Simple Simon and Company Doll Pattern

Here is a free downloadable pattern and tutorial from Simple Simon for an adorable little cloth play doll. I like that the tutorial shows stuffing the arms and legs separately.

It shows embroidered facial features and felt hair. I think it would be a very nice base pattern for portrait dolls of your children or grandchildren, or story book characters. It would be simple enough to turn the skirt into a pair of pants as desired, or make the legs from patterned fabric as "tights".

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Sweet Julie Arkell

Well I have managed to completely miss the work of British folk artist, Julie Arkell - probably because she does not appear to have her own blog or website. She is however, prominently featured on other people's blogs, at least one wonderful Pinterest board, and in several online galleries especially Earth Angel Studios.

Most of her art dolls are woodland creatures like rabbits, and humans, made from her trademark paper mache and scraps of reclaimed fabrics embellished with hand embroidery. She also makes pins and other mixed textile small pieces. If you look up whimsical in the dictionary, you will find a picture of any one of her sweet figures, in delicate, slightly faded pastels. Her paper mache makes the text of old books part of the beauty - and you know how much I love text in art. She also hosts workshops and inspires many others to discover the joy of paper mache figures.

Miniature stitching

One of my new friends creates the most amazingly detailed, tiny, tiny embroideries, cross stitch and needlepoint for doll's houses. I also love that she will use pennies for scale. Counted cross stitch is hard enough full size, but these are like micro-stitching.

However that is not all. Marlene also decorates doll houses with gorgeous detail, and makes other miniature and micro dioramas.

Embroider Everything Workshop - book review

For the first time, I've been asked to review a book that might be of interest to doll makers. I'm so happy to be able to report that the book is beautiful!

Sewist Diana Rupp, creator of the Sew Everything Workshops, including her prior book of that name, has written "Embroider Everything Workshop", a comprehensive guide for beginner or aspiring embroiderers.

My late mother made counted cross stitch, producing about eight sweet embroidered bibs for my newborn and two crib blankets that were so pretty that I hung them. My daughter is now 12, and considers these to be her family heirlooms.  In a world where machine embroidered articles are available at many stores for very little money, I understand that the true value of embroidering monograms on dishtowels, or making small patches for your kid's jackets, is the love imbued in the process. Diana describes embroidery in part as meditative, and I have to agree that I feel that too when I embroider on my dolls and their costumes.

The work is a comprehensive introduction assuming no prior experience, and includes needlepoint, smocking and counted thread cross stitch as well as freehand linear and chain stitch based embroidery. Personally I would consider myself more than an absolute novice, but certainly not a proficient. So although I had some familiarity with some of the basic stitches, there is a lot more in the book that was new to me, especially the tips and tricks interspersed throughout.

I appreciated the clear diagrams of stitches in the first one third of the book, and the detailed information about different kinds of needles, threads and canvases. I learnt a lot of new stitch names, and enjoyed the historical info about embroidery and textiles that is featured along the way. Diana Rupp's passion for her vocation comes through in personal snippets about her journey and preferences.

The rest of the book is how-to projects designed for beginners to practice their new skills. Most of these are short and accessible for gifts, useful home wares, and a bit of fashion using different embroidery techniques. My favorite project in the book is the embroidered pet portrait, making an absolutely custom piece of textile art based on a photo of your pet, and demonstrating the skills to make custom embroidery designs from any photo. This is the kind of work that no mass-producing factory situation can duplicate.

Finally there is a series of brief Appendices detailing finishing, blocking and display techniques, some fonts for monograms,  and a useful index. The book is bound in one of my favorite crafting formats, the way I want my book to be bound when it is published, with a lay flat hard cover over spiral bound pages.

The special extras are an envelope of 48 pretty iron-on transfers as patterns and a pull out stitch practice card into which you are invited to poke holes. I'm not certain of the utility of this last item, since it is considerably stiffer than fabric and would not really facilitate some of sewing stitches. However it could be used as a template for practice stitches on fabrics, or a portable stitch guide.

So all in all, a useful, informative and pretty addition to a textile artisan's library.

Groundhog Day

Incidentally Feb 2nd is my wedding anniversary.

You too can celebrate Groundhog Day with one of these adorable amigurumi from Mooncreation's Etsy store. This one has a top hat. Or you can make your own with planetjune's pattern.

Bewilderandpine has a charming miniature polymer clay Groundhog with certificate for your observances. Order by Jan 28 for timely free delivery.

Raggy Rat has a very hairy faux fur groundhog in plushteam's store.

Zfla makes plush critters from repurposed sweaters including a Sweater Scrap Groundhog.

Violastudio also has a recycled boiled wool Bandit Groundhog softie.

Feb 2nd is also Imbolc on the pagan wheel, dedicated to rebirth, first stirrings of Spring, milk, and the goddess Bridget/Brigid (various spellings abound.) Carioca Witch has a small cloth goddess figure with  images and symbols hand embroidered thereon.

You can learn more about Brigid at TheVioletSparrow when you check out her miniature Brigid figure with her cow and candles. Be sure to read the description.

Rounding it out, pixadoodles2 has a selection of well priced corn husk dollies for your Sabbats.

Saraluna

Thanks to Patti Culea for the link to fiber artist and doll maker Sara Austin. She has lovely painted, dyed, embroidered work at her Etsy shop, as well as new blog. I'm very intrigued by her ongoing project using rediscovered vintage German doll heads.

Sara will be offering classes at Piecemakers Country Store along with a host of other artists. The Orange County Doll Makers Club meets there second Tuesday of each month.

Fiber Art class

Not really dolls - but it seems like the techniques could be used for doll making. Susan Sorrell is offering a bunch of reasonably priced online classes on a range of Fiber Art and Mixed Media topics. I like the look of Funky Felt Pins and Doodling designs - faces and fabrics perhaps.

Inspiration

I went on a browse and was led to Lisa Lectura Creations, the blog of a San Francisco area painter and mixed media artist. Her painting, mostly of female faces and characters are very pretty, very attractive with delicate linework and colors. Her blog is very beautiful to look at - a plethora of lovely images.
Doll connection - she takes prints on fabric of her own artwork and reforms the beautiful ladies into art doll stuffies of felt and quilted cloth embellished with hand embroidery, ribbons, beading and stuff. The pieces have a clarity and precision about them - finesse I think is the word.
Right now Lisa is having a "Blogiversary" give away - the art prizes aren't dolls, but nobody's perfect.

Simpli Jessi

Jessi Halliday of Michigan makes sweet cloth figures in folksy/prim style with hand embroidered faces. Her blog has pictures of her dolls, also on Etsy, and if you want what looks like a kick-ass apple pie recipe scroll down a few days. (Sorry I missed your blog giveaway.)

Crazy Quilt Dolls

My doll friends keep on finding cool doll artists! Here is the website of another fine artist, Marina Druker, who makes small scale polymer and paperclay figures, with intricate costuming embellished with embroidery. I love their dear little hands, sweet expressions and nostalgic air. Plus many of them have miniature props that are also adorable.

Lucy Landry

I love Lucy Landry's meticulous and beautiful dolls, and her smoothly designed website with large scale photographs in the galleries. Her dolls' cloth hands are consistently perfect, but her true genius may well be the gorgeous fully embroidered faces she creates on many of her mixed fiber art figures. Or maybe it's her surface detail and embellishment.