Mona Lisa's new dress

Here is Mona Lisa all dressed up. I can't make straw bonnets, so I made a cloth matching bonnet for her. The dress is antique reproduction blue calico. I saw it on Silent Stitches web site and just loved it. Her underwear is cotton with cotton lace with no ageing at all. I thought the white against the dark blue would be pretty. the lace is a little tan though. This waist line on the dress is my own design. It has a double waist band, and gathered top with a narrow collar around top. I am not a seasoned seamstress, but we have much improved in our clothes making and are venturing out to a little more complicated dresses. Friday we went to the Highway 11 flea market. We traveled about a 20 mile strip. It is fun and I always enjoy it. I found some cotton lace, some small vintage doll clothes, sewing thread, twine, and a bunch of toys for the kids. I also found what I think was a bedspread, but it is super thin and the designs on it are faded and some worn off.  I think it will make some good slips, or some rag doll dresses. Happy doll making to you all through out

 the summer.

Standing Bears

 After looking at lots of bears over time on ebay and other blogs, I decided to get a pattern and try to make some. I got the sitting bears and standing bear patterns from Sweet Meadow Farms. The pattern is nice and not to difficult to do, or else I wouldn't have been able to make them. I made simple primitive country bears out of osnaburg, as with no experience in bear or animal making I needed to keep it simple, but I will say, that I do really like them a lot, even though they don't have fur. The sitting bear is cute, but I really like the standing bears. They seemed to have more character to me, I guess it's in the head shape and they are so cute just standing there. Here are pictures of the two I finished. I have another, but it is still naked.

My little Sweetie Belle

  I have another little beauty made by Sherri Farley who I have named  " Sweetie Belle ".  As many of you know,  Sherri's blog site is Make Do Dolls, and you can see many wonderful cloth Dolls, cloth Animals,  as well as,   doll chairs she has for sale,  and she makes ornaments from molds which are so special. I like George and Martha Washington in particular. This little doll I now have is a black cloth doll filled with cedar sawdust, and has a hand stitched face. Sherri knows I like red dresses and so she made Sweetie Belle a beautiful, perfect fitting Red dress, a special multicolored petticoat, and her chemise and pantyloons. A

long with the doll, Sherri sent a cotton bale that is the perfect size for my doll to sit on to watch our comings and goings everyday. She is sweetness itself, meet and quiet and such a treasure. This little cotton bale is a lot like the huge 500 lb. bales that used to be baled up around here, as we have many gins around here. they are no longer in business as big commercial companies now do all this work. Some of the buildings do remain for us to see. I do need to make my little girl a sunbonnet and although she has a little friend for now, perhaps a baby of her own. Thank you Sherri for this little special doll and for making me see by looking at her work, that when I make dolls or clothes I need to go the extra mile to get perfection like she does.

Izannah Dolls

Two Izannah Dolls, different heads, different look, but with the same painting technique on each.  These are new molds, and I like both of them. I described these dolls as having been primitively painted, but in reality, while this process for these two was short, it required restraint on my part, and knowing how to stain and then apply finishing touches. You can get a fine polished look by sanding and painting and repeating the process a lot, and some dolls need this, but these two were painted in three steps taking only about a good week to finish. First, I gessoed the doll, then, without sanding at all, I painted one coat of oil paint and let dry, then I began the distressing, using a super gentle sanding over one time, then taking my tools,  I distressed my girls as much as I thought they needed, with various tools, such as a dental pick, and turning the sandpaper on edge to get better splitting. After all this was done, which only takes a few minutes, I mixed up my oil stain using burnt umber oil paint and Ivory black oil paint, and mixed this in cold pressed linseed oil. Once the stain is put on and rubbed off, I went back with my paint and applied heavy flesh color where needed, touched up the eyes, worked on tweeting out the mouth and cheeks, which on the cheeks you have to be careful using not to much paint, and a very dry brush. the texture of the cloth on the doll is rough, but the extra buildup of paint in certain areas, gives the appearance of old paint that has not began coming off yet, atleast this is what it looks like to me. I don't think you can appreciate the look of the doll with just the head, but it needs the whole body painted in the same way and appropriate clothes to get the full effect of a old looking doll. My experiments continue and I am still learning new things I can do on the dolls. These instructions are for anyone's benefit and hopefully you will be inspired to try some ageing on your dolls.

Mona Lisa

This is Mona Lisa, a 19" Izannah doll. She has a molded cloth head, stitched fingers, applied thumbs and ears and painted boots, also an aged sateen second skin. She has been undergoing ageing experiments for quite a long time, but now I am satisfied she is good. I actually think she is beautiful. I'm not totally done, as I have to touch up arms and legs, and paint out and polish her boots, and of course make her some clothes. I have not ever mentioned this before in my blog posts, but if there is any interest in this doll, I will be happy to talk about it, as my husband needs a new lawn mower, and I will have to help him pay for it. She will be reasonable, and not listed at an outlandish price. It takes me a long time to make clothes, and lots of people want to get or make their own clothes, so if I don't have to make the clothes, it is easier for me. email is Martha@maboriginals.com

Ageing new Fabrics

I may have some protests when my neighbors ride past the house and see all the long lines of fabric hanging on the fences with clothespins on them, but I don't have years to wait until the fabrics are naturally faded, so I had to take matters into my own hands.HaHa Have you ever really thought about what people do to get things to look old. They bleach them, coat them in lemon juice and put them in the sun, bake them in the oven,  take a hammer and chains and beat things up, poor all sort of concoctions on items, sand repeatedly, or use a sand blaster,  and MY SPECIALTY, which leaves the dolls tembling when they see this is ( bringing out the dental tools ). It's funny now, but my husband used to walk in the room and see me sanding away on a poor doll until it's cloth would split, or cutting  off ears or noses with abandon, like throwing away a banana peel, he just grimaced  and walked away, I believe he was really concerned  about me, or he couldn't bear to watch what I was doing to and probably ruining more good dolls.

 I am hanging out lots of pieces of fabric in the weather for about a month, through wind, sun and rain. Hopefully this will give me some fading and probably a few small holes. I realize this is still not as good as antique fabric, but the sun, rain, and wind and space on the fences is free, not so antique fabrics. When I do get a special piece of some old cloth, I am afraid to use it, for fear, I'll never get another piece of anything like it. So, if you are brave, and can justify your actions to your neighbors, I think it is worth a try to get the look of clothes you want. I don't know if the people long ago had these problems. did they try to make antique dolls too, and had to scrape up fabric to do what they wanted. Who knows, but Izannah Walker was a person who I think would not have been above doing something like this to get the results she wanted.

Making Primitive Bears

Here are two of the three primitive bears I have made so far. These girls are for my two Niece's Easter baskets. These are pretty easy to make. I made a sitting bear, but these two have legs and arms that are movable. I started with a pattern I bought, I think from Sweet meadows Farm, but found it was not strong enough for children to play with, so I modified it to be stronger, more flexible and child friendly. I inserted antique glass eyes I got on ebay, they are so pretty and add a lot to the bears. I have some faux fur to try to make some, but decided the osnaburg bears would be better to try out first. I like their old friendly primitive look and hope my little nieces will too. Hoping for everyone a happy Easter and always happy doll making.