These are a little overexposed, but here's the commission I just (finally) finished. The body of the doll is black cotton sateen and her clothing is black gauzy fabric. Eyes are purple buttons (same color, though the light makes them appear to be 2 different colors, I think).

I started this poor guy sometime in late 2007. I think he might be one of the last paper clay dolls I made, which is really scary... My wrist is still annoying me, but not making these dolls is annoying me more. I have so many of them inside my head right now, that I could spend a month sculpting and painting and sewing and still not have all of them in front of me.

Not sure what this one is named yet. I keep thinking Jasper might be it, but I haven't decided.
He might be going up for sale on Etsy... But I haven't decided that for sure, either.

Put the final touches of tail and eyes on my corduroy mouse (or, possum/mouse, as Cait calls him) yesterday evening. The little guy is 12 inches from toes to ear tips, and quite squishy. I'll be listing him on Etsy soon, and will probably make a bunch more rodenty beasties over the next few days.

It is getting time for me to finally get the Doll Factory set up and moving again. The bump on my wrist is still there, but the pain it was causing is rarely an issue any more. So, it's time to motivate. By the end of the month I need my space set up the way it needs to be, and to be started on at least one project.
So... I ask you... What should I work on first? Throw me an idea. I want to try going back to paper clay, but it isn't necessarily what I will attack first off. I've been away from the dollmaking so long that I am having a really hard time knowing where to begin.

While doing a little house cleaning and unpacking, and then making a peach cobbler, I started thinking about using things like dried seaweed and mermaid's purses on dolls. These would probably be cloth dolls, as I'm staying away from the paper clay til the wrist gets better (nevermind the humidity...).

I think varnish would help preserve the mermaid's purses, as they tend to dry out nicely anyway... What I don't have any experience with is drying seaweed, and whether it would preserve well when varnished. hmmm....

I need to make something... anything...
I'm tempted to stop by the art supply store and grab a couple of canvas boards and actually (gasp) paint on a flat surface.

I also have this odd desire to do one of those altered book thingies, but that would probably require more of my left hand than should be used. Of course, so does sitting here typing, so...

ugh.
Maybe I'll just do some more laundry :/

I've waffled about posting about this, but decided, as I set up my room here in the new apartment, that I might as well.

Back in... April, I think... I hurt my left wrist somehow, resulting in a swelling on a tendon about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch below the base of my thumb. This may have been the result of being chewed hard one too many times by Hubero, or more likely, I simply overtaxed it while packing for the move. I had the time to go easy on it then, as the move was still over a month away, and a week of regular ibuprofen and Tiger Balm patches solved the problem... until we headed into the big crunch of packing and moving, during which I wore a wrist brace most of the time to help keep from harming my already messed up wrist any further.

Now, this wrist has been giving me fits for a while. I stopped with the paper clay because during the burnishing process I hold the pieces in my left hand, and always end up hurting my wrist because of the weird angles and tension on the joint, or something. And I also wanted to get back to making cloth dolls again, because I do enjoy making them.

When we got here, I asked my mother about it, and apparently she had the exact same thing happen at one point. Her doctor suggested surgery, but she decided against it for obvious reasons (um... wrist... delicate and too easy to further mess up with surgery gone wrong). She babied it and it got better and never gave her any more trouble.

So, now, finally, we are at the stage of settling in where all but a few stray boxes are unpacked and I can actually rest my wrist like it should be. While the brace (Ace TekZone, by the way) has helped a great deal, I also feel like the wrist has become a bit weak because of it. Never mind the nerd tan...

I took some photos, but don't know if I'll post them. They're sort of creepy, I think. Like I have 2 wrist bumps instead of one... if that makes sense.

Hopefully, in a few weeks, I'll be making cloth dolls again and will be posting photos here in this much neglected journal. All this not making stuff is really wearing me down :/

Until then, it's ibuprofen and tiger balm, and selling greygirlbeast's books on eBay, which I hope to start with today.

Yesterday, at about 1:15pm, my nephew Miles Frederick was born. That is my sister's hand in the photo with him.

As I have grown tired of having to worry about the proximity of my big magnetic pin capturing thingy to my iPod, I decided today to make my own pincushion.
It's a little sloppy because I didn't bother to make a measured circle and just freehanded the pattern. I filled it with polyfill and a bit of lavender, as I discovered a box of various aromatic bits earlier today (things purchased for a few sachets I made as gifts, etc.)

I'm contemplating making some to sell on etsy, as I have plenty of scraps and polyfill and ribbins & trims. Have no idea how much to charge, though. I know the Mokuba ribbon I used on this must have been a remnant I got on sale when I worked at a fabric store, as usually I only bought Mokuba as remnants or on sale because it's just a little too expensive to play magpie with otherwise.