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| My brother, Jeff, made this beautiful cherry doll bench for me for Christmas. I LOVE it! He's so talented. He looked at a photo of a life size bench on the internet, drew up some plans, and produced this little beauty. Mom made the pretty quilt that hangs over the back. |
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| My dolls sit perfectly on it. |
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| My newest adventure will be teaching an embroidery class to a bunch of girls at my kids' home school co-op this winter. I can't wait! |
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| I just put a fresh coat of gesso on my newest Dixie IW doll. |
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| The dress fabric is some sort of vintage cotton that I found at a doll show several years ago. It's been waiting to be worn by Thankful. |
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| For Christmas, I am going to sew her a pelisse from a design that was recently in "Antique Doll Collector" magazine. |
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| Since she was completed on Thanksgiving, her name is Thankful. |
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| Thankful's first Thanksgiving is warm and sunny. |
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| She is contemplating her dress. |
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| She is made from Dixie Redmond's Izannah Walker pattern, enlarged to 150%. Tomorrow, I will spend Black Friday sewing her a dress instead of shopping. I am thankful that I don't have to leave the house tomorrow! |
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| Patrick's pumpkin |
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| Allie made a feather head dress for a costume that she did not wear. |
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| Christopher was a Czech soldier. Patrick was Jack Pilgrim. Allie was ???? |
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| Allie wielding a knife |
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| I never liked the doll on the left. Here she is in 2009. |
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| Here she is now. I'm still not sure if I like her. |
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| I don't like how huge and far apart her eyes are. |
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| She doesn't want to be altered again... |
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| ...but I might not be able to resist. |
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| My mother, my daughter and I went to a doll show together yesterday. I found this darling book which features photos of John Wright dolls. I can't wait to read it to some little people! Maybe I'll force my 13-year-olds to listen to it tonight. They owe me. This doll show was especially exciting for me because I got to see dolls made by two of my favorite internet doll-making buddies - Jan Conwell and Martha Bishop. Martha's website is http://www.maboriginals.com/. Jan's is http://jdconwell.blogspot.com/. Their dolls were SO beautiful! |
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| Three little ladies - shards found in the mud - have found a home in my home. I love giving life to these shards. |
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| My newest doll - I feel so happy when I have a doll to work on. |
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| Here is one of my mom's birthday presents to me. I love the pure cherry reds and the red work sunbonnet babies. |
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| A few of my dolls are enjoying the other quilt that Mom made me. I begged her for a quilt with this color combination and I just think it's gorgeous. She embroidered the first letters of everyone in my family on this quilt - including G for Gypsy, our little rat terrier. |
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| I just finished this little feather tree. Now I need to make some cotton spun fruit ornaments. |
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| A corner of the living room |
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| Christopher brought his cathedral blocks out this weekend. He's watching a lecture series on Gothic cathedrals and having his first French lesson next week. So he's pretty convinced that we'll take him to France very soon. He's a very hopeful boy. |
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| I'm not going to include a photo of her before she was re-done. She wants to wipe the slate clean of her old life and start fresh. She'll need new clothes, of course. |
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| I had to take this doll completely apart to re-sculpt and re-paint. I found a styrofoam ball inside of her head. I scraped it out. I never use those any more because I like to cook the paper clay in a 200 degree oven to dry it now. I originally made this doll in 2009 and I really don't have any memory of sculpting her head. I think I must have craft-induced amnesia. |
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| Another re-done doll. I liked Louisa before, but I couldn't resist slapping some gesso and paper clay on her to re-create. And the drab green fabric needed a doll. |
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| Louisa's new profile |
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| Civil War soldier girl gets a cheddar dress. |
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| Cheddar |
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| Louisa and cheddar girl |
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| This was a test dress that I made, using a friend's prototype pattern. I wonder if anyone else has ever had a blog post entitled "testing a friend's dress pattern on former soldier doll." |
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| She really wanted a waist band to show off her figure. |
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| Then she insisted on puff sleeves, a fuller skirt and an eyelet ruffle. I wonder what she'll want next. |
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| I made this doll last year. Here is the former state of the doll: http://mcnallyschool.blogspot.com/2010/03/robert-louis-and-dudley.html. This was Dudley, the blond Civil War soldier. |
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| Now her name is Sarah. |
