a good start

And a strong ending!

This is the Christmas present that was given as an IOU on Christmas day.

I finished up this little marvel yesterday during long periods of football bowl games and a delightful time spent view the DVD the DH got for Christmas.

If you haven't seen Ratatouille (ok, I'm probably the only person around that hadn't seen it yet, still....) you should -- I loved the little rats -- especially the scene where they stand in the commercial dish washer to get their hands washed --- hilarious!!

Anyway, this is the camera case I made for my daugher. A lovely soft paisley patterned corduroy on the outside and a deep burgandy velour on the inside. This one has a small pocket across the front right under the flap for storing extra SD cards. All of the materials for this piece came from a box of goodies that was given to me by a lady whose bear making mother had passed away and she wanted the fabrics to go to someone who would use them. I think she would be pleased too.

I really like the sedate look of this one -- so unlike me, but much more like my daughter! Of course it has the little metal "hand made" charm on it.





After finishing the camera case, I worked on putting the head on the doll (its an odd approach, putting on the whole face before attaching the head, but then it was easier to bead and if I had decided it was too ugly I could of started over, which maybe makes a lot of sense!) But I digress (as usual)

The wig, on the other hand, was entirely done "on the fly" as it were as the original pattern that I have been using as a starting point called for actual doll hair type stuff, and I just couldn't see it on this head.

This however seemed perfect -- it is an imported synthetic fabric will a real long pile. The "under coat" is a sort of reddish brown and the "outter coat" looks like black and white chicken feathers. Using just 2 pieces cut with curved edges and seamed together made a lovely "wig", and when stitched to the already stuffed head it made the pile stand up in this lovely "punky" hair do.

I had made some ears from the original pattern, but I'm just not happy with them, they just seem way too big, but I do want her to have ears so she can wear earrings, so I will have to work on that some.

and of course there is still the costuming to be considered.....



I've also been playing with my new camera ... we decided that one of the issues we have had with getting into juried shows might be the pictures as I was using an old 2.1 megapixal digital ... so, our big Christmas present to us was a new digital camera with 6.0 megapixals ... yes, I know there are much higher megapixals out there, but we had set ourselves an extremely strict budget, and this one was the best one that fit the budget

anyway, this picture of the dog and her chosen toy of the day in "her" chair was taken from across the room using the telephoto lens function ..... nice!

I also spent some time yesterday working on the "altered" shirt that I've been fiddling with for a while. I painted on it early in the day then kept myself busy with other things on purpose as I didn't want to screw it up by messing with it before the paint was completely dry. So today I should be able to safely return to this project and start putting on the next embellishments.

Of course now that all of the holidays are over, real work must be done too -- today we will do the inventory of all of the jewelry and decide if there are items to be pulled for scrap and/or rework.

time to get to it!