Grunt Work

Doing the Grunt Work

October 30, 2012

Well, doing a lot of grunt work getting ready for my projects. I have already thought of a few "friends" I want to make. Literally, I want to make my friends. Example, I have a friend who recently joined the military and was deployed over in the giant sand box. I have a very strong desire to make a doll for her of a girl in fatigues. Of course I am sure she would be back home state-side by the time I finished. I would also like to sculpt a few characters that I see out at Ren fest as well, like one of the Washing Well Wenches, one of the Dregs (have a rainbow doll in mind), or perhaps good ol' Scaramouch from the Tortuga Twins. Hummmm ....

The possibilities are endless and the ideas are really starting to fold into my brain. However, I have to put the brakes on and remind myself that all roads to hell were paved with good intentions ... and I must do the work and planning first! So, I have decided on a pretty little doll that Patti considers a beginners doll. She has named the doll Beth. Beth is a simple pattern and also considered a "flat face" girl ... meaning I do not sculpt the face. This weekend I will go hang out for a couple of hours with my new BFF, JoAnn Fabric, and decide what I would like to make her clothing and hair with. I'm actually a little excited to do this.

One thing that Patti says in her video is to "draw everyday". So I have been! I am finding it difficult to remember the steps without watching her video ... but practice makes perfect! There is a whole mess of theses super creepy sketches laying around my desk. Also, little tiny ones on post-it notes at work. One of my co-worker's stared at this and said, "what the hell is THAT thing"? LOL So I guess that means I have a long way to go. I figure, once I can draw a face without watching the video ... that will be when I start to work on coloring and shading!

Cant wait to go get Beth some clothing this weekend and start cutting her out in fabric!! Yay!!

Pulling MY Hair out

December 12, 2012

Well, frustration has set in. I am at a slight stand still waiting for my sewing machine. The repair is taking far longer than I would have expected. My hopes of finishing my first doll with my daughter over Christmas has now gone poof. That, mixed with the fact that I am jonesing to work on this doll, is really pulling on my patience. So I have decided to get some practice work in by hand. The result is not perfect ... but it could have been worse ...

I decided to go ahead and cut a pattern out of the material. I did this before watching this section of Patti's video and now I feel like I went about it the hard way! LOL It's all good though. I managed to get the head cut out and began stitching by hand. I am not good at hand sewing. (Which means the machine should be a real challenge seeing how I have never used one. ^.^) I carefully stitched the two parts of the back of the head together. Looked great! Then I pinned the back to the front ... hey, it was working great so far! I was excited and began sewing away while watching Vampire Diaries. (Hey, do not judge! I might be an older woman, but Damon on that show is just hot, hot hot!!! I can endure a bit a teen drama to stare at him for an hour every Thursday night.)

Well, I may or may not have been a little too preoccupied with Damon while sewing the two pieces together, because when all was said and done I realized that I had sewn the back on wrong side out. The question at hand was, "Do I start over, or do I go ahead and stuff it." In the end I decided to go ahead and stuff it. After

all, it was the front I am most interested in working with. I want to practice drawing more faces on the actual fabric. I am really excited to try the Shiva Paintstiks on them as well to bring color to the dolls. One step at a time though ... one step at a time.

I managed to get the stuffing in. That was a little more difficult than it looked .... probably because I was paranoid that the fabric would start to unravel itself from all the twisting and pushing. I am surprised at the amount of stuffing that can be shoved into this thing. It was alot! And I still think I need more because the sides have wrinkles in them. Patti says if ya got wrinkles, to

keep on stuffing! I have opted to stop at this point due to my shoddy stitch job, afraid it might pop open. Really looking forward to getting my machine and learning how to use it! Also, matching the thread color to the fabric color might be a good idea too.

So below is the face I drew. It isn't perfect, but I followed Patti's instructions on the video. She makes it VERY easy to follow and do. I just need more practice. I am actually happy with how the eyes look. The one thing I need to adjust is the size of the face. Yes folks ... size DOES matter! Well, at least in this case. Hee hee! I feel I have drawn her little face too small. The eyes are too tiny. They need to really POP out at you. I will be erasing this face and redrawing it with bigger eyes. I'm going to study some of the faces on Patti's other dolls and figure out better measurements. So take two will be done over the holiday after all the gifts are open, dishes done, and children occupied! That's when I can sneak off and do my thing.

I'm "sew" Excited ... and Confused

January 7, 2013

Saturday was a big big day!!! I finally got my machine!! Yippie!!!

The machine looks absolutely GREAT! He showed me how it ran and it sounded wonderful to my ears when he turned it on. He was concerned about the slowness of the unit, but in my wisdom I say slow is better. Knowing me I will place my finger right in the way ... that is ... if, and I say IF I can figure out how to get it going on my own, and sew it on to the very fabric I am working on. I had this sort of thing happen in my past ... when I was in my teens .... at my grandfathers office .....

well, lets just say the stapler one. That's all I'm gonna say about that. Hee hee! Anywho, the thingy on the doodad sure seemed to be working good! It was stitching!! I am excited about that!

Now if I can just figure out how to run the loop-te-doop through the winding dealy, and get it through the eye .... and then there was something about going from the bottom to the top and over and under and through the woods to grandmother's house ... man, this is confusing, but I will get it. My boss and I were discussing this and she was showing me in this picture where I need to go to get it threaded. I am a little confused about the top through the bottom bobbin

thing. I might run over to see my good buddy, JoAnn Fabric, and see if she'll teach me about threading the machine. Seriously, once I have that down I think I will be good to go!

For the weekend I plan on cutting fabric and sewing the pieces together. I am so excited to finally blow the dust off of my DVD and get going! Weeeee!!!

Here we go!

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