So This Is My Saturday...

Jackhammering since 8 am, chunks of concrete, enough dust to choke a horse, a hole in my wall, and another deep hole in my living room floor. Hopefully this all ends with a fixed pipe and water in my kitchen again.

Life Happens...

My mom just had hand surgery and then fell and broke her leg and pelvis. Also a plumbing pipe under the slab in my living room broke and it needs to be jack hammered out and replaced tomorrow so neither we or the upstairs neighbor can use the kitchen sink or dishwasher.

I can't even begin to express how stressed out I am.

Finally Ready For My Shop Update

I finally finished everything that I can get done right now for my shop. I have more in the works but I'm not going to stress myself out more than I need to. The 2 challenges I did recently really took massive amounts of time away from making these dolls. But hey choices..anyway glad I did do them. My listings with go live either tonight or Saturday morning but I thought I'd show here on my blog what I'm offering since a few people asked to see ahead of time.

 These 3 were made last year before I really figured out what I wanted do do with this pattern I designed. I think they are kind of adorable and I hope they find good homes.

Goldylocks.

Hansel and Gretel. These two started my fairy tale doll craze. I'm selling these 2 as a set.

Red and Wolfie. Selling these two as a set. Some friends said I should offer singles of these too so I made another set to sell as singles that are slightly different.

Single Red Riding hood.

Single Wolfie. Changed his head and made lederhosen.

Cat Witch is being listed too.

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Saturday Worktable

I finally said no to another challenge so have time to work on my own projects. Slowly things are getting done for my shop update. Today I'm working on lederhosen for this Wolfie.

 

Would you like a simple doll pattern to make your own fairy tale dolls? I'm making patterns to sell now so comment on this post or email me. My email can be found under contact me at the top of the blog.  

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Finally I Can Show My Finished Piece: Black Cat Witch

I really enjoyed working on this project and am very pleased with how she turned out.She's a pretty awesome Felt Black Cat Witch Soft Sculpture Piece. She'll go up for sale in my shop when I do my update probably at the end of the month. She's 19 inches tall, completely hand sewn from felt and designed by me.

So I Did It Again...

I joined another challenge even though I haven't finished the dolls for my shop update. It's so easy to talk me into creative things, I always take on too much. There was another challenge for a new group I belong to, but I only got as far as a sketch. Anyway here's what I been up to.

It's another Every Witch Way Lane challenge. This is a shorter time frame one due at the end of July. It's Witch's Hat, Black Cat and Broomstick challenge. You can make what ever you want as long as it has those elements. I'm doing a black cat witch, maybe it's too literal but that what I felt like doing.

A very basic beginning sketch.

Working out the face details.

Sculpting and stuffing the face.

I had so much fun embroidering these eyes and actually came up with a new way to do my eyes.

Here she is stuffed and legs attached. It's super hard to see the face details since they are black on black. I hope to get better pics of her face later cause I'm loving it.

 Here's the little 3D fireplace. This will be inset in the dress. There will be a little cauldron cooking away in there too.

Since she's all black cat I decided to do bright colorful clothing. I embroidered and appliqued the boots.

The start of the apron dress. It will be embroidered and appliqued. There will be a blouse, underwear and maybe an underskirt too. Oh yeah and a witch hat and broomstick.

The finished project can be found HERE.

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Worktable Tuesday Night

Working out a design for a challenge and sorting felt scraps by color. So exciting, right?

Wips

Got a lot done over the weekend. This doll came together fast.

Not entirely sure I like this dragon. Details this small are so hard to do.

I need to work out a cloak design that allows the front of the skirt to be shown. I may set her aside a few days and work on something else while I think about this. Other than that she's coming along pretty great. What do you think?

Friday's Worktable

Started a new felt doll. She's a mini Maleficent. I know, why do another one, right? Well I never had a chance to add the dragon to my challenge piece and I really wanted to do that. I also cut out Goldylocks too. I'll show wips after the weekend.

Moving On To Other Things Now...

Now that Maleficent is finished I can move on to other projects, namely my fairytale dolls.

Besides Hansel and Gretel, I have also finished Little Red Ridinghood and Wolfie. Here are some wips. I plan on showing all the dolls together when they are done.

I've been playing around with the idea of doing the witch from Hansel and Gretel but then do I need to do Red's grandmother too? The list of characters seems endless and I'm not sure I want to devote so much time to adding more when I'm not sure how well they may be received.

I'm trying to produce enough stock to reopen my etsy store, so I do want to make another set and am considering Goldylocks or maybe the 3 Little Pigs. My daughter wants me to do Pocahontas and Aladdin. I've been doing mostly Grimm type tales since the embroidery I'm doing fits best with that Old World theme, but I'm always happy to hear any ideas you all may have.

Maleficent is Finished!

Because of time constraints I couldn't add the dragon element that I really wanted but I'm pretty happy with how the whole thing turned out. Here she is in all her glory.

 

This piece is so large (30" x 25") that I had to take it out to the patio to take photos. The background was supposed to be more detailed but again time was a factor.

I did some simple details on the sides and the top of the shadowbox.

 

This entire piece was hand sewn from felt except for the crystal on her staff, that is a wooden ball I painted. 

Here's the detail of the throne.

I ended up working on this folding table in the dining room cause I didn't have enough space in my really small studio.

Selfie with Maleficent. I hope you all enjoyed seeing the progress and final of this piece.

PART 1 of this project can be found here. PART 2 can be found here and PART 3 here.

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More Wips On The Maleficent Piece

Well it's been slow going. Both my dogs got sick and one need surgery so it was a stressful time here in Sassyland. Lita had butt trouble again and we got her to the vet just in time before her butt ruptured again. Antibiotics and a few check ups and she's fine. Olive had abscesses in her mouth and had 2 teeth pulled and complicated gum surgery. She looks like an old lady without her dentures in but at least she is no longer in any pain and the vet said she healed remarkably well. I spent a lot of time holding and comforting 2 unhappy, stressed out and in pain dogs.

 Olive

Lita

I also broke my tablet (damn it)! Anyway here are more Maleficent wips.

 

Each scale is hand sewn, lightly stuffed and then sewn onto the chair back. I did them in light gray and med gray for contrast.

 

 I realized that the piece needed a structure underneath of it would look like a plush toy, which wasn't what I was going for, so I built a throne base.

 The beginning of the face. It's always scary at this point because the faces always look very cartoony but she came together nicely.

 

Once I had the basic doll figure done I realized I should have made the doll first and then the throne because I wasn't happy with the height of the throne. I could have left it but it would have drove me nuts so I then added height to achieve the look I wanted.

I added 3 or 4 inches to the back. I would have re cut out the wings to match the new back proportion but I didn't have enough felt and decided to let it go. I can be too picky about things. I have the arm rests done but don't have a pic on this computer.

I had to make 2 cloaks to get the right look. I still need to add detail to the cloak and of course the iconic headdress.

The whole piece will sit inside a shadowbox. I'm having some issues building it but hope to work it out. The deadline for the challenge was moved to June 7, thank goodness, so I have more time to finish. Hope you enjoyed seeing what I've been doing.

PART 1 and PART 2 and PART 4 to this project can be found at these links.

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