New doll for a friend

I was going along pretty well finishing up my WIPS, but then my grandson came to visit, a few days later we went on vacation and a few days after returning home my husband had surgery for a detached retina. After surgery he was in bed for 2 weeks, face down and I had all the house duties plus waiting on him and giving his medications and taking care of our crazy dogs. I was a bit stressed. But, he is getting better thank goodness because his eye was in really bad shape. He was very close to going blind in that eye.

So things are getting back to normal, whatever that is, and I made a doll for a friend of mine. She loves to see pictures of my dolls and is always talking about them to me and anyone else who will listen - so funny. I made her a doll years ago when I first started and we both thought it was great, but I've been thinking lately she needs something more sophisticated.

This is my interpretation of Cindee Moyer's "Violet Shadows".  Violet Shadows is a tree looking up into the moonlight.

I didn't paint the fabric like Cindee did. I found some batik that looked like tree branches and used that. My friend also likes dark colors so I used this gray. I think she came out great. I have some other batik fabric that I am going to use when I make my doll. It is yellows and oranges and touches of purple. It will be more like a sunset than moonlight.

I Hope You Dance - finished!

This is my latest doll that I have finished. The poor thing has been sitting around for a year and a half. She was about 80% done, but then got pushed to the side for other projects.
She was an online class and is designed by Cindee Moyer and called I Hope You Dance. I'm really happy with the way she turned out. It's funny, I had to take her head off after it was all done and replace it. The original head was horrible, not the face - I liked that, it was the overlay of fabric that was a mess. I have since made a few more of Cindee's dolls and I'm getting much better at the overlay and meeting the seam up under her chin. I'm glad I made her a new head, the old one really bothered me.
She is really cute. Now I am down to 2 dolls that are started and waiting to be finished. I may make a new doll first, just to do something different.      

 Haven't decided yet, we'll see!!!

Mystery Doll Finished

 I finished my Mystery Doll!! She is a doll created by Colleen Babcock last fall. Colleen was so generous to design this doll and sell it for $3 originally and the doll was revealed in chapters each week on a Yahoo Group.  It wasn't intended to be an online class, but poor Colleen, it kind of ended up that way. It was intended to be revealed little by little then a picture of the finished doll was the last chapter revealed, ergo the "Mystery".
I tried to keep up but it was in the fall when I had classes to go to, so they took priority, still have one of those dolls to finish too - sigh!
Anyway, the doll was originally designed to be like an Advent Calendar but I chose to make my doll with a Winter theme so it wasn't so specific.  I have pictures of her in earlier posts in progress. Then life got in the way and when I got back to her last week I decided to just finish her up. I put a little Cardinal on her finger, to match her skirt fabric. I loved using the netting for her bun. That was a very effective look. And the hat was so cute to make, fairly easy, but a lot of hand sewing.
I really love this doll. I love dolls with a lot of detail, and boy, does this doll have detail!  Thanks Colleen!!! (I know I'm really late, sorry.)

Side note... this is my first post with my new iMac. Yeah!! I needed a new computer desperately so I decided to try a Mac. I think it fits me more with what I do nowadays. I got a 27" monitor so I could read everything. Sadly, I still need glasses to read the screen, oh boy, got to get myself to the eye doctor. Anyway, I hope this post turns out ok and looks ok. I need more classes at the Apple store, especially for the pictures!