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Today is 'Inspire Your Heart with Art' day, so some of the kids went to the art gallery where one of their favourite artists was having a show...   "This is the newest painting of her's in the collection."  "Reminds me of a trip I took out west once."  I made a lot of little crocheted afghans last year, and some of them were featured in the 'Yarn Day' post on October 14th....  So I decided to keep a couple myself, then sent out a few more as gifts, but I still have way too many. So I've decided to offer them up for sale. If you are interested in any of them, please send an email to [email protected]
I was in the middle of taking Matias and Agnes' family portraits when I had the sudden inspiration to photograph Dominic and Miho in a contemporary setting. I wasn't prepared to take down the entire castle interior since I still needed it, so I just moved the furniture out of the way, replaced the wall hanging, and created a contemporary sitting room at the end by the window.  Then I took close-up photos...  Sometimes, especially when photographing my really small dolls, it's only necessary to set up a small set. Like with Tiana Toad on 'Wear Your Pearls Day'. I just needed a bit of furniture to suggest an opulent room...  Then took close-up photos of Tiana, being careful to pay attention to the reflection in the mirror.  It was the same with my House Elves hanging up their new painting. I didn't feel like setting up their entire house, so just put together the part of their room right beside the fireplace...  Then I'd take close up photos. But with the paintings being behind glass I really had to watch out for reflections from the window behind me, otherwise the paintings would be obscured by glare, like here...  So, to avoid the glare, most of the photos needed to be taken slightly from an angle.  With Dominic in modern times, it was only natural that Miho should join him. So I dressed her in the most elegant casual outfit I had in her size...       When we were putting together my Fashions book, the Gallery section of this website proved invaluable in identifying and dating all the doll costumes I've made over the years. However, I'd not kept it up to date, so spent the first two weeks of January photographing all the outfits from 2022 and 2023 that hadn't been documented yet. The costume Galleries require taking photos of each layer of an outfit, and one of the many outfits needing documenting was Dominic's. So I took him down to the studio and took the required photos
Then his entire outfit was removed and photographed laid out flat....
The next outfit needing to be photographed was Jude's contemporary sweater set. But I didn't feel like changing him into it. So, since Jude and Dominic have the same body, and Dominic was still down to his underwear, I put it on him instead, and switched their heads for the Gallery photos. When I was done I switched their heads back, and it hit me that Dominic looked rather interesting as an older contemporary gentleman. He'd never worn modern clothes before. So I thought I'd take some photos, and set up a comfortable living room for him...    I'm in the process of knitting sweaters for my three Ruby Red dolls. I love using the variegated sock yarns and have a box full of them. I chose a nice pink one with long lengths of each colour...  I've seen lots of doll sweaters knit from beautiful variegated yarn where each sleeve was knit in its entirety one at a time, and the colour stripes ended up very wide and the two sleeves don't match at all. So I developed a way to make both sleeves almost identical. This technique only works for the yarn that has long colour sections, not the yarn where the colour changes every few inches. The pink/purple one I used for this sweater has colour sections averaging around two yards/meters long. I divide each colour section of the yarn in half as I get to it, and mark it with a safety pin. I start sleeve #1 with the first half of the first colour (purple in this case) and when I'm at the end of a row close to the safety pin, I cut the thread, then start the second sleeve, knitting until I get to the safety pin at the middle of the second colour. Then I cut the thread and go back to the first sleeve and knit to the middle of the next colour....  Yes, this system means I have to weave away more threads, but it's worth it when both sleeves end up looking more or less identical....  Bella wearing her sweater...  *Note - I've decided to start an 'Under Construction' album in Favourite Photos, where I will copy any of my Blog posts relating to things I'm working on - like this one today. It will not be a list of in depth 'tutorials', but will be a place to find posts like this one without having to go searching through endless Archives. You'll still have to scroll down, but it will only be through other Under Construction Posts. Who knows, maybe something will inspire you?
Both my sisters are artists, and one of them has been painting one-of-a-kind Christmas cards the past few years. I received one three Christmases ago, which I framed for my House Elves to hang in their house. Then I received another card this past Christmas, and framed it for them as well.  "Who are they Grandpa?"  "That's my father and his brother."  So Gino immediately hung it up...   "Is it straight?"
"Just a little higher on the right."  "That's perfect!"  Another job well done.  |
AuthorMartha Boers is an award-winning Canadian doll maker and costumer specializing in fantasy and historical-style costumes. Archives
May 2025
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