Started a Leaf and Star Quilt

In my last blog post on the experimental doll, I said that if I did not complete the doll's costume by today that I would be blogging on my latest quilt.  Well, my first attempt at making the doll's dress was a total fubar, so I had to start over.  I think I am back on track now, but it will take a few days to get the dress completed.  So today I am showing off the latest quilt, or more specifically, where I am on making the quilt.

This is one row of my leaf and star quilt.  I have completed all the star and leaf block.  Each block is twelve and a half inches square (31.75 cm).  The leaf blocks are needle turned applique.  All of my piecing is done by hand.  I rarely make a machine made quilt.  I generally made quilts in the evening while sitting and watching television or when I meet with my friends at a sit-and-sew.  We all bring some sort of hand work and spend a few hours together each week.

The quilt will consist of five rows of the stars and leaves.  The next row above and below this block will have the stars and leaves in reverse positions.  There will be an inner border and an outer border as well.  All in all the quilt will be 72 inches  x 72 inches.  (182.88 cm. x 182.88 cm.)  This will be a fairly large quilt. 

I am considering, but have not yet committed to making some smaller foundation pieced leaves from scraps to applique in, along, and crossing the two borders.  I guess it depends on how the leaves look once they have been made.  I saw this quilt pattern in a magazine some years ago and it is so striking that I have wanted to make this pattern for some time.  However, I really hate making a quilt that looks like something that has already been done, so I had to make some changes.  I think adding the foundation pieced leaves to it will give some depth to the quilt while continuing the color scheme of the quilt.

Once I have everything together I will begin hand quilting the piece.  The veins for the leaves will be quilted to help attach them to the quilt.  I plan to quilt around the leaf and also have some decorative quilting in the areas of negative space.  As yet, I have not given much thought to how I will quilt the stars.  I will probably use a neutral color for the quilting so that the back of the quilt will show as one consistent color.  I expect that this will take a while, but I hope to have the quilting complete before Spring. 

Doll Experiment - Part 13

It seems that I am running a day late and a dollar short this week.  Time flies.  At least I am making another post this week.  I have added the hair to my doll and completed painting the face.  The doll is starting to look more human.  At this point I felt a need to add a short shift while I work on her clothing. 

Making the hair took hours.  I unraveled hemp cording to make the hair.  Unraveling the hair took many hours over a period of days.   I held my left arm in one spot for so many hours that I have developed a cramp in it that has yet to completely go away. 

I left a small amount of the cording unraveled at one end.  I used some tacky glue and rolled the unraveled end into a coil.   Once the coils were dry, I glued the coiled end of the "hair" to the doll's head with hot glue.  The coil covered areas of the scalp that would have been left open between pieces of hair.  Many times I make a wig for the doll, but in this case I decided that I was going to use a method that took a little less time. 

I have some silicone finger tips that I use when working with hot glue.  They insulate your fingers from the hot glue, and that has saved me from burning my fingers while trying to get the hair in place.  I purchased mine at my local craft store.  I recommend them if you plan on using hot glue on a project.

The eyes needed some more work to make them look more alive.  An outer band was added to the iris, along with some gold metallic paint to give the eyes some sparkle.  A small white dot was added to each eye to give the impression of reflected light.  I also added eyebrows.  Although you would expect them to be there, she actually had a much softer look before they were added.

Doll makers will tell you from time to time that at some point a doll can become interactive with you.  The doll informs you what she needs to complete her story or point of view.  It is a projection of course, but there are many old world legends and stories about dolls that take on personality:  Pinocchio for example.   In this case, the doll seems to want to be named Barbara.  However, in this case, that will not last, and the doll will become the character she is expected to be.  There will be more about naming the doll in future posts. 

Check back on Sunday.  If I am able to finish the doll's clothing by Sunday,  I will blog about that on Sunday.  If the clothing is not complete, I will be showing some of the blocks for my new quilt.

Doll Experiment Update

I don't have any new photos today.  I completed making the hair for the doll and have most of it attached.  There is only a little left to do, but I hit a time constraint and just had to leave things until I could get back to them. 

On Thursday, I will have photos of the doll with the hair complete and have the face completed as well.

Doll Experiment - Part 12

I really ought to have gone straight into painting the doll's face, but I actually started on the doll's hair.  I was looking for something different for the hair.  Most synthetic commercial doll hair looks to artificial for my taste.  I prefer something with a more organic look.   I was not in the mood for surfing the net to find something to use, so I cast my gaze about my studio, looking for something that was readily available.  I found some hemp cording that (as usual) was left over from some other project.  I decided to give that a try.

This choice sort of took me down a rabbit hole.  The cording was cut into nine inch pieces and then unraveled.  The cord was basically two strands of hemp wrapped around each other with a single piece of hemp wrapped around the two cords to secure them.  Once the two strands were separated, it was time to unravel that strand.  Unwrapping the smaller piece of cording caused the layers of hemp to separate into individual fibers made out of hemp.  It looks exactly like blondish-brown curly hair.  The more the strands were untangled, the more it looked like hair.

So I started making strands of this hemp "hair".  I would leave about half an inch of cord at the top so I would have something solid to use when I was attaching it to the doll.  I would unravel a strand, then add a piece of masking tape to the top and attach it to a piece of cardboard.  When my strip of cardboard was completely filled with strands of hair, I would spray the hemp with hair spray on both sides.  The hair spray will help keep the strands from shedding.

I filled two rows of cardboard and started gluing the hair to the doll.  Was I in for a surprise.  The strands did not cover as much area as I had thought it would.  I was going to need a lot more hair.  So I have been spending much of the last several days mindlessly untangling bits of cord into hair.  I made two more cardboard rows and that was not enough either.  I am still making hair.  I can't really tell you how many hours I have spent on this.  It was plenty more than I had anticipated.

When I had added the first section of hair and discovered how much I was going to need, I almost decided to do something else.  However, the hair was attached to the doll using hot glue.  I was concerned that if I pulled the hair off that I would be pulling the paint off with it.  Given that I had build up that flesh color using many glazes, I was not anxious to try to repair that.  So I decided that I would keep going with the cording even if it took a long time.

And that is where things are at this point.  I hope that I have enough hair now to complete the task, but it has not yet been attached to the doll.  I should have some photos of the doll with all her hair on in the next blog post.  Check back on Sunday to see that. 

Doll Experiment- Part 11

It is good to be back to blogging about my projects again.  I took a vacation from the blog for a few weeks.  Sometimes the pressure of trying to get content up on the blog during the holiday season becomes very intense.  I can keep going, but grinding away at something when you feel stressed can lead to burn-out.  In the long run I feel much better if I take a break and can come back to it refreshed and enthusiastic.

Checking back over the blog posts on my current project, I was surprised to learn that I had been working on this project since the beginning of October.  I spent so much time traveling that I did not have much time in the studio this fall.  Another factor in the project taking so long is that it is that the doll is made from many layers of papier mache'.  Each layer must try completely before another layer is added.  It generally takes at least twenty-four hours for a layer to dry.  (I could speed it up by heating it in an oven, but I prefer not to do that.  It is possible that bad things can happen if paper becomes overheated.)  And of course, the holidays factored into everything.  However, now I am back on track to completing this project.

When I left off blogging in December, I had just given the doll a couple of coats of Gesso.  The Gesso is opaque enough that it prevents the newsprint from showing through on the other layers of the project.   Since then, I decided to take a detour into a painting experiment.  Some years ago, I had read an article in Artist Magazine about some artists that created a very ethereal and otherworldly effect in their paintings by under-painting in gold.  I kept that type of project in the back of my mind because it was intriguing enough that I knew that sooner or later I would want to experiment with that.  Well, I have a doll that needs painting, and I have some gold metallic paint, so here I go down the Rabbit Hole again.  I planned to give the entire body of the doll a gold under-painting and then build up the color to a flesh color with a series of thin glazes.  I wanted some of the gold color to show through and reflect light, giving the doll a sort of internal glow.  I knew what I wanted, but I had no idea how this was going to turn out.

It took two layers of the gold paint to cover without looking streaky.  I lightly sanded between coats.  The look of the doll was pretty bizarre.  In a way, the doll began to take on the feel of ancient Egyptian art as the gold glowed through.  Then I started adding glazes of various colors.  I made the first layer too thick and had to do some extra work to recover from that mistake.  It took a lot of layers to build up to anything that resembled a flesh color.  I lost count after seven, because it was many more layers than that.  I finished off the glazes with a last thin mix of glaze medium and the gold metallic paint to bring back some more of the reflective quality to the doll.

As I mentioned in previous blog posts, 
 I had painted the first layers of the eyes in order to get a feel for
where the doll was looking.  The eyes still need to do some more
work on them.  They are still in the beginning stages.  I think
that I will be able to make them look more realistic.  More work needs to be  added around the pupils, eyebrows, eye lids, lips, and cheeks.  Also, there will be shading around the nose and eyelids.  It takes a fair amount of time to get the detail of a face looking as I want it to look.

Then I will be moving on to adding hair and costuming the doll.  There is still quite a bit of work to do on the doll.  At the moment it is just a figure.  The magic of making a doll is to make it tell a story.  Without the accessories that give you cues as to what the story is, the doll is just a static figure.  The details draw you in so that you become interactive with the doll.

Check back on Thursday for the next blog post.

Gearing Up for the New Year

I took a two week break at the first of the year.  We had some snowy weather and it was a nice time to cuddle up with a soft snuggly blanket and a good book.  Now that my little vacation is over, I am back in the studio and back to working on my project.  I will be back to blogging on the doll experiment in my next blog post.

I usually begin the year with a list of projects that I hope to accomplish this year.  I have one project that I expect will take up a considerable amount of time in the coming year.  I plan to make a doll that is a Flaminco dancer.  It will be a larger doll, and I expect it be very detailed.  I plan to use some different materials for the skeleton and musculature.  It should be interesting.

A plan for a new walking stick is also in the works.  This stick may be more art than a useful hiking stick.  I want to try out some carving techniques on it.  I am not sure that removing a lot of material will leave it sturdy enough to be useful.  So rather than a walking stick, it may just be art on a stick.

I also plan to refurbish by fading Jupiter sphere.  It needs a facelift.  The sun has faded the acrylic paints.  It may turn out to be covered by a different medium than paint.  I also have another hypertufa ball that was cast some time ago and has been waiting for me to get back to it.

I am also working on a new quilt.  It will be a large quilt.  I will be blogging on that from time to time throughout the quilts construction.

 Although I have only listed a few projects, I expect them to take months to complete.  If I have more time, I will of course add more projects to the cue.  I always have more projects than time.

Now that I have moved past the post-holiday doldrums, I am excited about getting back to the studio.  Check back on Sunday for the latest on the Doll Experiment.  I have made quite a lot of progress on that.