Working on the 4th of July

  Hi and Happy 4th of July to everyone. I hope your day is going great. I have spent my day relaxing over my doll work. Lots of people read, or do various hobbies, but making the dolls is very enjoyable and calming for me, so it is natural that given the opportunity, I would choose to spend my day this way, however, tonight I will get rewarded with a good supper on the grill. Here are a few pictures of dolls in the works that are close to being finished, some finished and some with still along way to go. I took a picture of my 2nd pair of Alabama babies, even though they are far from finished, because you can see a lot of form and detail. The black one is hard to visualize finished, but I think she will be super cute. I have already made their matching outfits to the 1st pair that I made. The rag doll is finished and drying. I have picked out some pieces of pretty homespun and nice fabric for unders for her, which will be made into a beautiful dress by a sweet friend. The Izannah doll is my Trouble doll, which I  have corrected.  I had to carve her eye down and build up her right cheek and then re stockinet. Now she has a new paint job. I think she is pretty and will be outfitted in Civil War reproduction blue calico which I bought from Silent Stitches.  She will have black boots with red scalloped tops. Work is going along steadily and peacefully. To all those folks headed to the UFDC Convention, I hope you will have great success and super fun, and a little rest from all your hard work getting ready to go. I will certainly be thinking of you all and hoping to hear some of the outcome of the convention.

Doll Problems

Making dolls entails a lot no matter what kind of doll you are making, and some are much more trouble than others. Here are three dolls I am trying to finish, but each of these dolls has had a serious problem of one kind or another. I don't think experience saves you from making these mistakes, because I certainly know what to do, so why am I always plagued by crazy things like the right side of the heads always are fuller than the left side, or the shoulders are almost always uneven, or the right eye is always fuller and turned slightly outward than the left one. Sometimes these things don't present a big problem, but I believe it is the way my eyes are focusing on the unpainted white heads. It is hard to see, if you have one side a little fuller than the other, however,  even on a cloth molded head, you can make slight corrections. The third doll here is the worst problem. You would think I could tell she had almost no chin. HaHa.  Poor thing, this will cause me to let her dry, sand her down to within a inch of her life, and add a chin, then put on a new stockinet, and begin the painting over again. All this occurs even if you have a whole cloth head right in front of you. They do come out wonky, but making a few corrections should suffice. There is only one solution to all this, and that is to just be patient and go back and fix things, but this cost a lot of time. The trials of the doll maker are many, and not being able to see mistakes closer up front doesn't help. As for these three, I am whipping them into shape, and I believe getting them close to what I need. On Izannah's molded heads, I can see why she could not fix the problems, and if they are not to severe, I try not to fix them either, but a doll has to have a chin. thanks for letting me vent my doll troubles and here is hoping you are sailing along in your

hobbies what ever they may be and having fun. I still will have fun putting a chin on my poor girl.

Two dolls in stage two of painting.

These Izannah dolls are being made for friends. I have already painted the first coat of basic features and let dry. I then went back and distressed these dolls and then painted them with antiquing liquid, and then wiped off. At this point you can do two things, first is to immediately re-paint on top of your antiquing stain, or you can wait and let dry and come back later, but I have found it is better to go ahead and paint on top of the stain, that way, you can make corrections right then and get a better idea of how your doll will look in the end. Now, you ask, well,  is this the end. No. There is still a lot to be done, inspite that I have said this method is 3 stages. I have yet to paint the dolls for the third time, then there will be the Tweek out. Tweeking just means you are putting finishing touches to your doll. There are tiny details to adjust, and the smallest changes will make a difference to how this doll will look for her life. They are starting to bloom out for us and soon we will have two new little people to dress up. I think this part of the doll making is my favorite. The second doll in this post is rough in appearance, but this will change, both will be smoother with additional paint I will put on, so bare in mind these are in progress and not a finished doll.

Pin Keeps

Pin Keeps are totally useful and pretty ways to hold your sewing pins and needles. I have seen so many fine ones, and ones with animals and dolls and fruit, and well, there are countless ways to make them. I have made a pin keep doll for my friend Barbara. It is a shame it has taken so long to finish it, but at last, here she is. I like dolls for pin keeps because they are not just still objects, they have personality's and sewing with them in the room is such a pleasure. They serve you well and are pretty to look at. I hope this pin keep dolly will be a trusted and faithful holder for Barbara's sewing things, and that she will enjoy just having her around.

New work in progress

Included in these pictures are several dolls I am working on, trying to finish. They are an old fashioned painted head rag doll for a dear friend of mine, two Alabama babies for two more of my good friends, two Izannah dolls, a pin keep doll in a can, who will have a brown homespun dress for a friend who once apon a time bought a painting from me. Lastly there are several Izannah dolls, I am showing 4 of these here. I love these dolls in this stage, it seems to reveal their character and give you a tiny look at what they will become. We ( my mama, husband and me are also making about 25 tiny 6 inch Izannah dolls. these are to keep my mother busy with things to do and I hope she will enjoy working on them. Over the last two weeks, we have undergone lots of changes, but I hope we will see a brightness in the future, where we can share things with each other and make sweet memories. I appreciate all the very sweet notes I have received. Life has twist and turns that we can never expect or comprehend, but we have to move forward, giving our selves to each other. I will post some more pictures when there is a little more to show. Mama

says I am a slave driver, but I hope she will learn to do more on the dolls and learn to really enjoy the process and be astounded when the doll is finished and she can see what her hands have made.

An Unbelievable Tradgety

  On Mothers Day May 11, 2014 my mothers husband went to the grocery store as usual, and bought a few things, on his way out to the car, he was stopped by a 16 year old boy and asked for his money. Billy refused, and went on to get in the car. the boy ran around to the car door and opened it and shot Billy three times in the chest. We buried Billy last Thursday, he was 87. My mother is 84. This has made us go through huge changes, trying to move back and forth between mama's house and ours. She is unable to stay alone, so our lives have changed in such a way, that my doll making is slowed down for the present. I am training my mother how to help me, partly, because I enjoy her company, and it keeps her busy. I won't be able to respond to comments right away, I will try to do that as I can, but appreciate your understanding of those who are waiting for me to finish special projects for them. I am still making progress every day, and will complete all my dolls that I am making for my friends. I'll post again soon, and appreciate all the good thoughts that I know will be sent our way. Love to you all. martha

Alabama Baby Dolls

Back awhile ago the Maida Dolls Group had a Alabama Baby Doll or ( Ella Smith Indestructible Doll ) challenge. I had wanted to learn to make these dolls for a long time, so this was a golden opportunity to get started. I really like these dolls and admire Ella Smith's creative talent and determination to make a doll like this. I imagine she borrowed from other dolls in certain ways, but there is no other doll out there that looks like a Ella Smith doll. A few years ago, I was able to buy an original antique Ala. baby, she was in sad repair, but all there. I have leaned on her to help me make my copies. I made a face mold of her face, and studied her body, and the way she has been painted. I hope I was able to transfer some of her uniqueness to my dolls. Now, these are my first ones, so don't laugh at the extra big hands or the necks that are a tad to long, or the ears that I didn't get right this first time around, to name just a few of my mistakes, but all in all I like them a lot. Also, I have been trying to make a high collar dress, and this is my first attempt. The collars on these two dresses are not finished, but just tucked in place. I will have to go back and stitch them down and perhaps add a little lace. I wanted the dolls to be dressed plainly, but with real dresses and I think these fit the bill. One dress is floral flower sack that is stained pretty much all over, but gently, and the other dress is made from a very old futon cover that is very light weight cotton and is naturally faded and does have some little holes here and there. After I made these two, I went ahead and made two more, making my improvements and will post them eventually, they will be dressed in these same clothes. Hope you enjoy seeing them.

Five Izannah Dolls finished

Here are five Izannah style dolls finished. the 18 inch dolls still are waiting for their shoes and socks, but they will have them soon. the smaller dolls are as done as I can make them. Making and finishing five dolls like this has been a big undertaking, but I am glad to be finishing up, as we are behind schedule on finishing some bigger Alabama Babies and some Old Fashioned Rag doll dresses. If I had to choose between the  two 18 inch dolls, it would be such a hard choice, also I would have trouble picking one of the small dolls over the others. Each one has her special little personality and pretty outfit. I hope you enjoy seeing them.

Bonnet Making

There are so many pretty bonnets to look at. Several people  I know can make the most fabulous bonnets, but my own experience has been to just make the simplest of little hats for my dolls. I decided to try to go a little deeper into hat making and have made these bonnets you see here. They are not much of a departure from my regular little bonnets, but they are some different because I have made them fuller and I also quilted them. Eventually I will make a bonnet with a gathered back, like the prairie bonnets, but for now this will do. If you look close, you will see we didn't get the quilted lines perfectly straight, but I like them anyway. they are substantial without being to heavy, as I used a very light layer of  batting in them. These little models are Pinky in her pink hat and she will have a full skirted double pink dress, and Sissy, who has a reproduction fabric calico blue hat and she will also have the same blue fabric full skirted dress. These dolls will also have  ( Martha shoes ) because they are barefooted. Back last summer I found a bedspread ( I guess that is what it is ) of a floral thin flannel material and this time around all 5 of the dolls I am finishing will have a chemise slip made from this material, instead of white. We are working hard toward finishing all 5 dolls, the tiny 11 1/

2" dolls will be dressed about the same, but with more elaborate tiny bonnets with big ruffles across the bonnet. ( I like to do that ) anyway, here is a little look at something that is new for me.

More Little Biddies - Small Izannah Dolls

More small  dolls underway right now. I am trying to finish 5 dolls, which include two 18" Izannahs and three 11 1/2" Izannah dolls. It takes a long time to make and outfit this many dolls, but I am working pretty hard on the project. The legs are on and body suits ready and the last of the arms was made yesterday, so we are going down the home stretch to having these little people finished. I now have to try to pick fabric for the dresses, which is sort of hard, as I like a lot of the choices, but each will get a dress that I think suits her best. the larger dolls are barefooted and the small ones have booted feet. After these are completed I want to take time to learn how to make a proper shoe. My Martha shoes are cute, but, I need to learn how to make a basic little leather shoe that I can easily change sizes. One of the things about making leather shoes is the sewing and the liner. I tried to hand sew some leather for shoes, but you really need machine stitched seams. When I make any progress on this I will post my findings and show you what I did.

My Old Beauty - How Many Times is enough Times

 Well.  Here we are again one more time. Mona Lisa is ready, after undergoing a new re-make of parts of her and her clothes. After her return from England, I worked on her and made her a new white dress and new legs with painted boots and  put her on e-bay. She did not sell, so I once again started working on her, re-painting part of her eyes, I gave her a new neck line of curls, a new pair of bare feet, shoes and socks, and her white dress was dyed a pink brown. I have asked myself this question and I imagine you doll makers out there have asked yourself this question too, How many times is enough times to work on a doll? On this particular doll,  three times is enough, because I don't think there is anything else I can do to her, or for her. If I felt I still could do better, then I would probably try, but I am satisfied she is beautiful and has a very pretty dress. The dye was a success as this color of pink brown is nice on her. It would be wonderful if we could get everything right from the beginning, but with Mona Lisa it didn't work that way. She made me labor until she was right.  I don't think experience can always save you from having to re work a doll many times, it should, but trying my best, I still made mistakes that I had to correct, that I couldn't see until the end. I am glad I didn't stop trying  to fix my old sweet girl.

New alabama Baby Dolls

Here they are. My first attempt at making these Ella Smith Dolls. The first thing I would say about these dolls is they are nothing like the Izannah walker dolls, either in looks, or design. I think I worked on these in a way more than the Izannah's.  They have, in the antique Alabama baby dolls a plaster face mask that is applied to the cloth head, but I deviated from this on these. I did make the plaster face mask, but it was super heavy and thick, because my antique doll I took my mask from is very deep, so I made a cloth face mask for these that has no plaster in it, so they are very light. In the future, I will still use the cloth face mask, but before I smooth the mask to the cloth head, I will pour a little plaster into the mask, as much as I think it needs. Since the dolls do not have a second skin, you have to watch and try not to get paint and stains on the cloth parts of the body, this is harder, as I am  ( super messy ). I could go on quite a while on the mistakes I made on these, but I have that under control on the next batch. Make shorter necks, put in plaster, ears shapes need to be made different.  Ella was very cleaver about the ears. they have no stuffing and have a big ark in the center and are cut so that the ears will curl and get that famous shape they have, of course I messed up on  that the first time around.  All in all, I like the dolls a lot. These are super big and fat, I would say about 22 or 23" tall. soft and squeezy. they should be easy to fit for clothes. I will not cover up their feet, as they are really fat and cute. I also am repairing my antique Alabama baby. She was missing an ear, so I scraped off the remains of the ear and made her a new ear which is glued and stapled to the head and then a small bit of paper clay to cover the staples.  There is not another way to repair this problem, that I can see, also I re glued down some cracked in her face and filled in the cracks with paper clay, her arms and legs will need some attention too. She will never be worth a fortune, and I have tried to do as little as possible to her to get her back to some semblance of what she was when Ella made her. Lastly, the black doll and picture taking, he is dark, it is very hard to see him in the pictures. This is  ( painting the black dolls,  like this one ) a tough problem which will require much experimentation on my part, or a timely  ( happy accident ), which I am hoping for. HaHa  I enjoyed making these dolls. It made me happy to do it and see them sitting on the table after I was done. Hooray

Do I like My Rag Dolls

This post is a little different, as I am asking myself the question, why am I not satisfied with the three rag dolls I made? What is it about them that makes me feel they are not good enough, or not what I or other people would want? When I make a doll, I judge it by  whether or not I like it enough to keep it myself, because if I don't, then there is no question, but that it isn't good enough, or I need to work on it some more to make it into a doll that I would hate to give up. Along the way, there are dolls we make, that no matter what we do, or how hard we try, the dolls never work out as we thought they would. Now, I say this, these dolls are nice. They are well made, and I have labored long and hard on them, time after time, with painting, antiquing, and repainting to try to get them to the old fine painted rag doll look that I do love. Sadly, I am still not satisfied. I would hate to try to sell, or give away any of these dolls as long as I have these feelings about them. When you get into this situation, seeing the work before you and not wanting to keep going, what do you do? I considered removing the body suit and putting on a new stockinet, because I know the root trouble I am having ) These dolls are made of muslin. Muslin is smooth and cannot take a antiquing so you don't have the ability to make it look old. You must have a stockinet with some ribbing to hold stain.  My first mistake was not widening out the head, but even this is not the cause of my dissatisfaction, as pancake  head and spoon head dolls have been around for ages. I can live with this. One of these dolls is for my sister, who is not a particular doll lover, so I am holding back on giving it to her until my problem is solved. I can, but would not expect the dolls clothes to turn the tide in their favor and make me see another side of them. Clothes make a big difference, but I don't think they can carry the day and turn my rag dolls into ( magically being what I wanted them to be. ) What to do? What to do? HaHa What to do is to send these girls to the back of the line, until lightning strikes, and I suddenly become enamored with them, or take the hard road and re- do the heads, but what if I do this and realize I was better off in the first place? Maybe the dolls were alright to begin with? I know you think  I have gone crazy, but this is a realistic problem. Woe is me not to be able to figure this out.