pristine property in the Goble Hills outside of Rainier, Or.

So he cut the house in half and barged it down the Columbia River to the Port of Longview, wehre he put the halves onto a flat bed trailer.

The houses was then hauled up a tiny one-lane twisty turvy country road . There is was reassembled onto the lot where it stands to this day. Even the fireplace and outside brickwork was reassembled.

You cannot tell that the house was devided except in the hallway, where the hardwood floor meets the wall, it is slightly discolored.

Doll for kite festival

This is a doll I made from deanna Hogan's doll Harvest Moon, featured in this month's doll Crafter and Costuming magazine. I will be at the Windriders Kite Festival at Grey's Harbor this week end, and needed a doll quick to make for the raffle at the awards dinner. She was fun to make, and I especially like the trapunto face and tab joints.

I was in a bit of hurry to get a pic, and too lazy to set of the light studio, so the pic is not that great. I hate setting up all that equipment for just one doll! Wish I had a photography room, as the light studio stuff takes up most of my work space in here.

Dotee Dolls

Well, I am afraid my Dotee dolls will deviate a bit from the norm. LOL

The first one just grew and grew, being a free-form piece from some home made chenille fabric scraps I found. hey, the body is 6"! Judy said 3" to 6" for the body, and this one is 6" body length. We are not talking about tail here. lol

2nd one is more "traditional" Dotee, or is there such a thing?

somebody out there will like my tribal Dotte thing, I think.........

Or maybe I should just keep the thing and not send it for the swap?

Best Friends Class

In the first week of March I had Mary Catherine from Castle Rock, Washington here for a 3-day workshop. We really had fun in my little studio and this was Mary's first cloth doll. She was a very enthusiastic student and funny to boot! Anyone who can make you laugh is all right in my book!~

Mary was such a quick learner, and she had a nearly completed doll at the end of three days!

Her doll and her 'stuff" stayed here when she went home at night. When I came out into the studio one morning, I saw that her doll had been having too much fun out here with all the other bad influences in here.

Mary's doll is to be a gift for her 84 year old mother, who loves cats. The doll will have her knitting to pass the time, but by her side will be her gardening catalogues as she is dreaming of May 15th, time to plant corn and tend the roses. Hence, this lady's name is Rose Maycorn. (Mom loves to get the corn planted in May and her favorite flowers are her roses). and Mary loves to garden. She has named her doll Rose Maycorn. Don't you just love that name?

GINGER

Ginger is my newest project created for a luncheon in April, the Joint Meeting of Doll clubs in Eugene Oregon. The theme for the event is Hats Off to Madame and will be a tribute to Madame Alexander dolls.

I created a mold from a Madame Alexander look alike doll head and made a mask for a cloth over clay head. Then I designed a body to fit the mask.

I chose ivory doe suede for the doll's body as I wanted a porcelain look for her.

Ginger's dress is from vinage cotton print fabric and vintage lace trim.

She has really been a fun and challenging project!

CUPID PATTERN

Cupid is my newest pattern and is available on my website at my pattern page. He is the perfect Valentine's Day doll to make as a gift or for your own Valentine's Day decorating! Very detailed instructions include great graphics and color photos!

Click on title to link to his page on my website!

Arctic Storm in Shilo Basin

Here in the Shilo Basin, the Portland area and SW Washington we have had an unusual artic storm that brought snow into our area. this part of Oregon and Washington does not get much snow and when it does happen, the media loves to make a huge thing out of it!!

I could not resist taking some pics as it will probably be gone next week and really wanted to capture the beauty of my own front and back yard in the snow.

KWG 8 in Portland was asking for viewer pics to be sent in and the one of Bear in the snow was aired on Saturday. He does not even know he had his 10 seconds of fame!

Best Friends Gypsy

As many know Pamela Armas of Treasures of the Gypsy carries many of my patterns. For each of my patterns in her line, she sends me the fabrics and I make a sample doll for her booth.

the latest of my patterns to be added to her line is Best Friends, so I have been working on her sample for Pamela.

I am accustomed to the rich and very textured silks she carries and have learned to use a lot of fray check and zig zag as soon as you cut.

But the body fabric used in this doll could not stand up to the dollmakers stress test, and dart and side seams blew out after the piece was completed. (of course!)

We have to be resourseful as dollmakers so I welded the seams together with Fabri-tac, used fray check around the sites and then ironed the area with my little Clover iron for strength. All the sites were then cleverly hidden from view by the doll's accessories. You cannot see any of the blowouts!

If this were a doll for sale I would have had to start over or at least take her apart entirely and make a new body.

I do LOVE Pamela's fabrics!

Sunrise in Shilo Basin

This morning I was gazing out my window and the whole sky was ablaze with the most stunning sunrise! It played out over the entire sky as far as the eye could see, with a fog bank below and t he Shilo Basin in the background. I just had to grab my camera and run out to take some pictures! Just in time too, because the painted sky was just a flash in the pan, and minutes later it had faced to a muted gray.

Here at my home in the Shilo Basin, Oregon I rarely see any sunsets because the entire west facing portion of our property is bordered by about 300 acres of Longview Fiber forest and blocks our view of the setting sun. but we do get to see some beautiful sunrises, especially in the winter season.

Little Phart

Little Phart is 2nd in line to the throne of the ruling line of the Gasheous Elvin society. They live deep in forest of Phlatulence and are hunter gatherers. While Little Pharts grandfather, the King Old Phart was away on a hunting party, he decided to try out the Royal Phart throne for size. Little Phart is quite full of himself, even though his legs are too short to touch upon the forest floor.

This piece was inspired by a piece of ivy that was cut from a tree used for firewood. After it had dried and the ivy leaves were gone, it left a woody root system that came away clean from the tree. I sanded and stained the piece, added a chair seat of grape vines and embellished it with silk leaves and fabric wrapped wire.

Little Phart was created from my I Dream of Flying pattern, which is my first original design.