Victorian Belsnickel - Part 5

Doll cape with wool roving trim.

Last blog post I showed the coat and wrote about using the adhesive backed fleece as a lining to give the material more bulk.  The coat is together, and the cape is assembled, but not yet sewn to the coat.  There was one more thing I wanted to do with the coat, and that is what caused the second hold-up in this project.  This idea set me back a couple of weeks, mainly because there was no local access to the items I needed to complete this section.  It turned out to be another quest trying to find what I needed.

Cape and trim for the front of the coat.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the material I was using was a very bright red; much brighter than I wanted.  I had some white adhesive backed fleece left over, so I thought I would use it for the trim on the edge of the cape.  It seemed like it would be a good idea.  It was white and soft and looked like it would make a good trim.  However, once it was on there it just did not look right.  In fact, between the bright red and the bright white, it looked like a gaudy costume.  I decided that I had to do something, because it just looked too ... something.  I can't even figure out how to describe it.  It just changed the look of the whole outfit.

The plan for the coat.

I considered taking the fleece off and adding cotton batting, and that might have turned out to be the better solution, but the batting looked a little flimsy given the heaviness of the coat.  I considered purchasing some fur, but thought that the fur would be a little too upscale considering the coat's material.  What I finally hit on was that I had a lot of wool roving.  I decided that since I already had the roving, that it would be a fun project to needle felt some of the roving onto the trim pieces. I also decided that I would use some weak tea dye to keep the white wool roving from looking such a bright white.   I had purchased white roving for the hair because natural roving looks a little yellowish.  The idea worked, but it was also the snag where the project started to go into a tailspin.

The doll so far.

As I blogged earlier in the project when I was looking for wool roving to use as hair, needle felting seems to be a fad that has come and gone.  Just as I was had trouble finding the roving, felting needles were not to be found.  They did not have any felting tools at my closest craft store, nor any of the three fabric/craft stores in the area that I normally frequent.  At this point, I think I should have taken this as a sign.  But I was stuck on the idea, so I ended up ordering the felting tool and felting needles online.  I had to wait a few days for them to arrive. 

After the felting tool and needles arrived, I started the needle felting. Things went well at first.  It is sort of a relaxing mindless activity: punch, move the needles, punch.  I was about an inch from finishing the trim around the cape when I started running out of time.  I started punching faster.  That was a mistake.  The tool holds three needles.  The first needle broke, but I kept punching with two needles.  The second needle broke.  I kept punching with one needle.  Then the last needle broke and I did not have any more needles.  I ended up having to order more needles online because there were none to be had locally.  You can't just use a regular needle for needle felting.  The needles have small barbs or notches on them that grab the fabric and pull it down into the base material.  So another few days wait for them to arrive. I ordered double what I though I would need just in case.

My needles arrived.  I finished felting the cape trim and the trim that will go down the front of the coat.  It still looked too white.  I had ordered white wool roving rather than natural color roving because the natural tends to look a little yellowish, not really the color for Santa hair.  So, I thought, why not give it a weak tea dye, and since the adhesive on the fleece fuses with steam, fuse it afterwards to insure that the roving stays put.  Using steam would also help to felt the wool roving a little more.  That idea caused the next delay. 

I brushed on a weak tea dye with a soft brush.  The flannel soaked up the water and soaked the cape.  I steamed it on the cotton setting on the iron.  Wet wool and steam is not a pleasant mix.  It smelled like wet sheep, maybe like a barn full of wet sheep.  I can't say that I would recommend this to anyone.  The flannel was still much wetter than I thought it would be. I did not want to steam it too long because it could mess with the adhesive that I had fused to the fleece.  I had to let it sit and dry out for a day or two.  But it did seem to work.  The roving is staying in place.  The tea-dyed trim looks better than it did before.  So I guess that it is a win, albeit hard won.

And that is about where I am on the project now.  I am ready to sculpt the head and hands from bake in the oven clay.  I have been holding back on that because I needed to have a day where I could open up the windows while the items were baking.  The clay requires ventilation while the baking occurs.  Tomorrow is that day.  The temperature is expected to be in the upper sixties (Fahrenheit).  I plan to hit the studio first thing in the morning.  It may take all day, but the project will take a giant leap forward.

Check back on Thursday for an update on the doll.

Victorian Belsnickel - Part 4

Now so thick it stands on its own.

Now that I am back on some sort of normal routine, I'm back to blogging about the Victorian Belsnickel doll.  I hit a snag on things, but now I am back on schedule---sort of.  I was trying to work a little ahead so I had something to blog about each post, but that has now gone out the window.  I am now trying to make sure I have something new for each post again.  However, the snag is resolved so the project is moving forward. 

Back with side seams.

The snag came about because I ran into a couple of materials problems.  The first problem was finding the right material.  When possible, I try to use material I have in my fabric stash before I go out to buy more.  I had three red fabrics in hand.  None of them seemed appropriate for the project.  One fabric was a BRIGHT red thin flannel, the second fabric was a heavier burgundy flannel, and the third was a modern outerwear fabric I had used for the doll I made just before Christmas.  The modern  fabric did not fit with a Victorian type doll.  The burgundy just too dark.  The bright red was really bright, but I thought with a little work I could make do with it.  At least felt that I needed to try, because wool material is expensive.

Cape will attache to the coat.

I decided that I would try to tea dye the fabric to knock down some of the brightness. Before dyeing with tea, I washed the fabric with laundry soda to remove any additives from the fabric.  I did not use any sort of fabric softener afterwards.  I dried the fabric in the dryer.  Sometimes when you wash a red fabric the color tends to dull after just a couple of washes.  Well hats off to the manufacturer of this fabric because the bright red color remained unphased. I washed it again.  Same thing.  So then I proceeded to tea dye the fabric.  It might have knocked down the glare a little bit, but it was still bright red.  However, I decided to go with it.  Then I was onto working onto the next problem:  thin fabric.

Coat with cape attached.

The doll so far.

The flannel was a thin shirt weight flannel.  I needed something thicker to make the coat.  It needed some padding to make it look heavy enough for a coat.  By coincidence, I had been watching a quilting show on television and they had shown a product called adhesive backed fleece that was being used for a quilting project.  It seemed like just the thing.  The fleece came in either adhesive on one side or adhesive on both sides.  I thought that if I fused the fleece between layers of flannel that I would have a thicker fabric and it would appear as if the coat had a lining.  So, I started on what turned out to be a quest for double sided adhesive fleece.  I called fabric stores and craft stores.  Some had single sided, but no one had double sided.  I could only find the double sided fleece online.  I decided to go with the single sided because I did not want to have to pay shipping and handling fees.  Also, I did not want to have to wait for days for it to arrive.  It was quicker to use the adhesive fleece.  If I had not been able to find any I would have gone to Plan B and sewn in batting between the two layers of material.

At the first opportunity, I went out to purchase the fleece.  Then I got to work.  I cut out the coat and the lining for the coat. I cut out the pieces of fusible fleece for each piece, cutting it so that the fleece would stay out of the seam lines so they would not be too bulky.   Next I fused fleece to the back of each piece.  Then I sewed the coat together.  I wish I had cut the fleece a little narrower.  It was still difficult to sew.  Sewing doll clothes is not easy to begin with since the pieces are so small.  This doll is only going to be about seventeen inches tall. 


Anyway, I finished assembling the coat and attached the hood.  I once made a hooded cape for myself and that experience served in good stead.  I am not sure I would have understood how to attach the hood to the cape otherwise.  I have also sewn the round cape that covers the shoulders of the coat and added some white trim to the cape. I have not yet sewn the cape to the coat.  That might be best done after the coat is put on the doll so I know that I have the placement of the cape correct.

The coat is now very thick and heavy.  It looks like something you would wear out in cold, snowy weather.  I guess if I had thought about it more, I would have only used fleece on one piece of fabric rather than on both pieces.  I could have used that piece as the lining piece not had as much stiffness on the outside.  It looks right, but it was the dickens to sew.  I still have to add a piece of trim down the front of the coat.  The trim will cover where the coat is sewn together, so that will not be done until after the coat is on the doll. 

At least I will be able to show you photos of what the coat will look like.  I have not sewn it onto the doll yet.  I need to make the doll's head and hands out of clay and attach them to the doll before the coat is permanently attached to the doll.  I am behind on that.  Part of the problem is that I have been tied up with shoveling snow.  The cold weather has not been conducive to getting me to work on this part of the project because you have to have a lot of ventilation when you bake the clay.  I have not wanted to leave the doors and windows open this week with the weather so cold.  However, later this week, the temperature is supposed to rebound up to the upper sixties (Fahrenheit) so I plan to make and bake the clay parts then.

I am running out of time this morning, so I will end at this stopping point.   I still have another snag to tell you about, but I will save that for next time.  Check back on Sunday.

Epic Snow Storm

Snow on top of the cooker.

I would be remiss if I did not post something about the huge storm that passed through in the last few days.  I will be back on track with the Victorian Belsnickel project on Thursday.    This was a huge snowstorm.  It has been ten or eleven years since we have had such a large storm.  It began snowing about 10:00 am on Friday morning and snowed and/or sleeted until 11:00 pm. on Saturday night.  This was not a situation of gentle snow showers.  It snowed so hard that it was like a curtain of snow.  If this was rain, it would have been a downpour.  The snow did not let up for the entire time.

Snow above the license plate numbers on the cars.

Fortunately, it was more of a snow storm rather than an ice storm, so there were minimal power outages.  Thankfully, we did not lose power here.  Although some areas did lose power, most of it was restored fairly quickly.  The winds were high, sometimes gusting to fifty miles an hour.  Despite the high winds, there was not as much snow drift as you would expect.  The snow was a wet heavy snow, and once it hit the ground it tended to stay put.  We shoveled snow away from one door to make sure we had a clear exit, but it did pile on the front porch.  The kitchen door has an awning, so although snow drifted in there we were still able to open the door.

Drifted against the shed.

We passed the time indoors with a number of activities.  We read and played video games.  And baked.  Bill likes to bake, and being stuck indoors is a time when he gets busy with baking.  He made a batch of cinnamon buns.  The house was filled with the smell of yeast bread and cinnamon.  There really is nothing more perfect than that while watching a snow storm.

Snow on the deck ramp.

The back yard.

When we walked out to clean the cars and clear the walk and driveway, the snow was up past my knees.  I guess that people up north where they get lake effect snows would consider up whiners to be complaining about a couple of feet of snow, but it is a lot of snow for us.  Since a snow like that happens only about once every ten or fifteen years, very few of us are equipped to handle this volume of snow.  They have snow blowers.  We have only shovels.  And did we shovel.  The snow closest to the ground was covered by a thick layer of sleet, that permeated the snow beneath it and turned it into hard surface.  Over that there were many more inches of snow, that were easier to shovel.  It took a about two and a half hours to for my husband and I to clear the front porch, walkway, the cars, and the driveway along a section wide enough for us to back a car out.  That was so much work that we decided to leave the van and the ramp up to the kitchen for another day.

Cinnamon buns.

Cleaning off the cars was a lot of work too.  We do not have a covered carport or garage.  The cars just have to stay out in the snow.  When we moved to this area, we were looking for a house with an attached garage.  The Realtor sounded like we were asking for something weird when we said we wanted that.  It is true, the majority of homes here do not come with garages.  I don't know why.  If a home has a garage at all around here, it is generally a detached garage somewhere in the back.  Anyway, the home we ended up purchasing did not have any sort of garage, so here we were, trying to push nearly a foot and a half of snow off the tops of our cars while trying not to scratch the paint.  We are really tired.  However, the cars are ready for action.

The street has been plowed one car width wide.  If everyone is going in the same direction, I guess that will work.  I am not sure what happens if two cars end up facing each other.  There is a significant difference between the top of the snow and street level.  I guess someone has to back up until they reach an open driveway.  This is actually an improvement of a sort.  It used to be that they did not plow our neighborhood.  We live beyond what is called "the urban service area."  If it snowed, you were just out of luck until the snow melted.  We were fortunate that one of our neighbors owned a backhoe.  If the snow was really bad he would plow the street.  I guess enough people complained that they were paying taxes and not receiving services, because they finally started to plow the neighborhood, sort of.  In a situation like this, it is better to have one lane open than none.

I am not planning on going anywhere today. Nor will I go out tomorrow unless it is absolutely necessary.  I expect that my husband will have to go to work on Monday, but it could be a late opening as the roads will be icy.  I don't expect that the university will make a decision on that until tomorrow morning.  It is above freezing now, but the temperatures will be dropping into the mid-teens overnight.

For now, it is a case of "alls well that ends well."  I am hoping that temperatures will be warm enough that the snow will get out of here before the next system comes through.  It looks as if the next several days will be sunny and temperatures may be in the thirties to low forties.  It will be below freezing every night though, so it might take a while to get all the snow out of here.

I'll be back to blogging about my project on Thursday. 

Another Project - Snag Changes Plans

I had planned to be blogging about the Victorian Belsnickel project today, but I ran into a snag.  Rather than go into it here, I will write about it on Sunday when I have things back on track.  It will make more sense when I show it with photos.  Today I will show you some photos of another project I have been working on behind the scenes.

When I was blogging about my goals for the year, I had written that I had purchased some small art tiles with the intent of sketching and painting on them to try and improve those skills.  The tiles are small, only about three and a half inches square.  The small size allows me to do something fairly quickly.  That way I can do a small landscape without having to paint or draw a lot of detail or focus on only a small element of a scene rather than try to paint a whole still life.  Time is precious for everyone, and not having enough time to spend on a painting or drawing is one reason I tend to put it off.

I have been working on the tiles off and on since the first of the year.  Some of them are okay.  Some need work.  A few went straight to the trash.  I don't like to draw or paint because I am not good at it.  However, if I don't do more of it there won't be any improvement.  So there you have it.  Perhaps there will be some improvement over the year.  I'll post pictures every once in a while.

The first picture is inspired by my recent trip to California.  This is not actually a place that I went, but rather it is a composite of images from various things that I saw: palm trees, the ocean, a rocky beach, and Catalina Island in the distance.  This was just a watercolor painting.  I did not sketch anything on it other than a horizon line.

The bird picture was a sketch that was then painted with watercolors.  I guess it is an improvement over my last bird pictures.  I think it seems more animated than my last bird pictures.  I painted a blue jay once but it seemed like it was made out of wood it was so stiff.  And my folk art peacock painting was so horrible that I don't want to think about it.  I keep it around only to remind me that I am improving. 

The last two pictures (I am presuming that they show up in the same order.  That is not always the case if they come to you via email.)  are paintings inspired by snow on the field.  Long time readers may remember that I did the field project a couple of years ago where I took pictures of the field down the street on a weekly basis.  The trees on the far side of the field and the road along the edge of the field may look familiar. 

With my field photo project, I had planned to show the growth of the crop that was planted over the course of the summer.  The joke was on me about that.  The field went up for sale and nothing was planted because the property did not sell until almost the end of the planting season.  The field lay fallow all year, and lay fallow this year as well.  I am hoping that this means the new owner is allowing it to lay fallow long enough that it can be used as certified organic land.  Otherwise, I am concerned that the person is planning to build on the site eventually.

Anyway, the remains of the stubble and furrows from the last planting are now barely visible unless you look closely.  When we had snow a few days ago, it covered the field it was an interesting mix of yellow sun highlights and purple shadows along the furrows.  I tried to capture the essence of that, but not very successfully in this case.  I used acrylics, and the yellow dried much darker than it appeared when wet.  In this case, the pictures actually look better in person than in the photographs.  For some reason the yellow appears much brighter in the photo than they appear in person. 

Well so much for this blog post.  The weather radio just blared an alert that the weather had changed from a winter storm watch to a winter storm warning.  If I do not post on Sunday, it may mean that we are without electricity.  I am hoping that we are going to be on the edge of the storm and not get the full brunt of it.  The low end snow estimates are for five to eight inches of snow with sleet and freezing rain.  The high end snow estimate is for twelve to twenty-four inches.  Compared to people further north, that may not seem like much, but around here that is a lot of snow.

Victorian Belsnickel - Part 3

Vinyl right sides together and soles with marked seam line.

We are having our first snow of the season.  It is hard not to be distracted by the fluffy flakes flying outside the window.  I guess it has been snowing about an hour now and the snow is just starting to stick.  It is also a three day holiday weekend, Lee-Jackson-King Day.  A cold, snowy three day weekend inspires my husband to bake.  At the moment, he is in the kitchen making some of his wonderful Kaiser rolls.  Soon the house will be filled with the smell of yeast rolls baking in the oven.  All in all, it is a great day.

Boot turned with back seam open.

Today I am blogging about making the boots.  Usually I make boots out of felt. This time I decided to use a different material: felt backed vinyl.  Several years ago, my husband decided to make some saddle bags for his motorcycle.  He is so exacting in his construction that you could not tell them from saddle bags purchased at the store.  Anyway, the scraps from the project made their way to my fabric stash where they have languished for years.  Since I was making boots for this doll, I decided that this was the time to use some of those scraps.  The vinyl was a little difficult to work with on such a small scale, but I managed to make a passable boot.  They are supposed to look like pull on boots such as a riding boot.  They looked a little plain when finished, so I added a strap and a decorative buckle.

The boot is a two part pattern that consists of a boot shape and an oval shape for the sole.  The vinyl is placed right sides together and the pattern is placed on the wrong side of the vinyl.  The pattern is placed right side up for one boot and right side down for the other boot.  I cut two ovals, one for each boot sole.  I used small clamps to keep the vinyl in position so I did not have to pin. I did not want to use pins because it would have left visible holes in the vinyl.   (Clothespins would have worked for this as well.)  The boot pattern I was using had a line that was cut line for the pattern. I cut along the pattern lines and then marked the quarter inch sewing line.

It all sounds so simple, but sewing the boot, was somewhat difficult.  The small size made it difficult to try to sew on a machine.  I ended up sewing them by hand which had its own set of difficulties.  The vinyl was thick and hard to push a needle through.  I had to use a heavy duty darning needle and the eye was large and hard to pull through the vinyl.  The area was so small that sometimes I had to use a forceps clamp to hold the material together while I was sewing it because there was no room for fingers to hold onto it.  All in all, these boots were made due to sheer unwillingness to give up.  With 20/20 hindsight, I think it would have been easier to sew it with the machine.

So I began sewing on the top front part of the boot.  At this point, the boots are still right sides of the vinyl turned facing each other and the wrong side on the outside.  Once I had that sewn on both boots  I sewed just about a quarter inch of the back seam.  The back seam of the boots were left open so that I would have room to turn the boots right side out once the sole was in place.  I sewed the sole of the boot to the top part of the boot all the way around the sole.  That was when I used the forceps to hold things together.  At some point, I could no longer get my fingers into the boot to have a good grip while I was sewing.

Finally I had the sole completely sewn on both boots.  Next it was time to turn them right side out.  Vinyl is a comparatively stiff material.  The boots are only about two and a quarter inches long (5.72 centimeters).   It took a little persuasion to turn the boots.  After a bit of effort the boots were turned and I sewed up the back seams.

The boots looked a little plain.  I felt they needed some embellishment.  I added a strap and buckles.  I made the buckles out of some aluminum tooling foil that were shaped and scrunched up with a pair of needle nose pliers.  They look like they are hammered metal.  In other circumstances, I might have made the buckles differently, but I had a roll of tooling foil left over from another project.  (The foil was used to form the metal roof of the building in the Goblin Diorama.)  The buckles were placed on the straps and the straps were sewn onto the boot. 

Before I put the boots on the doll, I had one more task to do.  If you have been following along on the blog posts on this doll, you might remember that the doll is supposed to be self standing and has dowels built into the armature that will eventually be glued into a stand.  Please note that more dowel will be glued than what is shown in the photographs.  The boot has shifted down along the dowel.  It will be pushed up another half an inch when the dowel is glued.  Those dowels need to come through the bottom of the boots.  I placed the boots on the doll and marked the section of the dowels using some chalk.  Then I cut an X in the bottom of the boot so that the dowels could poke through.  Then the boots were positioned correctly on the doll and sewn into place at the top of the boot.  After that, The pants were stuffed around the boot and sewn to keep them in place.

In a way the boots have been bothering me for several days.  It took me a while to try to determine what was wrong with them.  I finally realized that the problem was that they looked like moccasins rather than boots.  Moccasins have a soft sole.  Boots have a heavier sole and a heel.  I have not yet decided whether I will go back and add a second sole and heel.  I am not so much opposed to the work as that I am concerned that adding the extra materials will impact how much dowel is glued into the stand.  If the dowel is too short the doll may not be stable.  I will have to experiment and see if I am able to move the leg materials upwards enough to make the work worthwhile.  If not, there is always some other doll where I can work to improve my boot making.

Check back on Thursday for a new blog post to see the next work on the doll.

Victorian Belsnickel - Part 2

Muslin "skin" covers the layers of batting.

Last time I blogged about creating the body for the doll.  I had pretty much completed the basic body. I was not able to find the photo I had taken of the doll after it had been covered with a final layer of muslin quilt backing.  In fact, I was not able to find a whole file of the photos I had taken.  I have gone through my entire photo section and the recycle section and the file is nowhere to be found. I spent an hour looking through photo files.  At this point, I am going to have to declare a section of the photos completely lost. 

Duck cotton pants are stuffed into the boots.

I was only able to take a photo of the muslin on the upper body of the doll because I had already started to add some of the clothing.  So my first picture will show the upper body of the doll where I have covered the layers of batting with the muslin quilt backing.  I would normally have used an unbleached muslin for this layer as the unbleached muslin more closely resembles flesh color.  However, I had some bleached muslin scraps, so I used them instead.  None of this layer will be seen once the doll is completely clothed.  I am going to sculpt the face and hands from bake in the oven polymer clay, so the color of the cloth is not a problem in that aspect.

Pants are sewn onto the doll at waist and boot tops.

Today I will be blogging about making the pants. The material was a duck cotton.  I used a basic pants pattern which is basically a rectangle with a curve cut into one corner.  You sew the curved seam, the inner seam, and the outer seam and you have a basic pare of pants.  There are no zippers or elastic waist bands.  The pants waist is sewn directly onto the doll. 

I made the pants ankle length but planned to stuff the pant legs into the boots.  I think every detail of the doll should help tell a story.  By stuffing the pants into the boots it adds to the story by suggesting that the snow is wet and the character wants to keep the pants dry.  The bottom of the pants legs was sewn onto the boots once the boots were completed.   There will be more information on making the boots on the next blog post.

Some doll makers might have chosen not to make pants in the manner that human pants are made.  Since the doll will have a long red coat, the thigh and waist portion of the pants will not be visible on the completed doll.   To save time and materials (and therefore money), many doll makers would have just made tubes to represent pants legs.  Each tube would have been slipped onto a leg and sewn onto the doll.  That is a perfectly legitimate way of making a decorative doll.  I chose to make full pants because I want my doll to be detailed in the event someone looks at the construction of the doll.  Seriously though, unless the other person is a doll maker, no one ever does this.  People just look at the doll and say "That's nice."

Back in the 1990s, there was a big debate going on among doll makers.  The debate is whether or not a doll should have underwear.  There was one side that said that underwear was not necessary because it was just a doll and no one cared.  The other side said that the dolls were not fully dressed if they did not have underwear on and that going without underwear was disgusting.  I am not sure that it would be as big an issue now as the ensuing years have brought us thong underwear and people are "going commando."  My take on the situation is that I would at least like my doll to have a normal public appearance, so my doll has a full set of pants rather than tubes for pant legs.  However, underneath the pants he is going commando.  No one will never know from looking at the doll because the pants are sewn to the body and there is no way for anyone to check without taking the doll apart.

Anyway, I spent my morning searching for the photos so I am running late on other work that needs to be done.  Check back on Sunday for the next blog post.  I will be showing how the doll boots were made.


 







 

Victorian Belsnickel - Part 1

Taped wire armature with dowels.

Once again I have to apologize for the picture placement.  It seems that when I have a long post, the blogging platform starts giving me trouble for where I want to place the pictures.  It will not let me place the pictures where I want to place them.  Keep scrolling down to see the other two pictures.

I have started a new doll, a Victorian Belsnickel.  In my last blog post I wrote about some of the folklore of the Belsnickel.  I have done a little more reading since them and found a little interesting factoid that was worth mentioning.  I had mentioned that the Belsnickel was known to carry a bunch of Witch Hazel sticks used for smacking naughty children.  From further reading, I found that the Belsnickel was also said to carry Birch sticks.  Probably, both of these descriptions are right, but it depends upon which time period and country being referenced.  Witch Hazel is a new world plant that was introduced into Europe after settlers came to this country.  The settlers adopted its medicinal uses from the Native Americans.  Prior to the introduction of this plant, the Belsnickel was said to have carried Birch branches.  This seems reasonable because Germanic folklore has long had an association with the Birch tree.  The Berkana rune meant Birch and had numerous pronunciations and spellings in Old Norwegian, Old Icelandic, and Anglo Saxon languages.  The rune carries the symbolism of birth, growth (maturity), and rebirth.  I could see both of these plants having symbolic uses within the more obvious use of swatting naughty children.  Children are frequently sick, so hitting them with a stick that represented healing could be a symbolic healing.  Hitting with a stick that represented growth and maturity could be a symbolic imparting of those qualities.  Anyway, it is just one of those little interesting things that come up when I start poking around on the internet.

Torso padded with cotton batting strips.

Now, onto making the doll. 

There are a lot of decisions to be made when making a doll, and I blogged about them fairly extensively when making my last doll.  (See Father Christmas doll posts made in December 2015 for that information.)  I won't rehash the whole thing here, but will write about them as I make the decisions on this doll.  There are many ways to make a doll.  That is not that one way is necessarily better than another.  How you make a doll depends on what you want for a particular doll.

Once I decided that the subject of the doll was to be a Victorian Belsnickel, I was on to the decision how the doll would be posed and how it would stand.  I wanted the doll to be self standing rather than have an external stand and be able to pose the arms.  This means that the doll will have to have some internal armature that will support the weight of the doll and allow it to stand on its own.  In this case I mean that it will stand without having to lean up against something.  The support structure will be internal so that it won't be visible when viewing the doll. 

Final layer of fiberfill and batting.

I made a wire armature using galvanized steel wire.  The armature is very basic:  arms, hips, spine and legs.  The head will be constructed separately.  The shoulders will be created by bending the arms downwards.  It is easier to work with the doll at this point with the arms out straight.  Once the armature wire was bent into shape it was covered with masking tape. I wired and taped half inch diameter wooden dowels into the legs and hips of the armature.  It is important to note that the dowels have to be at least a half inch in diameter.  Thinner dowels can sometimes break under the strain of working the armature into position.  Some breaks will require extensive rebuilding to fix the doll.

The dowels extend beyond the length of the bottom of the foot.  The dowels will extend through the boots and into a wooden stand.  Holes will be drilled into the stand.  I will use hot glue in the holes and insert the dowels into the holes.  The doll will be standing then without a visible support. But that comes much later in the process.  For right now, the main idea is to get the dowels attached to the armature.

After the armature was covered with masking tape, I wrapped the figure in cotton batting to pad the armature.  I have to digress for a moment to address a question.  I am sure that some people are wondering why in the world I used small pieces of batting to wrap the doll.  It would be much quicker to wrap the figure lengthwise with long rectangular pieces of batting.  Yes it would.  But, my first answer to that question is Scraps.  I had some narrow pieces of batting that I wanted to use up.  Making dolls can quickly become a very expensive proposition.  If I can find a way to use up a scrap of fabric in a segment of the doll that will not be seen, I count that as a win.  A second reason for using narrow pieces is that they can be used to shape smaller areas of the doll without adding bulk where you don't want it.  So for this section where I am adding bulk and shaping, the scraps work well.  The photos show that I was able to add more padding to the abdomen, hips and rear end without having to have as much bulk in the back and upper torso.  This is just the first layer of batting.  The entire armature will be covered with more layers.   One of the photos above shows the shaped torso of the doll and limbs that have not yet had additional layers added.  I sewed these strips with thread to hold then in place.  Some people use hot glue.  That works also, but I like to sew mine. 

Once the body has more or less the shape I want it to have, I move onto the next layer for the final covering of the body and for the arms and legs.  This layer is constructed from rectangles of batting over some polyester fiberfill.  The rectangles are placed on the body fiberfill side down and sewn into place.  I keep adding layers as needed until the arms and legs look as if they belong with that body.  As this body will eventually be covered with pants and a long heavy robe, I did not feel the need to do more sculpting of the arm and leg muscles.  Once the body is covered with as much batting as necessary, the entire body is covered with a layer of muslin for skin.  I usually use a brown muslin to represent a skin color, but in this case, I had some white scraps, so I covered the body with white cotton quilt backing.  None of this will be seen when the doll is complete.  I plan to sculpt the face and hands from bake in the oven clay, so the fabric choice is not an issue there.

I had a picture of the body covered with the cotton fabric, but I moved the photo from one file to another and now I cannot find it.  I will post a picture of it on the next blog post if I can figure out what I did with it.  If not, I will take a new photo.  Check back Thursday for the next blog post.

The New Doll Project - A Victorian Belsnickel

It is the seventh of January.  Now that the holidays are over, my husband and I are just getting back into a regular routine after a vacation trip and the holiday gatherings.  I admit that I have taken some time off just to relax and just not worry about how quickly I could get some crafting done during the holidays.  There was just too much going on.  At the moment, I am trying to get back into a routine of working in my studio each morning.  I am feeling some resistance.  However, in a few days I will have my normal habits reestablished and I will look forward to going in there and getting started.  Until then, it is a matter of showing up until the passion reignites.

I had just completed one Father Christmas figure at the end of 2015.  As I blogged at the time, I had seen a technique for making polymer clay eyes that looked like glass eyes.  There was not enough time to try that technique on the last doll, so I am making another doll so that I can experiment with the eye process.  I was looking at the Making Old Fashioned Santas by Cande Frankel and Beverly Karcher for some inspiration.  I liked the outfit for the doll titled Victorian Belsnickle.  A Belsnickel is sometimes called a grumpy Santa.  In German folklore a Belsnickle is a companion of Santa that travels alone or with another character and is known to give naughty children a wallop with a bunch of Witch Hazel switches.  He brought presents of cakes, candy, and nuts to good children and switched naughty children.  Unlike the Victorian Belsnickel, the Belsnickel of folklore often wore furs and was very dirty and disheveled.  (This is true.  Look it up.)  When you were a kid and you thought that it was creepy for Santa to be watching you all the time, imagine what it must be like to have Santa's friend come by to beat you with a stick.  If you have a few minutes to spend, watch this hilarious YouTube video about a Belsnickel at an office.  www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNu2oRf-Gjw

The Victorian Belsnickel's clothing was a red robe with a hood and cape trimmed with white along the edge of the hood, cape, and front placket.   However, I was not really fond of the construction technique.  The doll stood by means of a dowel that was drilled into a wood block which was the armature for the body.  The legs were made so that they were in front of the dowel and not part of the support structure.  This is a valid construction method, but I did not care for the dowel being visible when the doll was complete.  It is true that if you have the correct camera angle or pile other decorations around it that the dowel will be out of view, but why have the visible dowel if you don't need to?  There are other means of construction that will hide the support within the structure of the doll.  So I am off on my own to construct a doll armature and body in a completely different method from that shown in the book.  I will be making the doll from scratch and making the doll's clothes in a style similar to the outfit that the Victorian Belsnickel is wearing.  The clothing will be constructed in a different manner also.    There is more than one way to make a doll.  It is not a matter of one way necessarily being better than the other.  It is a matter of how you want to make the doll.

Normally, one would make the doll's head first in order to make the doll body match the size of the head.  That is important if you are a beginning doll maker.  However, with practice, one gets a feel for this and can work in a different order.  I have wire for the armature here, and the supplies to make the head are at the craft store so I am beginning with the body and will make the head of a size to match, So, next blog post, I will begin by showing the armature for the doll.  Check back for the Sunday blog post for the first photos.





     

Projects for 2016 and Latest Photos from the Road

Our weather lately.

Happy New Year everyone.  The sun came out yesterday and everyone around here was glad to see it.  From December 20th until yesterday we had nothing but rain, fog, overcast conditions and more rain.  The sun never came out but for about twenty minutes here in the entire thirteen days.  Fortunately it was warm enough that this was not sleet, snow, or ice, but I think we had rain precipitation in nearly every form: pouring rain, steady rain, drizzle, mist, or fog.  If it was not actively raining it was overcast and looked ready to rain at any minute.  Today will be fairly warm for January, but the temperature is supposed to plunge tonight and we may have flurries tomorrow.  Winter is on its way.

At a windy overlook Jan. 2nd.

I was traveling on December 30th and January 2nd.  The first trip was, you guessed it, rainy.  The second trip was made in sunny weather.  We stopped at an overlook on the second trip to take a couple of pictures while we were at higher elevations.  I also snapped a few pictures as we were driving along the road.  We drive down this highway so often that it sometimes feels that it gets boring,  but if you look for interesting scenes, there is always something new to see. 

Cattle on a hill in winter.

Now, on to projects for 2016.  My last project was a quick Christmas doll.  While I was blogging on the project I mentioned that I had seen instructions online for how to make polymer clay doll's eyes that looked like glass eyes.  I said I had wanted to experiment with that technique.  So my first project is another doll.  It is no use making eyes if you have no project for them.  Since it is winter, and the holiday season is just ending, I am making another Santa doll.  This one will be made in a completely different manner than the previous doll.  Although it is a long way until Christmas, I want to get this doll started while it is still winter.  I find it somewhat difficult to work out of season, so I would rather make this doll now while it is still cold and wintery.   If I wait until next year I will be rushing to complete the project before the holidays.  That is always a busy time for me and I just don't have time to craft as much.  So expect a Santa doll as my first project.

Beyond the doll and learning to make doll's eyes I have a few ideas lined up, but not exactly in the exact order I plan to do them yet.  I have to phrases rattling around in my head.  The first is keep doing the same old thing and keep getting the same old results.  The other phrase is practice makes perfect.  Over the last few years, I have made several gazing balls.  I have a fascination with spheres, but if I have to keep finding a new way to make them or the project feels stale.  So far, I have made gazing balls using glass gems, stained glass, iridescent glass, and vitrious glass tiles, grouted them with grout, resin, and frit embedded in resin, and painted them with acrylic paints and spray paints.  I learned how to cast the balls from Hypertufa.   One time I experimented with making a ball using papier mache' that could be used as a  base for an exterior use ball.  I even made a free standing ball from twine.  I have a new idea for making a gazing ball.  I will be  blogging on that later this year.  I want to keep working with spheres (practice makes perfect) but I don't want the spheres to feel stale (keep doing the same old thing and keep getting the same old results).

When I was in California I went to a folk art museum.  There was a large selection of carved walking sticks on display.  They have inspired me to attempt carving a stick rather than wood burning one.  I plan to try some wood carving this year.  My first carvings may not be on a walking stick, because I would like to practice a bit before I take on a large project.  So there may be some smaller projects first.

Another goal I have set for this year is to do more sketching and painting.  Last year I purchased some small art tiles that are about three and a half inches square.  I liked the small size because I could do something fairly quickly rather than spending hours or days on a sketch or painting.  This activity could be done without overly distracting me from whatever large project I would be working on at the moment.  If I could do one sketch or water color on a tile once a week I might actually improve my drawing and painting skills.  To be honest, my drawing/painting skills are very poor and I really would like to improve them.  One of the main reasons that I took to doing craft projects is because drawing and painting are not really my forte, but I would like to learn. 

In a similar vein, I would like to do some block carving and make some prints.  I am not sure what, but I purchased the linoleum carving tools a while back and I need to do something with them.  Maybe I will make a few stencils as well.  I just feel the need to do something different from time to time. 

My other large project is making sheep.  As I was going through some books on making the Father Christmas figures, I notices some of the photos had sheep in them.  Most of the sheep were small, but one picture had a photo of a life sized antique sheep in it.  I was becoming intrigued with making a sheep at that point.... and, I have a lot of leftover wool roving.  I plan to make a small sheep as an embellishment to the Father Christmas figure.  If it works out, I may make a life-sized lamb figure.  We will see how that goes.

So those are the ideas I have in the works for 2016.   I expect to accomplish most of them.  It is always possible that something else will attract my interest and I will suddenly veer off in a new direction.  But at least I have some sort of plan.  I will be posting more on the new projects soon.