Newest Doll on Etsy

I began these dolls a month or so ago, started several of them at a time, but Sophia is the first one finished.  (I worked on four more yesterday, but they still have a way to go.)

Making myself promise to get these done before I started the Izannah Walker Inspired dolls from Dixie Redmond's class, but not sure I can wait that long.  The hub's likely to put an offer on another rent-house soon, so I'd best make dolls while I have the time.

I'd posted a WIP photo of the doll torsos all lined up.  Maybe I should start calling them DIPs (dolls in progress? :~) but here is the one with Sophia in the middle.

I originally saw a sort of Roaring Twenties Flapper Clara Bow character, but Sophia has insisted that she has no intention of flapping, and that I was badly mistaken in my original assessment.  Each doll has his or her own personality, no matter what I envision, and this lady turned out more like Lilleth on Cheers.  Anyway, I'm fond of her, and she does seem willing to listen to the other dolls and give advice, so who am I to argue?

Sophia - JD Conwell Folk Art Doll

Had to Revise my Listing!

I made a mistake when I wrote the listing for my little birds...

Got too specific with it, when the listing was meant for a collective.  So instead of writing it as "you get one of these little birds", I wrote, "you get this bird, or convo me for a different one".  Bad form, really, borne of ignorance. 

I sold a lot of these birds-on-blocks at the King William Fair last April,  which is good, but I forgot to update the listing, which is bad.  So a lady buys the L bird and the bird on the collective listing, only I don't have it anymore.  I'm hoping she will be happy with one of the others...

Revised the listing this morning, and loving the new photos, but I really hate when I make a dumb, avoidable mistake and cause someone an inconvenience. 

Little Birds on Vintage Blocks

 Now to remind myself Pobody's Nerfect and get on with my day. 

Clara

I have been exploring the antique dolls of the 19th century.  Feels like coming home.  My favorites range from the superlatively ugly home-made rag dolls to the cloth and leather bodied china heads and paper mache heads.  I love Izannah Walker's dolls, Kathy Kruse, and all the "babies"--Alabama Indestructibles, the Presbyterian dolls, the Sheppard Babies.  I've signed up for Dixie Redmond's Izannah Walker doll workshop a little late, but still, I think I can meet the deadlines.

One recent doll I made is Clara.  I designed her cloth body and head, laid paperclay over face/neck/hands, and sewed an irritatingly small doll dress.  She's 17" tall, which surprises me because she seems so small for what I think of as that size doll.  Never the less, I am happy with how she turned out.  I know her proportions are all wrong--the Greiner dolls of the mid 19th century all had large upper body and shoulder plate areas compared to small lower bodies, but I like the "creative anachronism" of making my own version of an antique doll.    I still may have to go bigger though...

(Click twice to zoom.)