seriously tardy...
but finished! Finally finished and on their way to their new homes.
These girls kicked my ass, but I am so happy with the way they turned out in the end. Originally I was going to stitch their faces directly onto the doll bodies (like the girl in the middle) but I found it to be extremely rough on my fingers trying to manipulate the heavy duty needle the way I needed to so the wool felt faces became the second option. Once the faces were stitched and attached I sewed and needle felted their hair onto their heads.
Once the dolls were finished I'd planned to needle felt the initials to the torsos of the dolls. After I had cut out a couple of the initials and pinned them to the torsos I decided to nix the idea...it seemed to dumb down the overall look. My next thought was to make little collages sandwiched in glass but I knew I couldn't use the solder I had on hand (lead exposure is a no-no for us pregnant folk) so then I moved onto my next idea which was to cluster different charms and letters together for a pendant and WOW, between the busy prints and the busy cluster of charms it was NOT good. Back to my original idea...I really didn't want to go to the craft store for lead-free solder so with latex gloves on I dug through my drawer of glass working supplies in hopes that I had randomly purchased some lead-free solder at some point in time. Lucky me, I had!
I have to say the lead-free solder is MUCH nicer to work with; plus, I guess if you wanted to, you could lick it and not go crazy from the lead poisoning. I do not recommend licking the charms though because I used a patina to turn the solder copper and it probably has its own brand of crazy causing chemicals in it. Anyway, the charms turned out super cute and really pop in front of all my busy polka dots.
I hope all the recipients will love their initial dolls and feel like it was worth the wait. There's nothing worse than receiving a long overdue swap and then being totally disappointed with its contents to boot. Fingers are crossed!
These girls kicked my ass, but I am so happy with the way they turned out in the end. Originally I was going to stitch their faces directly onto the doll bodies (like the girl in the middle) but I found it to be extremely rough on my fingers trying to manipulate the heavy duty needle the way I needed to so the wool felt faces became the second option. Once the faces were stitched and attached I sewed and needle felted their hair onto their heads.
Once the dolls were finished I'd planned to needle felt the initials to the torsos of the dolls. After I had cut out a couple of the initials and pinned them to the torsos I decided to nix the idea...it seemed to dumb down the overall look. My next thought was to make little collages sandwiched in glass but I knew I couldn't use the solder I had on hand (lead exposure is a no-no for us pregnant folk) so then I moved onto my next idea which was to cluster different charms and letters together for a pendant and WOW, between the busy prints and the busy cluster of charms it was NOT good. Back to my original idea...I really didn't want to go to the craft store for lead-free solder so with latex gloves on I dug through my drawer of glass working supplies in hopes that I had randomly purchased some lead-free solder at some point in time. Lucky me, I had!
I have to say the lead-free solder is MUCH nicer to work with; plus, I guess if you wanted to, you could lick it and not go crazy from the lead poisoning. I do not recommend licking the charms though because I used a patina to turn the solder copper and it probably has its own brand of crazy causing chemicals in it. Anyway, the charms turned out super cute and really pop in front of all my busy polka dots.
I hope all the recipients will love their initial dolls and feel like it was worth the wait. There's nothing worse than receiving a long overdue swap and then being totally disappointed with its contents to boot. Fingers are crossed!
posted by Amy at 6:41 AM
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