Adventures of Doll Kara, Postcards from Baltimore

Doll Workshop: Family of 4

Today has been a doll day, finally I am getting into the cut-and-sew groove.  I have an assignment of a family of 4, parents and two children, so I’m laboring away.  Thank goodness there are beards and eyeglasses involved!  They are my new favorite ways to capture the doll personality — though eyebrows and mouth slant are still there in my pocket of tricks.  Let’s hope the Doll-Flow continues on into tomorrow!  They cannot all join me in California, suitcases have their limits (another fundamental law of the universe, to be added to my growing list).

My Second Doll

Made on Eglantine Avenue in Belfast, from an old purple sweater experiment that I had knitted, some basic felt from Craftworld, and braided embroidery floss, for the top part of her dress.  Nothing about her is symmetrical or clean, but I cannot cut her up like I did some of my other first doll attempts.  I like her off-ness, or as others would say, her handicappidity.

The Miss Mullen/Wrestling Mascot Doll

I made her in honor of Junior High teaching legend (and Number One Tom Selleck-Stone Philips fan) Miss Mullen.  But Andy, who bought her last spring in Pittsburgh, decided she was a boy librarian — and the appropriate mascot for his professional wrestling persona — Andy The Librarian.  You decide:

I sewed her several years back, she was one of my first five dolls.  I did her face on the long flight, Pittsburgh-Berkeley, the stewardess found her disturbing.  Ridiculous!  I think she’s got a remarkably pleasant face,  and her roly polyness is very pokable.

Andy had me sew her a red felt book that velcro on and off her hands — more of the librarian! — so she can enforce.

The Sally Wiggin Doll

I know it’s probably (definitely) illegal for me to be using the image of Sally Wiggin for purposes of my own, but she is my favorite newscaster in Pittsburgh.  And this doll is a cartoon version of her, not an actual Sally Wiggin face, so WTAE, don’t sue me.

My Sally Wiggin doll, she’s a Pittsburgh sports fanatic — friends with all the Bobblehead Pirates of years past, and her favorite is Jack Wilson (pronounced, like the PNC Park announcer, as one word, i.e.,” JacKWILson”).  She enjoys the New Yorker, she’s held the Stanley Cup, and she has the nicest legs in the city.

Dorkette Doll, Long Legs + Green Hair

One of my first dolls – long legs, a puff of green hair, and a felted pink-orange wool dress(that was my first knit/felted cap) — sold to Jenna, who works at the Union Project.  Here is her picture at the event, there are more photos from the Union Project here!

The French Disaffected Young Woman Doll

I made her out of salvages from the mysterious surplus-craft-supply secret warehouse in North Belfast. I got snuck in, and rummaged through huge crates of weird remnants of carpet and towel fabrics to find some decent sewable pieces. They all turned out to be fantastically drab colored — my Wonka World fantasies of raspberry and turquoise felts sunk into brown, slate and puke weaves — but still they have some nice sheen to them, and they make a nice background for lapel flowers and mysterious looks.

So here she is, I made her after some French girls I saw in QFT movies. She is tall, almost two feet, and her expression? Well, it’s something.

The Sarah Palin Voo Doo Doll

Upon the request of Tony, and for his father’s 81st birthday just around the corner, I started in on a crop of Sarah Palin dolls — this time VooDoo ones.  Here is one of them — she is a foot and a half tall (most of that is hair) — and comes with a set of red, white, and blue stick pins which can be employed as necessary.  I just put her up for sale on the Etsy site here.

She has a magnet sewn onto her label to hold the pins when they’re not in use.  Next up, Sarah in running shorts!

A Teenage Girl from the 1970s

I just posted her on Etsy, I really love the surly expression and the pretzel legs.  But my favorite part are her blue and white canvas shoes, salvaged from The Most Hideous Homemade 1970s Striped Trousers.

The Motown Superhero Doll

I made Motown dolls a few years ago, she is the only one still around.  So I put a cape on her, now she’s superheroic.  Number 2 on her cape — she’ll be on sale at the next I Made It! Market this weekend at the Union Project.   She is a little surly.