A Royal Farewell

It's almost time to say goodbye to The Queen of Hearts. She'll be visiting Barb in NY next. (Good luck, Barb!)

I've finished her journal. Jeanne made little booklets for each player which she'll bind together into a book at the end. Here's my booklet in it's entirety.






I'll miss the Queen, but I'm excited to be getting Robyn's doll, Camille, soon.

GIDDYUP!

Oh dear, I never should have shown the Queen my "Ride 'Em Cowboy" art doll...

Poor Paisleyanne.

The Queen's a Bag

OOPS! Meant to say "The Queen's Bag", not "The Queen's a Bag". (Hee hee... Q's gonna kill me!)

Anyway, here it is. (According to Q, the big gold crown ornament isn't gaudy.)

Here's a shot of the "must have" lining.

And Q with her bag.

I know it's hard to tell, but Q's pretty happy with it.

"Won't you be my ball?"

Queen: "Puh-leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease..."
Terese: "Absolutely not. I will not do it."

"MAKE ME A BAG."

So Q was looking at the felt blanket I made for Tabula and, next thing I know, she says, "MAKE ME A FELT BAG." So I showed her the other felt textile I'd made and asked her if she'd like a bag made out of that. "I WANT BLACK AND RED," says she. (Sigh...) "AND I DON'T WANT ANYTHING GAUDY," Q specified. So I set to work and made some nice black and red checked felt and was just starting to sew it up into a bag when I hear, "THIS LOOKS LIKE CARDS. LINE IT WITH THIS." And there she was holding a piece of fabric from my stash that really does remind me of a playing card pattern.

But I hadn't planned on lining the bag... It's just a doll's bag, right? Wrong. It's a Queen's bag. So I made a lining and sewed up a nice simple, lined clutch bag. Then Q says, "IT'S TOO PLAIN." I say, "But you said you wanted something tasteful and not gaudy." She says, "I SAID TASTEFUL, NOT BORING! AND IT NEEDS A SHOULDER STRAP." Sigh. So I'll put pics up once I make a shoulder strap and embellish the bag a bit - tastefully, of course.

Croquet Anyone?

Well, lookee here. The Queen found a croquet mallet in my stash. Since the hedgehogs all ran and hid, she's been trying to use my dachshund, Terese, as a ball...

As you can see, Terese is having none of it (even if she is somewhat ball shaped).

QofH is taking her mallet along on the rest of her journey - in hopes of more animated targets.

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS! (part 2)

I just love The Queen of Hearts! She's an awesome art doll.

Here she is again as she arrived in NC.

She's so pissed that she has to be seen in her undies! I told her she's lucky Robyn made her some bloomers or she'd still be scuttlin' about in her royal birthday suit.

The Queen is a handful. My household's been in an uproar since she arrived. I've tried to capture the highlights of her visit in her journal.

She arrived as a shrieking package having terrorized the postal workers all along the route from Jeanne in Oregon to me in NC. Looks like they tried to squelch her screaming with the old stop, drop, and squash move somewhere along the way...

From the moment she sprang from the box, she's been ordering us all around and threatening to off our heads. All my pets scrambled for hiding places, so Q lit into my playing cards.

The tin foil strait jacket was my only option at that point. Plus it kept her royal bloomers from getting soiled while I worked on her head.

I built her paper mache head right onto her fabric head. I tried to follow the original contours of her fabric face - love that long, pinched nose and her chinless profile.

Doesn't she look like a spoiled rich brat, born into royalty and used to getting her own way?

Well, of course as soon as I let her out of the straight jacket it was once again...

All I hear is "I WANT THIS. I WANT THAT. OFF WITH YOUR HEAD! GET ME A PIZZA!" Etc, etc... More on that later.

Cool-Aberration 2009 Loses a Player

Susan has left the Cool-Ab project for personal reasons. I had her doll, Tabula, whom I'll be returning to Susan along with the new hat I'd already made for her. Too bad - she was gonna be such a darling little Peruvian lady.




On the bright side - I get to work on the Queen of Hearts now!! She's Jeanne's doll and looked like this when she left Jeanne's in Oregon.

Robyn in CA gave her some royal bloomers and some beading.

She arrived here in NC yesterday. I heard the clump when the mailman dumped her on my back porch. I looked out the window and saw him scurrying back to his truck like he was in a hurry to get out of here. WTF??? Well, when I went out to the porch, I heard this shrill shrieking, "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!! OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!!", coming from this box.


Well, you can't hardly blame the woman for being royally pissed... Looks like the postal guys went postal on her. But, sheesh, she's still in a tizzy about it 36 hours later. My pets are all cowering in the corners and under the furniture. My playing cards are scattered everywhere and she's terrorizing them. When I caught her in the kitchen knife drawer, I decided she must be restrained.

Tin foil strait jacket. Works every time! :)