Chaos reigns !

I have not been able to blog much lately because i have been trying to get over my jet lag and also I have been busy trying to write up a pattern for Appleberry. After seeing my doll in FB many ladies wanted me to write a pattern for it to buy. Now usually when I make a doll I rarely make notes as I don't sell my patterns.. I just do rough drawing and that's about it. Since so many people requested me to do a pattern for this doll I decided to finally do it. So I have had to make the doll all over again and take notes and write it all down. As you can see chaos reigns on the table at the moment and I am trying desperately to finish writing up. Hopefully I will get it done this weekend if nothing interrupts me. Shall visit blogs once all this mad rush is over.

Competition

Barbara has posted a completion for designing your own Wellies.  Just pop into her Blog and click on the link it is rather fun and if you are lucky you will win some goodies and your design will be used on the wellies. I chose to doodle with orange, green, red, yellow and black. Can you guess what I would have doodled? 😄

Here is her blog http://marchhousebookscom.blogspot.com

Colourful beetle

Today as I was walking in the garden I heard a noise as though someone threw a packet which fell with a thud. I looked behind me and this what I saw. Great big beetle. Because of his weight he could barely fly. Our caretaker who looks after the house when we are not here picked it up for me to take a picture of him before he was released. Isn't his colours amazing. I wish he had let me take better pictures before he flew away.

Whimsical pixie

Meet Mr Appleberry the mischievous pixie. He is the keeper of apples. You will find him hiding amongst the Royal Galas, the Coxes, the Pink ladies , the Granny Smiths and amongst many others. Next time you go to the market Be quick to choose the best apples and put them in your basket or else it will be whisked away from right under your noses 

This doll was inspired from a children's story book illustration. Had great fun making him.

Apples

Well the apples are done. Do they look like apples I am not too sure of that. But for some reason the song Baubles,  bangles keeps popping into my head :0)

I have not been blogging much because I seem to have some sort of pollen or dust allergy or is it just flue don't know but have been feeling aweful for the past two weeks. Now I suddenly find that time has flown away and it is time for me to go and see mum again. However I hope to finish my whimsical doll soon. So keep checking.

Hope you all are well and enjoying the little bit of summery weather that we have been having.

Free Doll Pattern

Hello all thought I would share with you one of my patterns that I have used a lot in previous years. I also taught doll making in India using this pattern. It is a very simple pattern so if anyone wants to try it can do so. I have written some instructions for it but it is so simple that you really don't need any instructions. However if you are new to doll making you might have questions so please do not hesitate to ask them. Once made up you can dress her up whichever way you want.
The links for the pattern are below. If you are not able to download the pattern please let me know I can email it to you.
Hope you will enjoy making her.

Free doll pattern
                                                                      

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2GASc8ZXsahX0NQb0JjX0dFTms/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2GASc8ZXsahcjV6M1Jwc2NPYTQ/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2GASc8ZXsahTnEyay1Jc1gtcUE/view?usp=sharing

Whimsical little fella

Little whimsical fella in the making. Just wondering if I should use the first body shape or the second . I most probably will go with the first one. They look rather funny a bit like a headless chicken :-) :-)

Some doodling with pencils and fairy seat

I started this with inktense pencils and since I have no experience with them I decided to do several of them. I like the third one the best. The colours are a bit more transparent and light in that . The last one I did with Water colour pencils and water colour just to see if I could do it differently. Perhaps the last one would make a good greeting card :-)

This is a seat I made for my fairy named Harmony. Believe it or not it is made out of butternut gourd. Long time back I wanted to make a gourd doll but I could not do so because we do not get the hard skinned  gourds here in the UK and we cannot import anything like that due to restrictions. However I was determined to make one and not knowing that the hard skin gourds were the ideal gourds I thought I could dry any  gourd so off I marched to the market to purchase the beautifully shaped butternut. Brought one and put it up for drying. After a few week or so I checked and eek it had all gone soggy and aweful looking and splash it dropped from my butter fingers :-). However I persevered and let it dry. It did not dry the way I had anticipated instead it had gone all wrinkly and the outer skin was not as hard as I thought it would become. However I rather liked the shape of it even though I could not use it to make a doll. Thought it might come in use sometime in the future. So here at last has come the future. I was looking for an ideal seat for Harmony and decided to use the dried squash as a seat. The height was ideal and so was the shape. All it needed was some roots to surround it and some paint and wallah you have a fairy woodland seat.

As for the doll I ended up making one out of fabric in the shape of a butternut squash. I even gave out a free pattern in my old blog, here is the link if you want to see it and use the pattern. I don't know what size it will print out but you are welcome to enlarge it if you want.

http://moonbeamsartdolls.blogspot.co.uk/2006_03_01_archive.html

Lost Mr. G

I searched and searched for my friend Mr G and his mate but they have not made an appearance. Looks like Mr Ssssnake got them or they got scared and ran away. A few weeks ago we were told a snake was spotted in our compound. Thank goodness I was not here or else I would have freaked :-) 

I did not think we would get snakes in such a built up area but I was wrong! It may not have been a poisonous snake but it was a snake and that is enough to give me nightmares :-)

I planted some morning glories last time when I was here and they are happily blooming now. Love the vivid purple colour. Sad though it does not bloom right through the day.

Doll done

So here she is at last! I was quite pleased with her wings how they turned out. Also they were so easy to make. As you know from my previous post that I dyed the stocking. I also dyed some vintage silk buttons which I had found in Paris during one of my visits. I used them on her arms. I could have used them on her cap too but I guess my brain stopped working and I ended up doing the little fruits on her cap the hard way:-). Now she needs a name. I was thinking of Blue Moon but it doesn't seem very suitable. Anybody got any suggestions?

I made the wings by first laying down Soluweb and then on top of it a thin layer of Angelina fusible fibre and then on top of that my silk fibres and then another thin layer of angelina fusible fibres and then on top a layer of Soluweb. I then machine stitched it randomly making sure the whole fabric was covered. Those who are into free motion embroidery know this technique very well in fact all textile artists know this and create wonderful art with it. You can do free motion stitches on it and create designs. I am not good at it so I just straight stitched it. Once I had stitched it several times I washed away the Soluweb.

Again for those who don't know what Soluweb is it is exactly what the name suggests. A web like material used to stabilise fine fabric while embroidering . Once you finish embroidering you can wash away the Soluweb in cold water.

I then shaped the wings with wire, applied glue on one side of the wire and lay it on the fabric. Once the glue was dry I cut around the wire shape leaving a little bit of fabric around the wire shape as you would do while cutting around a pattern leaving some seam allowance. I then put glue on the wire which was visible and folded the fabric over it making sure it stuck onto the wire. I did make a few cuts all around the fabric so that folding over was easy and you could put glue in stages on the wire. Also it did not get messy. That's it it was very easy which is what I like :-)