Doll Creations

                                                                    Birds of a Feather Cotton fabric body, wool stuffing. Trapunto technique in the face to lift the nose. Features created with acrylic paint, pigma pen, Prisma color pencils. Lips, eyebrows, lids, flair of nostrils and fingernails hand stitched with Gutterman’s and Sulky thread. Highlight and shadow create depth. Skirt is a circular cut work backed with the texture of a natural cheesecloth. Wool felt black birds, and small flower buds and leaves weave in and out of the circles. Each of the black birds in the skirt  have something different in its beak. The characteristics of magpies, ravens and crows are that they make the best from what they find.

Here is a side view of A Bee in Her Bonnet. The skirt has a field of wool felt flowers and blossoms encircling the body. Tall hat is inspired from the ceremonial beaded hats of the Yoruba people of Nigeria. 

Several years ago my sister TK won a Halloween contest when she put together a very clever "Queen Bee" costume. And for other reasons my sister has been collecting Bee items. It also sparked my imagination on the numerous Bee titles that are all potential dolls.  Cotton fabric body, wool stuffing. Trapunto technique in the face to lift the nose. Features created with acrylic paint, pigma pen, Prisma color pencils. Lips, eyebrows, lids, flair of nostrils and fingernails hand stitched with Gutterman’s and Sulky thread. Highlight and shadow create depth. Hair is two colors of fine mohair yarn, sewn and twisted and into a sculptural forms. Skirt is a circular cut work backed with the texture of a natural cheesecloth. Velvet bees and blossoms encircle the skirt. The tall cone shaped hat has a checkerboard border, white flowers, honeycomb and bee hive.

I have a fondness for mice using sewing items. The scene from Walt Disney's Cinderella is lodged in my head. It was my first sewing lesson. Watching the mice run the threaded needle in and out of the fabric to create volume in the skirt was a revelation. So putting mice and needles and thread together makes me smile.

A Stitch in Time is a seated fabric figure that shows the upper torso that has incorporated the fabric "bathing suit" torso into the costuming.  Cotton fabric body, wool stuffing. Trapunto technique in the face to lift the nose. Features created with acrylic paint, pigma pen, Prisma color pencils. Lips, eyebrows, lids, flair of nostrils and fingernails hand stitched with Gutterman’s and Sulky thread. Highlight and shadow create depth. Skirt is a circular cutwork backed with the texture of a natural cheesecloth. Wool felt mice on spools of thread, sewing items and clock gears weave in and out of the circles.

The under structure of all of my dolls has a "bathing suit" style body with a sweetheart neckline. The fabric cups that are stitched down over the stretched neckline area give me the freedom to use the upper area of the torso as part of my costuming choice, or to place a dress over the body.

Second layer of the tab and neckline stretched and pinned. Careful pinning, checking and re- checking to making sure the shoulders and neckline is smooth before sewing down.