Adventures of Doll Kara, Postcards from Baltimore

The Family of Four Dolls (with two beards)

So I’ve got my family of 4 dolls almost done, just waiting for some tweaks, adjustments, recommendations, etc.  But the bases and faces are all there, stuffed and sewn up!  After a long day of grunt work yesterday, today was needle-breaking assembly day today.  All the choices had been made, I just needed to put the limbs on the people, turn them right side out and stuff them til they were plump and huggable.   Now they are almost fully alive!

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).

Two Pandas and a Zen Face

Three dolls – one green suede Zen face doll, tongue out & eyes open!  And two Heart Pandas, one slightly larger than the other, but both ready to be thrown and hugged.  All are now available on Etsy…

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.

Mikolaj the Doll

I made Mikolaj a doll version of himself this August, delivered successfully in Babimost in the wake of a Polish wedding.  Hopefully it has taken over Poznan by now, and is making its way across Central Europe.  All with a look of discontent?  Or maybe insouciance.

The John Waters Doll

The John Waters Doll was finished on Christmas, he’s finally ready for his close up.  He’s up on Etsy, ready for the world.

The Kara Doll

It is Kara The Doll!

In the general image of the great + legendary Kara herself.  Blonde, in a violet leotard(?), glasses + green eyes.

She was in my first crop of dolls ever produced, and she was supposed to be completed in time for Kara to arrive in Pittsburgh.

But!  Kara The Person got there early enough that she saw Kara The Doll filled with stick pins — particularly through the face.  The mouth wasn’t totally on — so the needle was going straight through her lips.

A little disturbing I know, but she is intact + pinless now.  A Proud Resident of Baltimore!

A Very John Waters Doll Christmas

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.