Exhibition doll for the Houston International Quilt Festival

Mother Earth

Mother Earth close-up

Waist detail

Side view

Back view

Other side view

close up of back detail

standing on slice of wood with bark

Leaf peplum

The Houston International Quilt Festival opens today through Sunday for the public.

I was honored to be asked again to make a doll for this event. For some reason, Mother Earth jumped into my mind. I was asked last spring so I had a lot of time to think about what I wanted to do.

She is an original design, not my thing, but I was pleased with the way she turned out There was a lot of trial and error but I think her dimensions are pretty close to where they should be. I didn't want to do anything dramatic with this doll like a larger head or long legs. I do like that look on dolls, just not on this one.

 I found this fabric in my stash that I had bought a couple of years ago, and I was all set. Everything else fell into place. Her hair is goat hair that I had bought from Doll Makers Journey a few years ago and was waiting for the right doll to use it on. The hair is long and almost has the consistency of human hair, so I knew I would be able to braid it. I got bouquets of silk flowers that had small flowers on it, not as easy as it sounds! I went to JoAnn's, Michaels, Hobby Lobby and Pat Catan's to accomplish this. And I got a bunch of velvet leaves from Joggles in a variety of colors and after playing around with the placement of the leaves and flowers I came up with the leaf peplum for the back and then leaves and flowers around her waist.

I found her stand at JoAnn's, it was perfect. It was a slice of tree with the bark still on. She needs to have a stand for exhibition. Then I glued moss to the base and she has dowels in her legs and they are attached to holes that I drilled into the wood plank. I added some birds at her feet. I sculpted her toes and colored her nails but you can't see them.

The base of her head piece is tulle that I folded a few time and is about an inch wide. I was able to glue and tack on the flowers to that and then tack it to her head.

Lastly, the butterfly was attached to a covered wire which I wrapped around her finger.

I received an email from Laura of Material Girls who co-ordinated the receiving of all the dolls for the "Celebration of the Doll exhibit and the Material Girls club displays them along with the Material Girls exhibit  and Treasure of the Gypsy challenge as well as the TAODA Exhibit. I was assured that she arrived safely, I was so worried it was crazy. I'll see in a couple of weeks when she returns how she faired on her trip.

This is the most elaborate doll I have made, from the designing of the doll and costume to the embellishing. And as with all my pictures, they never really do the doll justice, she looks so much better in person.