Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Green is good




Green is good, right?
For these pretty little fairy dolls, yes.
Now the story of why these dolls came out a moss green color. Polyester fabric is not suppose to take dye but I have done it before and it worked. I made a bright blue and orange bear from a lovely white faux fur this past winter to match the Chicago bear colors. The fur colors turned out beautifully and the guy who commissioned it was thrilled.
So on with the story of the green. I have the light taupe colored ultra suede and I thought I could dye that a nice brown to make some brown dolls. I got out my big stainless steel stock pot and mixed the dye according to the package and put it on the stove to boil. I added about a yard of fabric and waited, stirring the fabric every so often. For an hour and nothing was happening, another hour and it looked like maybe the fabric was getting brown. Another hour and now it looks brown so I do the next step of washing the excess dye from the fabric with cold water. The fabric does look like it is really the brown color I was going after, so into the dryer the fabric goes. Twenty minutes later, the fabric is soft and the color looks right.....yea I did it. WRONG!
I put the fabric on my cutting table that is in front of a south window and OH NO....the fabric is mossy green.
Now what am I going to do. I have fabric dyed and I am not a person who likes to waste fabric so I cut out two dolls and made them up. Okay, so now I have two green dolls....let's see.....what kind of things are green......gnomes, sprites, fairies..........hummmmm what to do, what to do.
First they need hair so start to pull faux fur fabric to see what would look best. Tried several colors and none were quite right and then tried the white and it worked as it is a complete contrast to the fabric. Okay now that that is done, what about clothing. Maybe a Christmas theme outfit but no Christmas theme doesn't sell well for me so onto the next thing. Fancy, that will do it! So pull out all my bridal type fabrics. White, blue, lavender, green, pink, rose what oh what is the best ones to use.........
White on white satin is always good so start there. Cut that out and decided it really needed puffy sleeves in a different fabric so cut out some sheer sleeves. Hum, better cut out two sets of sleeves because these would look good on both dolls. Start to sew and opened several drawers of lace to find just the right lace to put on the dress. Sewed it all up and dressed the doll. Looks good. Now what color for the other doll? Had a small piece of a heavy rose fabric and cut that out, sewed and dug through all the lace again to find a piece that would work on that fabric. Done and now both dolls are dressed.
Set the dolls on stands and go........what do I need to finish them. Flowers for their hair, but I don't have any flowers that would work. Shoot, now I have to make a trip to WalMart and it is 110 degrees outside and I really don't want to go out.
Next morning now and I have to go get some flowers if I want to finish these dolls so off to WalMart. Get to store and they really don't have much to choose from and they are expensive but found a couple branches of a velvety flower that would work. Also bought wire and floral tape and extra ribbon. Home again and see what if the idea I have in my head will work. Got the wire the right size and used floral tape to cover the wire and started to try to get the flowers on the wire. Nope........doesn't look good. Darn! Walk away and think of something else I can do.
Second idea. Hot glue. Dug out the hot glue gun and heat that up and cut the flowers down and now have to cover the wire with more than floral tape or the hot glue will melt the tape. Cover the wire now with ribbon. Finally I can start to cover the head piece with leaves and flowers. After a couple of hours of work, two head pieces are done and I attach some ribbons for streams and put the head pieces on the dolls.
Dolls still don't look finished....Now what???? Baskets of flowers in their hands. Nope. Wands in the hands. Nope. Okay, dig through the accessory box and see what else I have. Lockets....I have some little antique looking lockets in there. These will work!
Finally after days of going back and forth on this project I think I have a couple of cute dolls. Now they are on my website and we will see if anyone else thinks they are cute and will buy them.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

New Doll Designs







It has been since May when I last was here and I am not sure anyone is reading this anyway.




Here are a couple of the new designs that I have been working on. The first is a set of dolls I call Kyle and Katie. They are 16 inch dolls. I like this design and they have been good seller for me this year. I am down to just the three sets.
The second picture is of my design I just finished up this week. She is a 17 inch doll with bent arms and legs. It took me third times to get her right but I am pleased with the finished product.
The weather is hot here but then it always is in the summer in the desert. No craft shows to do in the area and everyone pretty much just stays in the house and only goes out to do what is necessary. We all look forward to the end of the summer when we can get out and do things again.
I hope everyone is having a great summer and the storms have stayed away from you.