More finished objects!

Now that the holidays are over I am out of excuses for putting off my Round Robin committments, so I have devoted myself to getting them done this week.

This lovely by Jan Demetralis is constructed on a jigsaw puzzle piece. She posed quite a "puzzling" challenge for me. (Sorry, that's a dreadful pun, I know, but I couldn't resist!) WHAT was I going to do with her??!! I confess that I was a little unsure if any kind of pattern had been laid down for her -- her face is so beautifully realistic, her lower body somewhat less so, and her torso is like something out of a surrealist painting...

This IS an "anything goes" project however, so I decided to just let it percolate in the back of my mind for a while...

An idea broke through while we were on vacation. I decided that the little extensions that I had originally seen as sort of proto-arms would now become the shoulder pieces of a fabulous coutour gown (though someone else is going to have to create said gown...) and I would give her arms from the area where I visualized her shoulders "should" be.

Really though, are there any real "shoulds" on a doll like this??!!

The arm construction I used was designed by Pearl Red Moon for her "Ancient Icons" series of dolls. The upper arm, lower arm, and hand are each sewn and stuffed seperately of kool-aid dyed silk charmeuse, then joined together with bead joints. The fingers on each hand are made of bugle beads tipped with seed beads.

Speaking of the "Ancient Icons", I was motivated by working on Jan's doll to finish my own little objects. They've been sitting under my work table for... well, the lessons are dated March of 2002, so let's just call it a long time!

All the green one needed was her yarn hairpiece. The first one I made was way too bulky for her. This one is still a bit bulky, but I like the look.

The red one... now that I look at the photo I don't think I'm quite finished with her yet. I think she needs something more around her face. Perhaps some draping after the same manner as the green one. I'll think about it...

I am particularly proud of her pants. The first pair I made for her were simply dreadful. I didn't know anything about machine embroidery back then and didn't use a stabilizer under the fabric and ended up with a mess. This time I created a base "fabric" of fusible Angelina fibers, backed it with some water soluble stabilizer, and embroidered it with some simple machine stitching over silk ribbons. They look fantastic in real life, though you can't see much in the photo. Sorry for the focus issues -- no idea what went wrong there and I'm too lazy to go back downstairs and take another one. I'll post another better pic after I do some more beading on her.