A Good Day

Yesterday was a good day. We took advantage of a day off work to take the boat out for a fun sail. The wind was just right, and the river flat. There were two or three other sailboats out on the river, very little ship traffic, and quite a few small fishing boats to avoid. I saw the occasional seal and a few pelicans.

While I'm dying to finish the doll I've been working on, I'm committed to finish painting the living room and returning to some semblance of normalcy in that space. It's a large room, which apparently becomes even larger as I paint.

Three to Go

Remember a few years back when it was all the rage to be classifed as spring, summer, winter or fall people? And clothing and makeup were selected based on our seasons? Well I sort of do the same thing with dolls. Using natural light as much as possible, I pull fabrics and place them next to the stuffed doll. In most cases, you can tell right away which colors your doll needs to avoid and which are flattering. So I've lined up some fabrics to go with the remaining three Averill dolls I'll be working on.

I think this will be the next Averill doll I finish. I've always been fond of autumn colors (and wear them myself much of the time). The top fabric with the leaves and swirls will be the skirt. The bottom fabric is a very dark brown, and will probably be arms and legs. Her eyes will be green.
I chose these fabrics because they complemented her skin tone, and I wanted to use colors I don't usually select. I think her skirt will be the red print (second from the left), and her sleeves will be the cream print next to it. She will probably have blue eyes.
This selection of fabrics is a work in progress. The skirt (and possibly the sleeves), will be from the middle fabric. I'm not sure what color her eyes will be.

I haven't even thought about hair yet, but it will all work out in the end.

One of Four Done

Today I finished one of the four Averill dolls I started last week. Naturally, I took the photos before realizing I forgot to poof up her sleeves a little. Oh, well.

While I dislike the sheen of the craft velour, the camel color is nice. This doll is the third from the left in my previous post.

I used some velvet I had on hand for her slippers (only because it went with her coloring), and I'll never use it for this purpose again! In the past I've used a thin stretch panne velvet which has worked really well. This stuff had no stretch at all, was very hard to keep aligned (even with lots of pins and basting), and took much longer to sew.

Itchin' to make some dolls

My day-to-day schedule is still just as hectic as ever, but since coming home from ODACA Day I've been so wanting to work on dolls. I decided to start by making a set of Averill dolls, using my new and improved mold. I thought it might be interesting to use a variety of skin colors to hone my paint blending skills, though I really don't care for the sheen that the craft velours have.

The baked polymer clay faces have been covered with knit fabric and are ready for gesso. I've also gone through my fabric stash and picked out fabrics that complement each skin tone.

Now all the faces have been gessoed, and the first one has been painted to match one of the bodies (hopefully, the paint always dries just a bit darker).