Summing up the Year

Jupiter Sphere

At the end of the year I try to look back and see what projects I have completed.  During the year I feel as if I am working like mad and have hardly made anything.  When I go back and see what I have done over the year I am always amazed at how many craft projects I have completed.  Some of the projects were big, some were small, and some are ongoing but all in all I did much more than I had thought.  The photos are not posted in order, so you may have to search for the picture that is referenced in a paragraph.  I was having some trouble getting the pictures on here, so I thought I should leave well enough alone while I had them on here.

Painted box.

I went back to a post from early last winter where I listed my goals for this year.  I found that I actually accomplished most of the goals.  There was one goal that I never completed and that was to try some encaustic painting.  I never did get around to that.  I have not yet decided whether I am curious enough to try to add it to my list of goals for next year.  Sometimes things grab my attention but when I get back to them I have lost interest in them.

Abstract quilt.

I worked on making mandalas as I said.  I had wanted to make a papier mache' substrate for making a mandala but that project did not ever come about.  I ran into trouble trying to get the substrate to work for me.  The paper kept curling as it dried and I could not get it to stop.  I became so frustrated with the situation I decided that it would be better to revisit the situation at a later date.  However, I did draw a few mandalas.  I enjoyed doing them, but it will never become something that I will pursue with a passion.

I also painted the wooden box, which came out much better than I expected it would.  It took a while to relax and just paint rather than worry about whether everything was going to be symmetrical.  Sometimes I try too hard and then whatever I am working on looks stiff.  I have to relax before I feel that I am doing things that look right. 

Billy Jack O'Lantern

Another goal was to use a found object for a Halloween project.  I made a project, but it did not work out as I thought it would.  I planned to make a doll that would move its arms and legs when a sting was pulled.  That did not come off because I put the hooks for the shoulder strings in the wrong place.  By the time I realized it, the work had progressed so far that it would have been more trouble than it was worth to try to correct the mistake.  So the project became a dangle doll whose arms and legs swung back and forth if the doll was moved.  It was not what I wanted, but for the moment, that is what I have.  The doll was an anthropomorphic pumpkin doll.

Perry Pumpkin

Aside from the dangle doll, I made a few other anthropomorphic figures.  The first was a pattern cloth doll called Tom Mato.  Another anthropomorphic figure was Perry Pumpkin.  Both of these dolls were made from cloth and had wire in the arms and legs to make them so they could hold a pose.  However, as the bodies were made from pattern instructions I found that the instructions called for a wire that was too thin to support the weight of the doll.  It posed somewhat, but not as well as I would have liked.  Unfortunately, I made both bodies before I found out that it was going to be problematic.  They are both very cute though.

I made one other anthropomorphic figure out of papier mache'.  This figure was called Billy Jack O'Lantern.  He has a pumpkin head.  I named him that because his painted body looked like camouflage.  It looked like the outfits hunters wear.  Hunting is not necessarily a Southern only situation, but I decided to give him a Southern name.  Virginia tries to distance itself from the South now by calling itself a Mid-Atlantic state, but most people who live here consider it to be a Southern state. 

Tom Mato

Along the way I made a couple of small paintings.  I wish I had spent more time on painting.There never seems to be enough time.  I wish I had spent more time painting and drawing.  Maybe I will spend more time on that in 2016.

There were a few quick projects I made for Halloween.  I made two crepe paper wreaths.  They were just quick craft projects that were destined for the trash after Halloween.  One crepe paper wreath was made with a styrofoam base.  The purchased styrofoam upped the cost of the craft considerably.  I made a second wreath using scrap cardboard as a base.  This made the craft much more affordable.  After all the crepe paper was added you could not tell the difference between the two wreaths as far as the base was concerned.  The other project was a bunch of black crepe paper roses.  It only took a few minutes to make each one and soon I had a macabre bouquet of flowers.  I made a black dahlia as well.  The flowers were cute for Halloween.  They made their way to the trash as well.

One of my big projects for the year was an abstract art quilt.  It actually took two years to complete.  Extra fabric was hand sewn to each rectangle of the quilt to make each rectangle an abstract design.  Then the rectangles were sewn into vertical rows which were then joined to solid strips of fabric make the quilt.   In the general sense, the design was unplanned in that there was no pattern other than the stripes that were formed by the rows.  I drew each rectangle out of a bag and just went with what I picked other than that the base color of the block should not be the same as the base color of the block next to it.  It was an interesting quilt to make, but I am not sure if I would make another one.  It was a lot of hand sewing.  I like it because there will never be another one exactly the same.  I prefer to make things that are going to be one of a kind rather than purchase a kit which will sell dozens the same fabrics and patterns.

Walking Stick with Celtic knot work

Gazing balls are one of my long term interests.  This year I experimented with painting Hypertufa balls that I had cast myself.  I also received a bowling ball from someone so I made a gazing ball out of vitreous glass as well.  All the glass was one color.  When you are standing several feet away, the ball appears to be solid blue.  If you are closer, you will see that there is grout between the glass tiles.  I still have one more ball to paint before I need to cast some more.  One of these days I will get around to doing some more painting.

Winter painting

There were two painted balls.  The first, smaller ball was painted to look like the planet Jupiter.  This was inspired by a false color ball I saw on the NASA website.  The second ball I painted a solid antique copper color.  It looks like a big metal ball.  In hindsight, it is probably not very interesting visually, but I do like the look of a metal object.  It is really not worth the effort to repaint it in some other way.   My experiment is to see how well the paint stands up to the sun and harsh winter weather.  So far, the Jupiter ball, painted with acrylic craft paints, has withstood all of last winter and the rainy and hot summer and still looks fine.  The copper ball has not been out as long, so the jury is still out on the spray paint.

My other big project was to learn how to do enough Celtic knot work to make a pattern for a walking stick.  I drew the pattern myself modeled on some that I had seen in a book.  Although a transfer pattern was available in a book, I preferred to draw my own, even with all its imperfections so that the work would be truly my own.  It takes a long time to make a walking stick even if the pattern is even if the pattern is wood burned rather than carved.  I think in the future I will explore wood carving.  There is not a lot of interest in wood burned sticks so far as I can tell.

New flooring at cabin.

New ceiling.

I did an experiment with home made craft clays.  I wanted to try to find something that was less expensive than paperclay. The problem with paperclay is that it does not keep very well.  It can be wrapped and refrigerated for a few days, but in my experience is that the product will start to mold.  The paperclay is not overly expensive, but I have never cared for the smell of it.  I did find three different craft clays that were usable, but the smell was still an issue.  I don't think I could walk into my studio for about a couple of weeks while the clay was drying.   Yes you can use the clays I experimented with, but my recommendation is that you use the paperclay and just plan some other project that can quickly use up any remaining paperclay quickly.

This year my last craft was to make a Father Christmas doll.   I finished it up in time to get everything on the blog for the year.  It was a relatively quick doll to make.  I sculpted the face from bake in the oven clay.  The rest of the doll was cloth other than the accessories.  I have not done much face sculpting for a while and pretty much had to re-learn everything about it.  I plan to do more work on making faces.  If I ever make a face that I truly like, I may learn how to make molds so I can cast the head.

Another mandala.

Our cabin makeover is always a work in progress.  This year we we ripped out some of the flooring in the dining room and repaired some rotted joists.  After that we added a wood slat ceiling and laminate flooring through the living room and dining room.  It was a major job.  We had to work in segments based on how much we could accomplish in a three, four, or five day segment.  Each trip was a working vacation.  We are looking forward to finishing up the makeover so we can go up there and just enjoy it.

Dangle doll.

I was on the road a lot this year.  I made trips to Glasgow, Virginia in the winter.  From spring until late fall we made numerous trips to the cabin.  We also made a trip up to Pennsylvania.  I just returned from a trip to California.  It has been a very busy year.   I have enjoyed the trips and hope that there will be many more to share with my readers.

Well, that about sums up the year.  I hope that my readers will keep on reading next year.  I hope to have more interesting projects and experiments to blog about.  This is the last post for 2015.  See you in 2016.

Photos from the Trip - California - Part 4

The last stop on our trip to the West Coast was Old Town Temecula.  Temecula is an old town that was built after the railroad came through.  There are some historic buildings still standing.  It was interesting to see the water towers and buildings that haves survived through the years.  Many of the buildings have been re-purposed over time.  A few buildings are quite old.  Most have been rebuilt, but retain the flavor of the old west.

I was amazed at some of the early water towers that still remained.  They look so small and fragile as compared to how we build things today.  It makes me wonder how the structures managed to survive this long.  It seems to me that we modern folk would have a very hard time surviving if we had to live as they did back then.  

The area is filled with antique shops, boutiques, gift shops and restaurants. There were also tasting rooms for wine and also for olive oil.  Just strolling down the front street took hours as we went through many of the shops.  Being so close to Christmas the entire area was decorated for the holidays.   I expect my daughter-in-law and I enjoyed this much more than our husbands and my grandson.  The guys spent a lot of time warming benches while waiting for us to check out all the shops.

We stopped for dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant.  The food was excellent.  I am sure that there were plenty of restaurants that had equally good food.  We just did not have time to try them all.  However, be assured that there is plenty of different types of food available.  There was a sweet shop and ice dream parlor as well. 

It was a good evening to be out.  The weather was cool and we needed a fleece once the sun went down.  I really enjoyed going through the stores.  The area was beautifully decorated.  In Virginia, it is usually cold by this time of year, so we don't spend much time strolling around in the evening outside.  Spending a holiday season in a warmer climate was very entertaining.  This was a nice evening and a great way to wind down our trip in California.

No Post due to Holiday

Sorry, no post today due to a busy holiday season.

Pictures from the Trip - Part 3 - California

Sun peeking from behind Observatory

We took a day trip to see Palomar Observatory.  The Observatory was impressive and the scenery was amazing.  There were a number of overlooks on the way up the mountain and I was able to take some really nice pictures.  The main problem was the time of day.  The sun was in a position that I was unable to get some shots.  I mainly had to shoot standing sideways to keep the sun out of the lens.  The more I take pictures, the more I want to stop at each and every place that I can to take photographs.  It takes a lot longer to get anywhere because I am want to stop and take another picture.  I try to balance annoying everyone else in the vehicle with taking another photo.  On the other hand, it gets people to stop and look at things that otherwise they might have driven past. 

Steps to the Observatory.

Palomar Observatory sits atop Palomar Mountain at an elevation of 5,617 ft. (1,712 m).  Although the weather at sea level was fairly warm, the temperature at the top of the mountain was 39 degrees Fahrenheit (3.88C).  I am glad that we had brought some warm fleece with us.  Although the roads were clear, there were patches of snow along the road in the shadows.  The snow delighted my grandson who had not seen snow since moving from Virginia to California.  He and his father had fun having a snowball fight.

View from an overlook at about 3600 ft.

According to Wikipedia, the Palomar mountains is a phrase from the time of Spanish California which translates as pigeon house and may be a reference to hen house.  It was suggested that there may have been pigeons or chickens raised in the area. 

View from aprox. 5000 feet.

The Palomar Observatory has several telescopes including the 200 inch (5.1m) Hale Telescope and the 48 inch (1.2m) Samuel Oschin Telescope.  The observatory is open to the public and is generally open except for national holidays and weather emergencies.  I guess we were lucky that we were able to get up to the observatory.  I noticed that the Observatory was closed today while I was checking facts on elevation, etc.  The change in climate is very dramatic.  I would highly recommend checking weather conditions at the observatory before making the trip up the mountain.  They sell fleece jackets at the gift shop and post the days temperature.  I guess the change in elevation catches a lot of people unprepared.

Valley near Lake Henshaw.

Palomar is a beautiful observatory.  The architecture is Art Deco.  I have been to the observatory at Mauna Kea, Hawaii and the buildings there are more utilitarian looking.  This building is a piece of art in itself.  You can go inside the observatory and look at the workings of the telescope through a glassed in area.  There is a long paved path leading up to the observatory.  There are signs posted along the way warning that rattlesnakes are part of the natural environment here and to be on the lookout for them.  Once you get to the observatory there are a lot of steps up to the building itself and more inside up to the observation area.  I saw on the internet that there were seventy steps to the observation room, but I don't know if that was counting the outside steps or just the steps inside.  But the climb was worth it. 

After touring the Observatory, we came down the mountain and stopped at a  restaurant near Lake Henshaw.  Along the way we stopped at an overlook to see the valley.  The valley was awe inspiring.  I have never seen anything like its scale before.  You cannot really tell how big it is from the pictures.  Every time I took in a new sight I was totally amazed at the beauty of the state.

All in all, it was a great day.  I wish I had more time to spend everywhere I went.  I love being in the mountains and this was a beautiful area.  There were redwood trees there.  The redwoods were tall, but not as large in diameter as the redwoods I saw during my last trip to California.  Still, it was great to see some redwoods again.  It is not something that we have on the East Coast where I live.  The whole California trip was a great adventure.


 

Photos from the Trip 2 - California

At Balboa Park

I went to Balboa Park while I was in California.  It is an amazing place.  I could have spent a week just in this one area and still would not have seen everything.  There is a lot to see there.  Of course, I wanted to go to the Min Gei International Museum.  The first floor of a museum had a large exhibit of carved walking sticks.  There was some amazing workmanship there.  This exhibit will be on display until January 1th, 2016. If you like walking sticks, this exhibit is not to be missed.

When we arrived, I asked permission to take photos.  The lady at the desk told me I was allowed to take photos but not to use the flash.  She thanked me for asking.  I was pleased to be allowed to take photographs at all.  Some museums will not allow you to take pictures.  It is always a good idea to check.

I took a lot of detail pictures of the walking sticks for inspiration.  I did remember to take a few pictures of whole walking sticks.  I took so many pictures that I was afraid that I was going to run out of memory, so I did try not to go to wild on the first exhibit I saw.  Most of the walking sticks were from the mid-nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries. 

Relief carving on a walking stick.

The exhibit I liked best was on the second floor.  It was an exhibit called Procession.  This exhibit is the work of Alice Hudson.    She has made 130 figures from found objects.  The figures include dragons, woodland folk, ghosts, and all sorts of people.  As someone who works with found objects, I really enjoyed looking at the figures and understanding how they were made.  I wish I had taken more pictures of these dolls, but the lighting on them was not very good for photography.

Another exhibit was an exhibit of crafts from each of the fifty states.  Some of the crafts were older, and some contemporary.  This covered a lot of craft territory:  dolls, pottery, glass work, beading both older and modern, basketry, etc.  There was a wall for school children to mark which state's craft interested them the most.

After lunch, we headed over to the Air and Space Museum.  The guys wanted to see something a little different from our morning museum tour.  This museum had everything from early aircraft to actual space craft.  Most of the exhibits are roped off, as these are rare aircraft, but some allowed you to get close to or get into the cockpit.

I think one of the really impressive exhibits here was actually the wall of people associated with developing aviation.  Each person had a portrait: either painted or photographed and a biography telling what they did in aviation history.  It really gave you a good overview of aviation history and just how risky an enterprise it was to get humanity off the ground and into the air.

One of the other attractions at the museum was that they had flight simulators available.  (For a fee of course.)  Depending upon the type of flight you wished to take it cost five to eight dollars for a flight.  My husband and I did not partake, but we enjoyed watching our son take a turn in one.  The whole module moves and spins.  If you put the plane into a dive or stall it, the module will flip over and head towards the ground.  The person in the module could also fire at other flying targets, so that you would get the feel of what it is really like to try to pilot a plane and try to shoot at a moving target at the same time.  There were monitors on each side of the simulator.  One module gave you an inside view of what the person in the module was doing.  The other gave a view of what was being targeted and how many hits were made.  It was great fun to watch.

The flight simulator.

There was so much more to Balboa Park.  There was some amazing architecture.  It had an outdoor amphitheater that had the worlds largest outdoor organ.  There were eleven or twelve more museums that we did not even have time to get to go to because we just did not have the time.  There are also botanical gardens there I think, and tram rides around the park.  It is a huge place.  If you ever get the chance, you should visit this place.

Photos from the Trip - California

Palm trees in front of the museum.

I have been back from California for a few days.  This trip we were traveling in the area between San Diego and Los Angeles.  On a previous trip we had spent time around Monterrey and Big Sur. There was so much to see.  The scenery is amazing and the parks were absolutely wonderful.  I think I could spend weeks on just this area.  We only had a week, so we packed as much into it as we could.  Today I finally had time to take a look at the pictures.  I took a lot of photos while I was there.  I'll share some of the highlights for the next couple of posts.

Saber tooth tiger skeleton.

Leaves and dirt disguise the perimeter of the tar pit.

The first place we headed was to the La Brea Tar Pits.  Our grandchildren had wanted to see it.  The tar pits are actually in downtown Los Angeles.  There is a park where you can walk around and see the tar pits.  Some are active and still bubbling tar.  Actually, tar is a misnomer.  The substance bubbling up is asphalt.  Tar is a product made from treating asphalt.  (However, asphalt pits just does not have the right ring to it, so it has been called the tar pits for a long time.)  But you can see the bubbles forming in the sticky tar in the pit. The place smells of asphalt and methane.  The active pits are fenced off so that no one can accidentally blunder into them.  Of course, some people will not be happy without somehow managing to get tar onto themselves.  I saw one orange cone that was covered in tar.  The cone carried a warning that there was tar on the cone, but you just know that someone had to touch it.  I am not sure what is removed tar, but I did not see any cleaner handy.  Whomever gets into that is going to be sticky for a while. 

Excavation in progress.

You would think from the smell of the pits that animals would avoid them.  It is easy to see how an animal could have blundered into the tar pits once you take a look at them though.  There is some water floating ton top of the tar, so it could have been used as a watering hole.  Much of the tar is covered over by leaves and floating dirt and debris.  In some places it looked like solid ground.  Some animal could easily have stepped onto it thinking it was still on dry land.

Other pits were dried up and had either been excavated in the past or were in the process of being excavated.  Excavations made early on were not as well treated as the archaeological digs of today.  The pits were dug out only trying to extract the large bones.  There were many tiny bones that had been cast aside because the people digging were looking only for what brought quick recognition as a dinosaur hunter.  The slag from those early digs are now being revisited and are revealing thousands of small bones, shells, and teeth.

Removing a mammoth tusk from rock.

There is also a museum on site. There was also a 3-D movie.  There is a fee for both the La Brea tar pits and the movie.  The museum houses the fossils and educational exhibits.  There were more or less complete fossilized skeletons, skulls, and other bones of saber tooth tigers, llamas, the extinct American horse, a mammoth, and many other species.  The most skulls found there were from wolves.  The had found about four hundred.  The movie explained that it was thought that predator animals such as saber tooth tigers and wolves would jump onto the animals stuck in the mud and try to eat them.  Then at some point the predator slipped and fell into the tar, becoming stuck themselves.

The museum has an glass enclosed laboratory where they work on fossils.  Although there was no one in it while we were there, we could see work that was in progress. A sign by a huge mammoth tusk invited you to watch the progress as they laboriously scrapped away the rock from it bit by bit, slowly revealing the tusk within.  Or perhaps this was plaster surrounding the tusk that was used to stabilize it during transport.  I am not clear on that particular point.

One of the educational exhibits had a place where you could try to pull a cylinder roughly the size of an animal leg out of the tar.  It was sealed so that you could not actually come into contact with the tar.  There was a small handle for children and a larger handle for adults.  I could hardly pull the smaller one out.  The large one was very difficult to pull free from the tar.  You just don't really understand how sticky this stuff really is until you try it.

Father Christmas Doll Completed

Completed Father Christmas doll.

I have completed my Father Christmas doll.  Last blog post I had finished up through adding the robe, then it was just a matter of adding trim to the robe and some accessories.  I have learned over my years in doll making that it is not just the doll but all the little pieces that add interest and sparkle to the piece.  The more you accessorize the better the doll will appear to other viewers.

In blog posts made some time ago I had said that you think you have finished a piece you should go over the piece three more times and add another accessory each time.  I guess the glass bead medium added to the base was a bit of an upgrade from its original stand covering made from modeling clay.   My initial plan for the doll was to have him holding a Christmas tree.  I added a basket and a duck.  The duck is a piece from a set of shalt and pepper shakers that I found at a thrift store.  It is supposed to represent a goose, which was (and I suppose still is) a traditional Christmas time meal.  Then I
trimmed the tree with a small garland.  Then I added a small toy train and some poinsettia flowers.  The flowers are actually buttons that easily glued on with hot glue.  I also added the candy canes.  They have a lot
of shine and the ones hanging from the gold threads will move if there is a bit of air moving near it.  The movement seems to add a little life to the piece.  Each piece adds a little color and also adds something to the story.

The only other addition was to add some wool roving to trim the neck, front, and bottom edges of the robe.  Wool roving comes in small 0.7 pound packages or large bags.  It comes in many colors, but I used a white wool roving for the Santa's hair and beard.    The length of the roving, which comes in a long strand is just a little over a yard long.  The length was just about right for adding trim to the coat.  However, the roving is very thick.  I pulled the strand in half lengthwise.  One half strand was used for the robe.  The other half strand was used for the hair and beard. 

To add the wool roving to the robe I used hot glue starting at the neck and wrapping it around the dolls head,
then down the front and along the bottom of the robe.  Basically it was squeeze some hot glue onto the edge and lay the wool roving into the glue.  Then I would give the roving a little twist so that the fibers stayed tightly packed.  I continued gluing and twisting all the way around the doll.  I did not cut the wool roving until I had the robe completely finished.  Then I cut off the remaining wool. 

I used hot glue for the hair because I was in a hurry to complete the doll.  The recommended glue for attaching the hair was tacky craft glue.  I would say that the tacky glue was a good recommendation.  If you accidentally drop some hot glue on the doll a this point it could be problematic.  Either you are stuck with a glop of glue stuck to the face of the doll or you could have to do some type of major repair if removing the glue pulls off the paint or a chunk of the clay when you try to remove it.  That is not what you want to have happen right at the end of a project (or anytime really).

I have not made a Father Christmas doll in a long time.  I made a couple, but was rather disillusioned with my early endeavors.  Before I learned how to make faces, the noses of my dolls were all out of proportion.  The noses started to high up.  Every doll had a very long nose.  There is actually a genre of Father Christmas dolls where all the dolls are carved with long noses.  I decided to try other types of crafts for a while until I had reached a higher skill level.  I think I am getting there.  I actually bought a little extra wool roving in case I needed more, so now I have enough for a few more dolls.

I have a funny story about wool roving.  Aside from using it for doll hair, wool roving is also used for needle felting projects.  For the last few years, needle felting was the popular craft.  You could not go to any craft store that sold yarn and fibers without practically tripping over a
section of needle felting tools and wool roving.  This year when I went to my craft store there was not a wool roving display to be seen.  The only doll hair that the store carried was this shiny curly fiber.  I don't know if the fiber was polyester, nylon or some other synthetic, but it was horrid.  It looked like curly dental floss in bright yellow, white, or brown.  They used to carry wool roving in the doll making section.  That product is no longer on the shelf.

(More text below.  The photos are not cooperating.)

A package of wood roving.

I decided to call another fabric and craft store to see if they had any wool roving before I drove out there.  The lady that answered put me on hold while she went to check.  After a long wait she returned and asked what it was.  She said she had asked both of her associates and a couple of customers as well and none of
them knew what it was.  Up until last year, every store was carrying it and every craft magazine had some needle felting project.  In just a short period of time, it has completely dropped from most peoples thoughts to the point that they don't even recognize it.  I ended up ordering it from Amazon.

Before the wool roving was added.

I actually have another story.  I guess it is not really funny so much as interesting.  I ordered a couple of things from Amazon recently.  I have been traveling a lot and it has been difficult to place my orders so that they arrive between trips.  I really wanted to order something but could tell I was going to run out of time.  In order to get it in time I would have to pay additional shipping charges.  Since I really needed the item I paid the charges for two day service.  The next

Glass bead medium added to base.

thing I know, there is a knock at my door.  I look out my window, but I don't recognize the car out front.  I look out the peephole and there is a lady standing there with a package.  It was someone from Amazon delivering my package.  I was surprised, I had figured it would come by mail rather than personal courier.  She handed me the package and left.  I was surprised that she would wait rather than just putting the package in front of the door.  Our UPS delivery man usually drops the package and heads back to his truck at a dead run.  You would think he expected a hungry lion to jump out at him.


Anyway, it was announced in the news today that Amazon has a new program.  If you are a Prime member and live in some specific regions, and you are willing to pay an extra $7.99 for shipping they will deliver the package to you within one hour.  There is no extra shipping charge if you are willing to wait two hours.  Talk about instant gratification.  This takes it to a whole new level.  I don't think I could go to a store and shop for most things that quickly.  If you live near an Amazon center, this is probably going to be in your future.  So far, I have not seen any drone deliveries.  That could be in our future too.



I guess that the doll took about twenty hours of actual work time.  There were two days that I had to wait for the modeling compound and the glass bead medium to dry.  I think that I could have done even better if I had more time.  Look for some more dolls coming soon. 

Making a Father Christmas Doll - Part 9

Before padding added.

In the last blog post I showed how the doll was mounted onto the stand.  Things will progress fairly quickly from here.  The doll still needs the outer robe.  Once again, quick is a relative term.  It did not seem like it should take a long time to do this part, but it was time consuming because it is all fitting and hand sewing.

Padding added.

In this case, the clothing is made using the drape method.  The drape method is when shaped pieces of fabric are laid on the doll and hand sewn on to make the clothing.  This is actually much easier than trying to construct a garment and then get the doll into it.  Dolls do not have the flexibility that humans have so it is not easy to put a garment onto a doll.  Trying to taylor a garment in the way human clothes are made is difficult due to their small size.

Before the robe is sewn on, there is another task that must be performed.  The arms were sewn onto the
back of the doll as shown in my previous blog post.  This leaves a lump on the back where the arm armature was sewn to the body.  The lump must be addressed, or the doll will look like it has a hunch back.  That is not exactly the look you want in a Father Christmas doll. 

After padding.

The solution to the lump on the back is to pad the doll so that the lump is no longer higher than the rest of the
back.  In the original instructions for the doll, the suggestion was to wrap the doll in wool roving around the chest and back.  This not only pads the area below the hump, but also gives the doll some girth around the middle.  The body of the doll is basically a graduated cylinder; wider at the base than at the shoulders.  The extra padding gives the doll a more realistic shape.  After all, Santa was supposed to be heavy.  Although being fat is considered repugnant these days, in earlier times in many cultures being fat was a sign of prosperity.  You can see how that would play into the Santa myths. 

I chose not to use wool roving for the padding.  Twenty years ago, when the book Making Old-Fashioned Santas was written (by Candie Frankel and Beverly Karcher) wool roving was less expensive than it is now.  I'd say that the price has more than doubled in the intervening years.  I had plenty of cotton batting and polyester fiberfill so I used that instead.  I folded a strip of batting in half and stuffed it with fiberfill, then sewed the batting to the body.  I kept adding strips and fiberfill until the body was padded.  It is not as lovely as the wool roving, but no one will see it because it will be hidden under the robe.  This is a look at doll rather than a play with it doll.  In this case one should probably not look too closely.  If anyone every takes this doll apart she will wonder what in the world I was thinking when I did that.   However, the solution works, and I was able to reproduce the look without adding additional expense to the doll.

After adding the batting and fiberfill to the figure it was time for the robe.  The body section of the robe is just a rectangle with two slits cut into it for the armholes.  The slits are two and a half inches long.  I cut my rectangle larger than recommended because I was using a fabric that could ravel if it had raw edges.  I had to allow extra fabric to account for the fabric being turned under and hemmed.  All in all, it was still a little long after the fabric was hemmed.  I think I could have easily gone with the size of the fabric rectangle dimensions given in the instructions: thirteen inches by fourteen inches with slits cut four and one-eighth inches from each edge along one fourteen inch edge.  Anyway the fabric around the slits is folded under to make an opening for the arms.  The fabric is slipped under the arms and sewn onto the doll at the armholes and across the top of the front and back and whip stitched along the front opening.  Trim will be added after this to the front, neck opening, and bottom hem.  I chose to leave the bottom of the robe open rather than sew it closed all the way down. 

Now that the doll was padded, the arms looked too thin.  I took out the gathers at the bottom of each arm and lightly stuffed it with the fiberfill before sewing the sleeves to the arms again.  It looks more proportional now.  The head looks a little small, but it will look much larger once the hair, beard, and hat are added. 

Making a Father Christmas Doll - Part 8

Tabs stapled to base.

The doll is starting to come together.  In earlier blog posts I showed how to make the face and arms and how they are attached to the body.  Soon it will be time to add the robes and accessories, but the doll is not quite at that point yet.  Today the blog will show how to make this doll stand.  There are many ways to make a doll stand.  The choice of how to make a doll stand depends on the type of doll, available materials, and time.  The doll I am making is a relatively quick and primitive doll.  The solution for making it stand up will be fairly primitive as well.

Standing on his own.

Up until now, the bottom of the doll body has been pinned shut with safety pins.  Once the pins are removed, the bottom is open and the polyester fiberfill is visible.  Use scissors to make a clip at three-eights of an inch on each side of each side seam.  Then make three clips across the front and back at two inch intervals from the initial clips.  The clips should be one-half inch high.  Take care when measuring the clips to make sure that they are the correct height.  You may notice it later if they are not the same.  Most of it will be covered by trim later, but it is possible that a clip could show above the trim.

Glass bead medium on base.

Once the clips are made the tabs made by make clips are stapled to a wooden base using a staple gun.  I found that it worked best by stapling one tab on the front then one on the back.  Then I continued to work

Glass bead medium looks like ice and snow.

my way around the base of the figure stapling opposite tabs.  I also found it necessary to tuck in a little more fiberfill around the base to make the figure look completely stuffed.  It is not the most elegant solution to mounting a doll to a base, but it is effective.  The idea for this doll is that the trim of the coat will cover the staples.  A different solution would have been to make it a design feature and used decorative upholstery tacks to nail into the tabs.  If someone had made that choice, I would recommend that they use Fray Check on the edges of the tabs to prevent the cloth from fraying.

The instructions for the pattern doll I am creating said that once the doll was stapled to the base that you used modeling compound to cover the base.  I used a plastic artists pallet knife to apply the material.  It was supposed to make it white and look like snow.  The instructions said to cover the base up to the edge of the tabs.  I decided to apply the modeling compound both under and over the tabs as well.  This added a further layer of glue to hold the doll in place.  I was careful to prevent the modeling compound from smearing onto the doll body.  However, it would not have ruined the doll if "snow" was on the fabric.  After all when you walk in snow, you get snow on your clothes.

I was rather disappointed with the modeling compound.  Yes it was white and anyone could look at it and see that it was supposed to look like snow, but the texture was wrong and it had a very flat matte finish.   I thought I could do better.  I had some glass bead medium left over from a previous project.  I mixed the medium with some pearlizing medium to give it some soft luster.  The beads in the mixture looked a lot like ice crystals.  The mixture reflected light and seemed more like snow than the modeling compound.  I think it is an improvement, but I guess that is a matter of personal preference.

This part of the project caused a bit of a delay in working on the doll.  The modeling compound took overnight to dry.  The bead mixture took another overnight drying period, mainly because I put it on so thickly.  Two days of down time is a lot when you are in a rush.  I was following the directions in the order they were given in the doll instructions.  With twenty-twenty hindsight, I can say that I would have covered the base first and let it dry while I was working on other parts of the doll.

So now the doll is standing.  Next blog will be about finishing the robe and trimming the garment.

Making a Father Christmas Doll - Part 7

Arm assembly

I am racing against the clock to get a quick Father Christmas doll ready by the time the Christmas
decorations start going up.  Quick is a relative term when making a doll, but as I blogged in the earlier posts, I am using a very simple doll form to help move things along.  Last blog post I had shown how the arms and sleeve were made.  Now I am on to the next process. 

Face mask sewn onto the body.

Before attaching the arms, the face needs to be attached.  The face is a mask type face.  Earlier blog posts show how the face was created.  The face has four holes in it so that it can be sewn onto the doll body.  This is the area where specialized doll needles are helpful.  I have doll needles in two
sizes.  Some (sorry for the skip the photos won't cooperate.  Please continue reading below the photo.)

Back of the head.

needles are three inches long.  My other doll needles are seven inches long.  The short needles are very
rigid.  The long needles are flexible, which is helpful in that the longer needles flex and make it easier to hit an
exact spot through the body of the doll.  Be forewarned, always work with the large needles facing away from you.  You can get a nasty jab from one of these large needles if you are pulling hard and the needle finally pulls through all the doll's layers. 

Flannel and stuffing round out the back of the head.

The face mask is sewn onto the body by sewing diagonally between the holes.  I used a heavy button thread for this part of the project.  Start at the back of the head. go through a hole, return to the back

Sewing on the arms.

of the head and make a locking stitch.  Then go through the hole again and then diagonally across to a hole, come up through the hole and to the back of the head again.  Next do the other diagonal in the same way.  I did multiple threads with this to make sure that the head would be secure.  Technically, this is a look at it doll, not a play with it doll.  However, I try to make sure that everything is attached securely enough that I don't have to worry about it if a small child gets hold of it by accident.  You won't see the holes where the face is attached once they are covered by the hair and beard.

 This is where I start to part ways with the instructions of the doll pattern.  I just needed the basic shape of

Arms and sleeves are attached to the body.

the doll body to get started.  The instructions that I have been following is for a much more primitive doll than the the one I plan on making.  The doll will slowly change from here on out to something of my own creation. I guess I have actually already started to make changes because the doll instructions I have  been following were using a cast Santa face that included the purchased beard being cast in chalkware.  I crafted my own face out of bake in the oven clay.  At the moment, it has no beard
because I plan to glue wool roving to the face and head to create the beard and hair.

The process of sewing on the doll head tends to flatten out the back of the doll head.  I digressed from the pattern in this case by making creating the back of the head by using a circle of white flannel (and some scraps) and stuffing it with polyester fiberfill and sewing it onto the back of the head. This fills out the back of the head to make it look more normal.   When I attach the hair, the scalp will be white instead of showing through as the red of the doll body.  

 Once the face is attached, it is time to sew on the arms and sleeve assembly.  The arms are attached to the body on the back just slightly below where the face ends on the front.  Leave a small area that serves as the neck.  Sew through the sleeve and the material covering the wire armature of the arms.  It will not look pretty, but do the best you can.  This area will be covered by the robe when the figure is complete.  You won't see the stitches.   When you first start sewing, the arms will cant to one side.  Make sure that you straighten the arms as they are sewn to the body.

At this point the hands look oversized.  There will be about an inch of trim attached to the sleeves.  This will cover up a considerable amount of the hand.  If they still look too large, I will open the mittens and remove some of the stuffing.  Sometimes making a doll is continuing a matter of continuing to work at it until it looks right.

Once the arms have been sewn on, bend the arm armature forward to create the shoulders and arms.  This is when things start to take shape.  If you have never seen one of these dolls take shape you will wonder how in the world it is ever going to work out.  At this point the doll seems to have a hunch back.  Doll making is a lot like painting in that the doll is built up in layers just like painting a picture is built up in layers of paint.  Many new doll makers give up at this point because they cannot see how things will work out.  It will work out, it just takes time. 

Next blog post the doll really begins to take shape.  It will be self-standing.  Check back on Thursday for that post.