Erzulie picked one up and brought it over.
That's me - slow as a snail - or at least that's what it feels like. I'm missing all kinds of interesting special days, but I'm sewing, and I can't seem to do both. I did have to go out and water my plants, and noticed some more of the big yellow snails that seems to be everywhere. Erzulie picked one up and brought it over. She put it down in the grass with some others, and watched them slowly crawl away... Like the snails, the taupe doll dresses are coming along slowly. I'm in the process of hemming all the back openings of all the layers of skirts. All the lace overskirts and slips are done, but the main skirts with three rows of ruffles still need doing. I think I've changed my mind about the sleeves, and will do two dresses with long brown velour sleeves like the original full-size dresses, and do two with short puffed sleeves. I think that's the best use of the fabrics.
Today I'm having lots of issues with several things. First of all, the linings on the bodices for the repurposed toddler dresses just ride all over the place - even when they've been basted into place. I've worked with velveteen and velour many times and know enough to hand-baste everything first, but this brown stretch velour is much worse than usual - even when it's been backed with iron-on interfacing to keep it from stretching. I've never had so many problems. Even on something as small as a doll bodice, there's a 1/4" drift just for the basting, and then even more when I sew it. Not to mention, even with the basting the lining is bunching up all over the place. I've sewn just two bodices and had to pick out large sections of both. I guess my mistake was cutting out the linings the exact same size as the velour bodice pieces. So what to do? There's not enough fabric to start over, and picking everything apart and starting from scratch is not an option either, so I cut a 1" strip of the lining fabric and stitched it to the bottom of all the bodice pieces. Hopefully that will solve the problem, at least around the waist. Next is the Apoxie mask for Queen of the Night. I need to under-paint it silver, but none of my acrylic paints are silver enough. In the past I've sometimes used Chrome Bumper Paint to make things a nice shiny silver. It's a lacquer-based paint, and I know it can't be used on polymer clay because it reacts with the surface and makes it sticky - permanently. But what about on Apoxy? I spent a long time researching online, first on the Aves site, but couldn't find anything at all about using lacquer-based paints. There's mention of mixing oil paint into the Apoxy in order to colour it, but nothing about painting the surface with oil paints. So I thought I'd just take a chance, and spray the mask and see what happens.
Last week there was a "Race Your Mouse Day", but there were no tiny mice to be found anywhere. So on the weekend I made my girls some pet mice (I painted some funky-coloured tiny plastic rats). The girls were thrilled with their new pets, and wanted to try race them, thinking that if they provided the track, the mice would want to run on it......but mice being mice, they were only interested in exploring. Then Elin had an idea to help motivate her mouse....
Last month I did an Interview for Musume for her blog "My Dolly Adventures". It's up today, and you can go there if you click on the photo of Hope below. I'm busy multi-tasking with several new things on the go. I'm in the process of completely deconstructing the two toddler dresses so I can make 4 Kaye Wiggs MSD-size doll dresses out of them. I've decided I don't care for plain long sleeves out of dark brown velvet for little girls, so will make short puffed sleeves out of the cut-off skirt fabrics instead. I've also been hunting for some appropriately-sized mice for a doll photo, and was ready to give up. But I was in Dollarama looking for the same doll-size witch's hats I bought last year in the Hallowe'en aisle, and trying to avoid looking at all those creepy severed body parts, when on the opposite side I saw packages of brightly coloured miniature plastic rats. They were bright purple, green, blue and orange, and would need to be completely painted to look like real mice, but for a dollar I figured why not go for it. I've under-painted some of them.... The mask for Queen of the Night is coming along nicely. After the basic mask cured, I added eyelids, the silver filagree 'crown', and stars onto the front. I've fine-tuned the eye holes and sanded the inside, so it's now ready to be painted. As much as I hate working with the uncured Apoxy, I love working with it after it's cured. It's so strong and light-weight, sands really well, and takes paint beautifully. It's just getting over that initial sculpting hump. The rest is fun!
|
AuthorMartha Boers is an award-winning Canadian doll maker and costumer specializing in fantasy and historical-style costumes. Archives
May 2024
|