New doll and Operation Clean Room

Over the past few weeks I've designed and made a new doll. I think she's very pretty.

The overall design of the doll was inspired by Japanese Kokeshi dolls. I know, she doesn't look Japanese at all. But the elements of the kokeshi are there, eg large head and no limbs. I have been told by some that my doll reminds them of Babushka dolls. And yes I can see the resemblance.

I love her green eyes and red hair. I wanted to do the face as simple as possible, as I think for this style of doll less is more. As I was making her it came to me that her name needed to end in "enna", so she is called Makenna. She's made of a wool blend felt and completely handsewn. I'll be making more of these dolls and hopefully someday in the near future I'll get around to selling them.

On another note, it has come to my attention that my room looks like a tornado hit it.

Something needs to be done. Enter Operation Clean Room. My plan is to do at least 15 mins. of cleaning/tidying a day to get it back into shape. I'll be recording my progress here to hopefully keep me motivated. One good thing I did was spend a couple days ironing to get this:

Lovely neat and tidy fabric. Before it was just stuffed in every which way. Now I can actually see what I've got. I've got A LOT of work to do to get my room tidy, but hopefully once it's clean I'll stop being lazy and keep it that way.

Stitch markers and marbling

I love marbling, it's so fun. I used it to make some paper beads a while ago, but I wanted to test how it works on fabric. This is what I came up with:

The fabric is 100% cotton. I really love how it turned out, especially the middle one. I also marbled some envelopes while I was at it.

Marbling always makes me think of Japanese things, I'm not sure why.

As well as marbling, yesterday I made some stitch markers for crochet. I got sick of the little plastic split ring I was using falling off.

I think they're snazzy.

I really like the one with black saucer beads. I made two but one is currently being used for a project. The paper beads on the right are made from book pages. I love the effect it gives.

Presents

The thing I love most about making things, is giving them to people I love. To me, there's nothing better than giving a well thought, handmade gift full of all the time and love I've put into it and having the person love it. I'm quite happy to admit that I give the best presents when I put my mind to it.  (There I go, tooting my own horn. :P)
A good friend of mine is turning 22 soon, I made her an early birthday present partly because I started early and couldn't wait to give it to her, and partly because I didn't know if I was going to see her on the day. I made her this:

Bopbot from the book Crobots by Nelly Pailloux

I borrowed this book from the library and fell in love it. I've ordered my own copy and can't wait to make the rest of the crobots. Bopbot was my second amigurumi project and I was really happy with how he turned out.

I think I may end up making one for myself, I just love him and his cute little headphones. My friend loved him too.

Another present I made and haven;t posted yet was a mother's day doll for my mum. I used the same pattern as for the doll I made my grandmother. (On a side note, my grandmother loved her doll and called her Lucille. Isn't that a great name?) Here's the doll I made mum:

Her lovely serene face makes me fall in love with her again every time I see it. She now lives on my mum's bed. :)

I embroidered her skirt, I'm thrilled with how it turned out. The centres of the flowers are some of my handmade paper beads. Mum was as happy with her as I was, and more. On another side note, rememeber the amigurumi skulls I made? They made it safely to their new in home in Western Australia and were very well received.

My first Amigurumi

I've become completely addicted to Amigurumi, I love it. I'm hooked. (Har har har pun intended. I think I'm hilarious.) For those of you who don't know Amigurumi is the Japanese craft of knitting or crocheting stuffed dolls. The word is derived from the words Ami, meaning knitted or crocheted and nuigurumi, meaning stuffed doll.

I've been wanting to make my friend something for ages, and when I came across this I thought it was perfect. So I went to work.

Skull in progress

It actually took me all afternoon to get the hang of it, but once I did it was very straightforward and fun. The other thing was, because my printer had broken I had to write the pattern out by hand, which didn't take too long but was tedious.

Skull before adding eyes

At this point I decided one skull wasn't enough so I got the idea making two and joining them with a chain of crochet, so you could hand them on things. Kind of like the skull equivalent of those fuzzy dice people hang one their rear view mirrors.

Completed 

I just love them. I might end up making some for myself.

 The pupils are beads. I wasn't going to add pupils but when I was pinning the eyes on, my brother commented that they would look better with them. So here they are.

I just really hope my friend likes them as much as I do.

Beads, beads and more beads

I thought I would post some photos of the paper beads I've made. 

I know you can't see any, but I just like this photo.

 These beads were an experiment, so I only made a few. The blue beads are painted and then the glaze is mixed with mineral eyeshadow to give a shimmer. I really like this effect. 

I really love the combination of blue and brown in these ones, made from a magazine page. 

These ones were also made from magazine pages. When making bead out of magazines you want nice, thick pages with lots of advertising. I find women's magazine are great, and if, like me, you don't read magazines they are usually readily available from op-shops. 

 These beads were made from a marbled book page. The effect the text gives is really interesting. 

More painted beads. 

The best present in the world

I've been neglecting this blog mega, due to non craftyness and health issues. So while I haven't really made anything super recently, I thought I'd post something I made a couple of years ago for my best friend. It's The Best Present In The World. Seriously, no present I can ever give her can top this.

Maybe you can guess by the 18 done in mirrors, but I made this for her 18th birthday. This crown was super fun to make, because not only did I get to play with hot glue, pompoms, tassels and mirrors, but I got to have fun experiment with natural dye. It's dyed with turmeric. Now, interestingly, if you mix turmeric with washing powder (or soda ash) it still dyes a vivid yellow but after it dries an you re-wet it it turns red, as you can see. I think it dries back to yellow, but I'm not sure. 

BUT WAIT! There's more. 

I also made a doll to look like Annie. The shirt says "I heart Robert Smith". We are both big fans of The Cure.

  She's wearing a white coat because she is "Dr Annie". She's not a doctor in real life, but my brother and I where both sick for a period of time and my darling friend Annie sent us a "box of fun" full of goodies and a picture book she drew and wrote where she is the doctor and makes us better.  

For the glasses, I was just going to paint them on. But my brother suggested pipecleaner glasses, which looks much better than painted ones would I think.  

I don't remember how big Dr Annie is exactly, but these are actual baby shoes. I just love them and they go perfectly.  

I really had a blast making this for her, and needless to say, she absolutely loved the present. 

A doll for Marjory

I never realized how pretty the name Marjory was until I heard it said. It makes me think of posies. Anyway, way back when, a few months ago, I started making a doll for my grandmother (whose name is Marjory, hence the title).  One of my earliest memories of my grandmother is walking around her wonderful garden while I picked out and she gathered flowers and foliage into a posie (or a bouquet, but I think posie sounds better) for me to take home. When I was really young we used to do this all or most of the time I visited. I also have vivid memories of her lemon tree and the wheelbarrow full of cacti, which fascinated me. I love my grandmother lots, and I like to express my love for others by making them things.

She is completely handstiched, which is why it took forever. This was my first time working with felt, and while at times it was frustrating, I'm very happy with the results. 

The face. The face.... took flipping ages!  I cut out and redid it too many times. But now I'm happy with it. I'm still a little unsure about the mouth, but there's no way I'm redoing it again. 

Skirt detail. I'm really pleased with this. The gold blossom is a paper bead I made and painted.