The End of a Season

Well, I'm going thru tomato DT's already, and my horse, Bones, is soon gonna be suffering the watermelon DT's (Lois the Goat, too). Only a couple left.




We're enjoying the cooler temps, but we're gonna be missin' the garden. I do have maters, salsa, pesto, and eggplant parmesan in the freezer. But nothing beats fresh tomatoes.

GIDDYUP!

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

Poor Paisleyanne.

"Won't you be my ball?"

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

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.

Tabula Rosa of Cool-Ab 2009

I mentioned in an earlier post that Susan had to drop out of the Cool-Aberration project for personal reasons. Well, the rest of us decided to go ahead and continue work on her doll, Tabula Rosa. Previously, I showed her in the hat I made her. Now I've finished making her a wrapping blanket.

I really like the color combination in this felted piece. Here she is wearing it.


It's not permanently attached - she still looks like this without the blanket.

So there's plenty of room for additions from the other players. The blanket can be displayed alongside Tabula. Or even under her as a rug.

Mayberry deemed this piece a bit too small for real comfort...

And here are the pages I made for Tabula's journal.


I found the picture of the old Peruvian woman online in sepia. It looks just like Tabula, I think. Right down to the closed eyes. I added the color with my watercolor crayons.

I'm glad we decided to complete Tabula. I'd have hated to see Yvonne's wonderful face go to waste.

Ride 'em Cowboy!

The 3D yahoo group is hosting a wire/metal doll challenge. Well, my muse hasn't been interested in metal or wire lately. But it has in the past, so here's a couple pics of some wire pieces I made awhile back.


They were actually made as separate pieces, and the goat was the only finished piece. But I ended up putting the human figures on the goat and liked the combo. Ride 'em Cowboy!!

The wire goat was based on my goat Lois.

Except I added horns so it looked more obviously like a goat. It does have a pink collar like Lois had at the time. Lois is a nut. And obviously not camera shy...

Felting for doll attire

One of the main reasons I got interested in making art dolls is the variety of media and techniques that can be utilized in creating three dimensional figures. Stitching, beading, embroidery, clay sculpting, paper mache, felting, etc... It can all be incorporated into creating one art doll. I get bored with always doing the same craft (as is evident in the fact that my one and only full size quilt isn't completed after 5 years...).
So recently, since Yvonne made Susan's doll Peruvian, I've been looking at Peruvian textiles online. Decided to try felting some patterned wrapping blankets for my dolls. For once I've remembered to get some in-progress shots.

Here I had laid out and lightly needle felted some wool roving for the background. I forget what kind of wool this is, but it's scratchy. Not great for wearables, but it really felts nicely - both needle and wet felting. And I like the blah, neutral color against brighter colors.

Meanwhile, I brushed one side of my dog, Gussie Sue, and got all this.

She gets a real thick undercoat and she's going thru her big annual shed right now. Her undercoat is really soft and silky - like angora almost. I often throw it outside so the birds can line their nests with it. And sometimes I scatter it around the chicken coop to scare predators off. Well, since it was handy, I decided to felt some of it into my background.

Here's Gussie Sue vegging with Angel - a very rare occurrence as these are my two "no snuggling allowed" pets.

Mayberry said it felt much softer and cushier after some of Gussie's fur was added.

Next I wet felted the wool to mesh things together more. I soft felted without shrinking.

Then it was time to lay in some stripes of color. This is pre-dyed merino roving needle felted into the background wool.

I wanted a more muted, heathery affect, so I needle felted more of the back ground wool onto the back. The fibers get poked up thru the front colors to give it that heathery affect.


Okay, so that was the boring part of making the felted textile. Now I get to start adding pattern. I'll be felting and stitching in some simple patterns using more roving, wool yarn, and wool thread. Tune in later for more progress.

Who'd a thought?

My chickens love tomatoes, so I give them any bad ones from the garden. Recently I started collecting all the scraps and bad spots for them in a bowl while I'm preparing the tomatoes for freezing. The other day my cat, Angel, came up to investigate. She took a sniff and started right in licking the tomato scraps.

She licks and licks and licks and purrs and purrs and purrs. She loves tomatoes! The cat is 14 years old and I never knew she liked tomatoes. Now I have to leave the bowl of scraps on the counter for a couple hours for Angel to enjoy before the chickens get their treat.

I feel kindof bad that I never shared my tomatoes with her during the last 14 years.

Angel also loves Pansy blooms. I was growing some in pots on the back steps one year and the blooms kept disappearing. I couldn't figure out what was happening to 'em. Then one day when I was sitting out there, Angel strolled up and opened her mouth real wide, and swallowed down a whole large bloom! She kept the plants pretty much bloom free. Go figure. Gotta remember to grow some for her this fall.

Tiny Bonnet

I was experimenting with molding fabric covered craft foam a while back and ended up with this tiny bonnet.

Really boring pic, huh? So, I needed a model. But this was back before I started making art dolls. So I had to enlist one of my babies as model...

Ta da! Perfect fit! That's Marcella who passed away awhile back. She was such a sweet turkey hen. She used to sit on the back steps with me and the dogs and cats. She didn't speak to me for awhile after the photo shoot, tho', 'cause she was quite the tomboy. Well, except for when she was laying eggs. Then she was following Baby Louanne everywhere, trying to get her to be her mate.

Awwwwww

Sometimes you just gotta post a pic of your babies. This is my American Bulldog, Paisleyanne (also known as Baby LouAnne, Big Baby, Babydoll...) and Ms. Tibbals. Baby LouAnne is the sweetest, most tolerant dog in the universe. Ms. Tibbals is a bitch from hell, but she likes dogs.

These are just 2 of my 4 dogs and 4 cats. I also have a horse, a goat, and a bunch of chickens.