Almost finished!

Dolly's almost done! She now has shoes made of leather and wool felt and a fully lined wool coat with real buttons! She also is sporting a fox pelt stole that is made of wool and lined underneath in hand-dyed silk.

And she has a friend; Anise the carrion crow.

All she needs is a couple of finishing touches and she'll be completed!

More Doll Clothes

I've finished the third layer of Dolly's clothes. She now has a cotton velvet dress trimmed in dark brown braiding, and a full pleated skirt made of wonderfully soft and thick cotton flannel trimmed in velvet ribbon.

Doll Underclothes

This morning I finished Dolly's undershirt, which go with her socks and panties ( I made those last night). For the fabric I used a used kid's t-shirt that I found at a Goodwill store. It was the perfect color, which I wanted to look kind of like old mummy wrappings. I'm especially pleased with the way the socks turned out, they will have no problem staying on, but are big enough to look stretched out and slouchy.

Doll Clothes

Some of the doll's clothes are finished. Yesterday I made a crinoline for her, and today I made her shirt.

Peaty cat was nice enough to pose with the doll for the first picture.












And Here is a close-up of the shirt, I used glass beads for the buttons and wonderful linen fabric for the shirt itself.

A doll for Zillah, "who drank too much gin."

It's strange how inspiration strikes us sometimes. I this case I was looking through an Edward Gorey book, trying to come up with an idea for a totally different project (painting an old suitcase and turning it into a pet bed), when the idea for this doll came to me and I HAD to start making it right away. First I felted the head using two colors of wool to get the "aged bone" color just right, then adding the eyes and nose in last. After the head was finished I sewed the arms, legs and body using very soft cotton fabric (an old sheet, actually). I jointed the arms at the shoulders and the legs at the thighs and knees with button joints. Here she is so far, I'll start making the clothes for her soon and post them as they're made.

Catnip

I've started a new line of catnip toys for my Etsy store! So far I've made Chipmunks,

and bluebirds,

 

 mice (I love the way these turned out!),                                                                                                                                                                            

 

juncos,

black widow spiders (this is the underside),

crows,

and bats these are my favorite!).

All of them are hand sewn, with 100% wool felt bodies. For safety, their eyes and other details are stitched cotton embroidery, and they spider legs are wool yarn. Inside they're stuffed with a little bit of wool roving and a great big wad of catnip blend: wild catnip and super-potent catmint from my garden.

Birdhouse Transformation phase 3

It took a lot longer than I expected to get the supplies I needed to finish the birdhouses, but they're finally finished! All it took was a little something extra.