After a few years away from designing I am proud to present a brand new pattern

With Love From Skeelhaven!

      Paisley Praise is named for one of the 8 fabrics used to create her gorgeous Renaissance style dress with bell sleeves.  Her wings are made of tattered cotton “feathers” on poseable wire. Paisley is kneeling with her arms out stretched and eyes closed giving thanks for all her blessings.  A variation, Lady Paisley, can be made with no wings, posed seated with her hands in her lap. Step by step instructions are included for needlesculpting and face painting techniques, in addition to creating this lovely doll body and costume. While kneeling, Paisley measures approximately 12” in tall.

 

 

     Paisley Praise will become available in September at Cloth Doll Patterns , Dollmakers Journey and Joggles .   This will also be my first PDF pattern, and will be for sale at Doll Street and Craftsy, so we’ll see how sales go there and if that does well I may update and convert more patterns for PDF versions!

 

      I made a variation of the pattern without wings and called her "Lady Paisley." Her photo is below. 

Discount on Workshops!

  

Faerie Couture

To celebrate my favorite on line doll club being 15 years old in 2012 and continuing under new ownership I want to give back a little!  So I am offering $15 off  each of my currently running online classes at Doll Street. These include: Faerie Couture, Fanciful Fairy Wings, Handling Hands, Hey Doll Face, Lady Zen and the Queen of Hearts, photos below.    The discount code is DS15yearanniv, and the classes are self paced so you don'tr have to rush to keep up.  This discount is only available thru October 1st.  Usually these Doll Street discounts are only 10% and only offered to Doll Street members so this really is a big deal if you have been wishing to take any of my workshops!

Fanciful Fairy Wings

Handling Hands

Handling Hands

Hey Doll Face

Lady Zen

Queen of Hearts

Queen of Hearts

More Garden

 So, here is the north garden, and the back hoe named Edward, blocking the pond area view.  

The front row of blocks will be completed, it was left open to get in equipment such as the tiller, but you can see the shape of the walk better from this view. There is about 7 1/2 feet of garden on the outside edge of each walk, and on the east end it goes into the flagstone patio around the goldfish pond.

       In the back, beyond the 17 foot red brick fire ring is the main east garden.  A lot of plants are in pots here waiting to be watered as the sprinkler doesn't reach them on their six foot spiral stands.  The gazebo in the back was designed by Craig and of course, he built it, too.  There is an arched foot bridge that crosses a mini creek connecting a series of waterfalls to a 5 by 12-ish pond, with fish right up against the gazebo. There are a couple benches around the pond shaded by the large maple.

I love little details in my garden! I have a fairy door and mini trees and shrubs as well as plants that don't grown above an inch tall.  Here you can see a fae dancing in one of those areas.  She is about six inches tall.

Elf boy is a larger statue, about 15 inches tall and sits near the stairs to the rear entrance to the large bed shown above.  He faces the gazebo and the morning sun. 

This view is the side of the same bed looking south.  The hydrangea is in full bloom and it blocks the view of the waterfalls behind it from this view.  You may have noticed the yard slopes down, and so the rear of the garden is raised.  See my little bunny friend?  I do get live bunnies in the yard but try to prevent them from getting into the garden and eating my goodies.  The deer like to come in too.  They ate all my tulip heads and or bulbs this year and a year ago all my rose blooms.  This year they have eaten all the leaves off my hostas just after they bloomed.  Bambi may be beautiful and hoof prints in the garden may be fun to find but not when they have dug up all my new spring bulbs or irises.  Grrrrrrrrrrrr...  Still, I think the garden came out okay this year.  I just need to get that north garden planted again and finish the walls.  I hope you like it!

Garden Photos

This WAS my north garden before it was destroyed.  I pieced together photos for a panoramic view, which seems to bow out here but really is a straight line until you getcto the maple tree at left, and then it curves around the 10 by 5 foot pond at the corner of the house. But I'm sure you get the idea. The paths are flagstone in this photo and weeds adore them. (My back... not so much.)  I'll use the flagstone as stepping stones within the larger bed sections here and out back in the larger garden beds, as well as around this pond.  I'm looking foreard to seeing this garden looking lush again but I know it's going to take another 3 to 5 years before it fills in nicely again. Sigh. Needless to say, I am looking for some plant trades...

The Garden

So I promised pics of the garden in the spring. Well, How about late summer?

       We recently destroyed, and by that I mean completely removed almost all plant life and the rotted landscape timbers to be replaced with more permanent objects.  Between the drive and the 36 foot long bed, as well as wrapping around the large maple and pond area that connect at the corner to the back of the house, we placed stacking bricks. Theses are the kind that the top one hasa little lip in the back so it never gets pushed out of place while it rests on the one below.  Now maybe less people will hit it with their cars if they are more concerned about their car being damaged. (?)

       Next, the 12 feet of flower beds needed the walkways rebuilt.  Someone gave us a load of white bricks, which is really where the whole project started.  So Craig designed a new path layout (with my approval, of course!) and laid the bricks in a herringbone design.  Way cool! Didn't he do an absolutely gorgeous job?! That man of mine can do anything! The L shape on the right will be mirrored  "down" in this pic so there will be two entrances into the garden from the drive. There is also an arbor with an entrance at each end.  You can see the rose arbor at the top left.  It struggled through all the heat this summer but is doing well, finally and coming back.  The climbing Peace rose on the opposite side was just transplanted so it will need some time to catch up. 

My job was to work on the raised beds up against the house.  They are 4 feet deep and we wanted something that wouldn't rot or droop again when critters burrowed holes, so he used 4" wide cinder blocks.  Once the walls were built I got to be in charge of making them look good.  So I hand covered them with concrete to make the walls look like they were built out of real stones.  Later, when it's completely sculpted I will color the stones randomly with a variety of acid dyes so it looks like the stones were just like the other ones we're found and collected on the property.

So, you must think I'm crazy, right?  Actually it was fun! I did a base layer, which you can see on  the upper wall.  It is thin and flat and simply has the lines for the morter carved in so I know where rocks will be.  When it has cured I come back and slap on handfulls of wet cement (while wearing gloves, I learned the hard way!) and then it's all pretty much sculpting.  It's not as delicate as sculpting a face, and since it's a rock, who's to say I did it wrong?  The darker faux stones above were still were when I took this photo, in case you are wondering.

Consuming Shrubbery

    I was so looking forward to a beautiful day working on building the new garden wall when walking out the front door and turning to walk down the wood walk I managed to trip over some of my husband’s strewn about hardware supplies, including a ten foot long piece of PVC pipe for our new garden sprinkler system, which I was attempting to kick out of the way and I somehow managed to gracefully (or not so, as I actually have no memory of the fly time) flipped myself so my shin firmly and repeatedly slammed onto the step.  Somehow I don’t recall the bouncing.  My behind landed in the shrubbery with my feet elevated about to be consumed by branches.  At least, they wouldn’t give my feet back upon request.  The remainder of my left side must have also bounced off the corner of the elevated wood walk and into the waiting undergrowth.  My head was on the ground far lower down the hill than the rest of my body and I simply could not get out of the predicament.

    I imagined I’d win $10,000 on one of those video shows had someone taped me, though I won’t be reenacting my adventure; not intentionally.  The shrubbery pressed me snuggly against the wooden walk structure, in their mind to protect me no doubt.  My feet were being held hostage in the uphill branches of another shrub, who I am quite sure believed it too was just doing its duty.  I was wedged in.  I could hear in my mind exactly what my eldest son would (and later did) say, “This is exactly why I’ve told you that you should keep a cell phone on you at all times.”  I seriously think that boy is turning into his parents with phrases like that.

    I managed to get one arm entirely free, and the second arm could help to prop up my head to pitch in to asess the situation. I was basically not getting out by myself unless I spent a great deal of time working my way through the fifteen year old bushes, which did not appeal. Partially as they were a gift from my deceased father and partially because it would hurt like the Dickens’s to go through them!  My dearest husband, who as you recall, left said items on the walk that tricked me into the catastrophe, was on the tractor not 100 feet away, but he would never see me, wedged down snuggly like a bunny.  The difference being the rabbit is sized to fit!  My husband certainly would never hear a call for help over the boisterous engine noise either, so I needed an alternate plan.

    That infamous ten foot long piece of PVC pipe that caused the ruckus in the very beginning seemed to be my only hope to catch his eye.  I could wave it about like a flag.  Trust me.  From my position, waving anything was not an easy thing to do, but I did my best.  Of course at first, the moment the pipe went in the air, he turned the tractor away from my direction and I had to wait until he came back around.  When he did turn around he noticed me moving the pipe and just went about his business. He later told me his first thought at the time was, “What’s she doing with my stuff now?”  Then he caught on, came to my rescue and with quite a bit of effort he finally liberated me from the consuming shrubbery.  My Knight in Shining Armor.  (Who’s toy’s put me in the predicament requiring being rescued in the first place!)

So I did NOT get to work in the garden after all. 

Instead I sat with ice packs and iced tea resting for the remainder of the day.

Busy Busy Busy!

Between working in the garden and writing classes lately I've been pushing myself nonstop!  The garden is shaping up beautifully, but is not quite ready for a spring photo shoot.  Soon, I promise... it's such a lovely place to just be.  I like to take a cup of tea out there early in the morning and just sit under an arbor or in the gazebo to listen to the birds and just breathe.  Sigh...
  
I can tell you about workshops! A brand new workshop called Bits and Bobs begins April 26th.  It's how to make all those little embellishment Bits and Bobs that you want to use but really don't want to go and spend and arm and a leg for to buy a package of six when you'll only use one.  Paper, fabric, fiber, and mixed medium goodies.  We create faux metal, do ribbon work, play with beads and sparkles and a little bit of clay.  We'll even add a little heat to some of our goodies for distressed finishes.

Bits and Bobs can teach techniques that can be suitable for most any style, from country to Victorian, modern to Steampunk, or even Gothic.  Whatever the project there is always a way to create an embellishment to dress it up just a little bit more!  Check out the online workshop at Joggles.

April 6th I'm repeating Lady Zen at Doll Street.  She's a canvas based textural mixed media piece embellished with pressed flowers, and wears a headdress filled with stylized doodling that suddenly seems to be a popular style these days, though I've been doing it ever since I was a kid.  Her face technique is step by step, layered and a pattern can be printed to be used right on the canvas for those that don't want to draw.  My coloring technique is really much easier than you'd think!  Come and play and check it out!

April 20th, by request, I'll be repeating my Queen of Hearts workshop at Doll Street.  She's of course from Lewis Carroll's Wonderland and a now available as a mixed media sculpture workshop incorporating paper, wire, air dry clay and fabric and does not require a sewing machine!   Learn techniques to work with fabric using fusible products and only a small amount of hand sewing.   The Queen's face includes glass eyes, dimensional eyelids and lashes, and some basic needle sculpting with knit fabric.   Her Majesty's hands are covered in fabric without a single stitch sewn!   No finger turning at all!  This workshop is great for those that would like to make a doll but don't want to use a sewing machine.

So check out my online workshops if you will, and hopefully I'll see you in a class or two.  Meanwhile, I'm back to bouncing between the garden and writing more new classes.  If you happen to be passing nearby, let me know.  I'd love to have you visit and share a glass of tea in the garden together.