Finally a Pattern!

For years I have had doll friends and students ask me to create and sell a pattern for Angelfish the Mermaid Bride.  Well, I finally finished it and the pattern is available at my  ETSY site.

Angel fish collects riches from ship wrecks and has embellished her wedding "tail veil" with her treasures. In this photo she examines her wedding ring.  Her pattern features detailed step-by-step methods to needle sculpt which adds dimension to her cotton torso and face. Color is added with pens and pencils and taught in an easy to understand method. Create this elegant mermaid doll with free form embellishing, including silk ribbon embroidery stitches, embroidery and fabric manipulation.  Embellishments include lace appliques,  beads, buttons and silk flowers. Learn to naturally pose feminine articulated hands gracefully with the option for individual fingers or mitten hands, all including fingernails.  A beginner’s body pattern is also included allowing this pattern to be a fun design for dollmakers of all skill levels.

This has always been one of my favorite dolls.  I wish I had never sold her though she went to the home of a mermaid collector who promised to take good care of her.

What a Day!

   Well hello from Skeelhaven!  

   The creating bug has bitten me once again.  Oh how marvelous I finally feel!  Depression sucks but I finally feel free and clear.  I can't explain how great that makes me feel.

   I've got some fun ideas for pin dolls and small dolls and can't wait to dig in, but today I've had to hang around with my DH Craig while he is under the weather.  SO... I have spent the day adding 14 on line workshops to my Etsy site.  Fourteen!  The list includes all the doll workshops I have taught over the last 20 years, as well as a few additional workshops.  I've got a workshop called Artful Lettering , which is a great class for students needing to come up with different yet easy styles for the words in their journals.  Another workshop, Altered Fabrics teaches a wide variety of ways to change the appearance of plain white fabric by dyeing, marbling, burning, melting, embossing and many more techniques.  I have loved teaching that workshop at conferences and at quilt shops.  There is also a Journey of Making Beads, UTEE With Judy, Fiber Delight! Valentine Postcards which can really be used for fabric postcards any time of year and my favorite mixed media piece Harvest Queen.  Of course I have dollmaking workshops as well, including Hey Doll Face!, Cloth Marrotte, my long awaited Merabella Mermaid Workshop, and the Queen of Hearts which is a no sew doll workshop built on a paper Mache torso.

UTEE With Judy

Cloth Marrotte

So I hope you will check out my workshops at ETSY.  Soon, I will be posting photos of my new creations... just as soon as I find the cable to download photos.

MIA 2

   I'm still MIA.  It's been a tough year with depression and lack of creativity.  I'd love to show photos of accomplished works but I actually haven't done a thing all year. I'm working on it and hope 2016 will be a much better year.

   That being said I do have a fabulous grandson, Parker Sterling Skeel, now 9 months old and he and his family share our home. We built a MIL suite on the house, moved into it and gave the rest of the house to my son and his wife.  It's a lot more fun than I imagined and having Parker here every single day is great.  His little life does bring me joy. I'm including a pic of happy Parker and his family taken a month or two ago at the Columbus Zoo.

Parker with Mom and Dad (Brian and Alisha)



MIA

       Well it's been like forever since I posted and I still have nothing new to show you. My Muse is on sabbatical and I am stagnating here.  Actually I am trying to work on a new design for the Windy City Doll Workshop September 29 - Oct 2, 2016. I just seem to have no momentum. She has a head and torso but I've yet to design her stump (to make her a "stump" doll) and her costume is still in my head. Soon, I keep telling myself. Soon.

  

  I  fell in love with a doll by Paula McGee I bought her doll, Pippa Grace Darlington. I never buy dolls but I just adored this one. Her face is my desktop photo still a month after she arrived.   Before buying it I tried one of Paula's patterns. The doll with the black hair below is Calliope and it was a nice pattern to do but didn't thrill me like Pippa. I even traced Paula's face pattern.

 

 Calliope has little pigtails coming off the top of her head - that's not a beehive hairdo!

 

 

    Isn't Pippa wonderful? I think the main difference of why I like Pippa better is the broader face. Funny - I dislike the blue and brown combination on everything else but love it on Pippa! Both are big dolls - about 30 inches in height.

Beaded Neckware

   I've started beading a neck piece to go with a pair of earrings I got at an art show. I'm not an experienced beader but I made it up as I went along. Loads of fun, quite a bit of time. The center of the medallion I found at the same show a year later and I had to have it.

   Next I added medallions to string and create a lovely neck piece. Now I have to figure out how to connect things and make a cord to hang them.

   Sadly, I've been viewing beaded neck wear on Pintrest. OMG! Such fabulous stuff but the sad part is how addicting Pintrest is. I'd heard of it being addicting but never realized the photos can go on forever. I just sit mesmerized and scroll and pin and drool.  

   Meanwhile, when I'm away from the computer I can work on the beaded cord. It's a peyote tube, which means each bead is sewn one by one in a spiral. I couldn't get it to work right so started beading around a piece of IV tubing from the hospital. It works great! I could probably pull the tube out now that it's a couple inches long but we'll see. I hope it works out because I'm flying by the seat of my pants being inexperienced and all.

Craftsy

       Craftsy is an online shop that offers patterns, supplies and free tutorials for things ranging from basic crafts to how to create couture costuming and now you can buy my digital patterns online at Craftsy. Just click on the link to the left or go to Craftsy and search for Skeelhaven.