Friday, June 7, 2013

These Three Little Handkerchiefs are Ready for Summer Adventures

As you may remember, I recently picked up 3 cute, lace-edged handkerchiefs and an travel-themed embroidery pattern that caught my eye at the Duck Store. Now, get ready for the finished product! I decided to keep them simple by not trying to put too many colors of thread on one handkerchief. Instead, I chose one color for each, so that there would be variety of colors, but none of them would be too "busy" on their own. I also made each one represent a different destination.

Paris

Rome

Agra, India. The third luggage label in the pattern said "Tokyo" but I am pretty sure the Taj Mahal is not in Japan, haha.

The Paris one is my favorite. What do you think? I have also started on the tote bag, which I will show you soon!

-Baby Cat


Monday, June 3, 2013

The Making of Queen Lorena


I am so happy with how Queen Lorena turned out. It was so much fun to do all the facial sculpting I had never tried before, like the eyelids and chin (yes, it's weird to knit a chin for a doll, but I swear she needed it). I definitely want to experiment more with these kinds of facial details in the future.

The Queen with her eyelids, eyelashes, brows, nose, mouth, and ears,  but something is missing...
With a chin and, hair, and powder blush to make her cheeks rosy!
The Queen is entirely hand-knit on double-pointed needles, which is not nearly as scary as it sounds. Her eyes are the childproof "animal eyes" that anchor in the back, so I had to plan ahead on her face a little bit. Usually I wait until the very end to worry about the face, but maybe having to think about it early helped me work out the other details in my head sooner than I would have otherwise.


Her costume was also a ton of fun to make, I love making mixed media clothes for dolls!
Her underclothes and bodice are all knit as part of the doll body.

Her skirt and collar are made from this purple batik fabric, and her brooch is crocheted wire with a bead. Here tiara is knit wire and beads.

Here arms and legs have pipe cleaner "bones" like most of my dolls, so that they can hold a pose.

It was very important for the Queen to have exactly the right yarn for her hair, so I went down the street to my local yarn shop, Soft Horizons Fibre,


Soft Horizons Fibre yarn shop (isn't it cute?) I love the house as much as the yarn!
to find something extra special. I ended up with this gorgeous black and silver mohair, which I attached to her head with the latch hook method. It was so pretty, I just had to leave it super long!
I plan to type up Queen Lorena's pattern and have it for sale on the Etsy shop soon, so keep an eye out if you would like to knit a Queen Lorena doll of your very own!


-Baby Cat