The Queen Of Hearts Marionette

Just completed this Queen of Hearts Marionette in time for the Victorian Fete, here in Oamaru, where the theme this year is Alice in Wonderland!  If she's good, she might even make it to the Strawberry Fare later in December!

She has just been strun with a very simple controller and only five strings - three on her head and one on each hand 

Off with her head!  The Staff is made from gold aluminium wire wrapped around a red glass bead, threaded with fine copper wire, and wound down the stem. 

Based on the Character played by Helen Bonham -Carter, in Tim Burton's movie, Alice in Wonderland, I have made six video's of making this head on my Facebook page, if you want to check them out!  Just put in SFM Cloth Dolls With Attitude and you will find it!

I made the skirt in three panels made form curtain fabric.  The hearts were cut from black calico frames over gold fabric and pressed on with Steam a Seam.

Putting the body together.  Here she is strung from an anchor in the shoulders and up through the head.  I kept her legs and feet simple as they will not be seen.  I quite like the shape of them.

I made simple little shoes.  The feet are weighted.

Pantaloon petticoat!

Simple arms attached to shoulders so they will move well.  Padded shoulders for the puffed sleeve.

the sleeves finished.

All finished with Lace crown, Bodice and other embellishments. 

White Rabbit Herald

Inspiration comes from different sources, in this case, the cover of the Victorian Week Celebrations booklet!  I was really attracted to the avocado green of the tunic, but ended up with the only colour I had on hand!    I stripped a yellow ribbon for the edge of the banner. melted a crayon for the seal on the scroll, used a bamboo skewer and card for the trumpet.  Found some fuse-able tape and discovered no sew glue!  A purple piece of satin ribbon I have had for years and Vialene for the ruffle.  

The Rabbit is made from ancient baby stretch-n-grow terry-towelling and has a wire armature going up through the stand!

I used Paint on the Computer to print the paper for the stand, which is backed with faux leather. 

The whole thing is only 8 inches tall and is quite light!  

An enjoyable project, but I would have liked that avocado colour!

Commissioned to write a pattern for Sheryl D'Ath's new doll - "All About Eve!"

I just wanted to share my experience with you!

My long time friend and fellow doll-maker Sheryl D'ath, who is a talented bear maker,

has this year been developing her own doll!  The more she made it, the more excited she became -and so did we, who were watching it happen!  She very generously shared lots of her process with us all on Cloth Doll Artistry, on Facebook!

She made a series of dolls and dressed them beautifully, as you can see here with this dispplay she put together recently for an exhibition!   These little dolls have become important to her and she can't bear to part with them, so they sit and watch her creating more and more!

The more she made, the more people began to ask her for the pattern, but Sheryl had never done that before and was very uncertain, so I jumped in and said we could collaborate! To my delight, she commissioned me to write it with her. This beautifully proportioned needle sculpted beauty is the result with all techniques fully explained in the pattern.

 

It has been a fabulous experience for me and Sheryl is wonderful to work with!  She took great photo's of her process and after I wrote, she reviewed and sent back the corrections and additions! I was surprised it only took three weeks to write it!  But that was because Sheryl had already done a lot of the work herself with photo's  and some writing etc.  

 While writing it, I had to test it  myself to make sure it was all correct and it was! 

This is my version. I changed the mouth on mine, but the rest is much the same.  Now I am playing around with clothing patterns for it!

It has been a great pleasure to write this with Sheryl and to my great pleasure, we are both going to teach it together in a workshop in Wellington, in November 2015!

This pattern is now available through Sheryl herself, at bellestuff@xtra.co.nz

 and soon it will be available through other pattern sellers.