They are wonderful!!!! I love dolls, but have NEVER tried to make any!!!!! :thumbup: Love Miss Birdcage Doll!!!!! You do very good work!!!!! :thumbup: :thumbup:

Your dolls are so expressive and beautiful! You are very talented! Looking forward to seeing more of your creations!

What awesome talent! Beautiful work!

Drgranny, Your dolls are gorgeous. Dolls are my second passion, but I din't have time to make any. Thanks for sharing. Eiltcoq.

Your dolls are fantastic!!!!

WOW, love them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Where do you find the time to make quilts aswell?

you do truly wonderful work on your dolls and love your outlook on how and why you give them to those who you want to gift them. Beautiful, just beautiful!! thanks ever so for sharing with us!

Please keep posting pix of your dolls as you make them. They make my day. I remain in awe of your talent. Thanks for sharing.

they are darn cute. How fun you get to play dolls as an adult!

Those are awesome!

Your dolls are amazing. You can see the love in each one of them. I especially like the primitive one. She looks like a doll that some mother would have made for her little girl in long ago times. Keep up the good work.

Simply awesome!

so very beautiful, your sewing and colors are awesome

Just beautiful. My favorite is the bird cage doll. So clever. thanks for sharing

That's quite a talent! They are awesome dolls! You do fantastic work! :D :thumbup: :thumbup:

All the dolls are great, but I really like ocean things and the mermaid is my favorite.

You do beautiful work.

Cookie

You are so talated. I love the facial expressions and the eyes.

No I don't teach,as such. I do teach one on one in my studio at times but I took classes from many really good teachers over the years. But it is possible to make a satisfactory doll first try.

Your dolls are beautiful. I love making dolls. I don't make many any more because I can't stuff them like they need to be done. Arthritis in fingers.

....still, primitive hits too close to home! lol

Beautiful dolls :)

I sort of trade off. I have to be inspired to make a doll. To make a quilt I just have to choose my fabrics and pattern. When I am really inspired to make a doll she tells me what she wants and I give it to her. If I am not in the mood to make a doll it just doesn't come together and it just will not turn our well. Or if I feel I HAVE to make a doll and am not really in the mood then I may as well not haave started it. Does that make sence?

The Primitave has a story. Her family was poor and lived on a small, poor farm. There was going to be a July fth celebration in her town. She wanted to have a new dress to wear and wanted red boots so bad she could hardly stand it. She and her mother went to the general store to find some cloth to make her a new dress. There was only money for dress fabric so her mother had to make do and be creative to make up the rest of her daughters new outfit. Her collar is made of a piece of a dresser scarf. Her pantaloons and peticoat are made from an old very worn pillow case. The surely was not money for new red boots so mother painted her old ones with the left over paint from the barn. The little girls name is Emma and she is very proud of her new outfit!!

drgranny, I was wondering if you could tell us a bit about how you go about making these dolls .... such as: do you use a "doll pattern"; how do you do the joints; what materials do you use for the doll bodies, etc. I am sure you don't have time for a novel but these dolls are so wonderful that I would love to know what goes into the process of making them. Thanks if you can do that; I understand if you cannot.

They are truly beautiful and expess your love of art.

OK. First of all I make my dolls from commercial patterns that are available from multiple sources(on the web). I don't make patterns. Some of my dolls are made from woven cottons such as Egyptian cotton. Some are made from knitted faux suade fabric. The mermaid was made from cotton and her tail is batik. They mostly 5 piece bodies + the head. No armature. The hands and arms are wired with chenille stems. The legs are cut so the top of the legs lap over the buttock area and as they are stitched, stuffing is added to make a butt cheek. The torso of the body is cut at the top sort of like a full corset ie. it has bust shape that can be stuffed just enough to make boobs or stuffed a lot to make her bodashus. The feet have heels of various shapes and heights and then are painted and decorated. From here some artists make the bodies and fully cloth it and then make the head and put on the neck. I usually get my body made and the legs positioned like I want them and maybe have an idea how I will cloth her, but the actual decision there comes when I give her her head. I always make 2 or 3 heads and needle sculpt them and then give her eye color etc. I make mostly red haired dolls. Don't know why exactly but it seems that is always what they want. Then I sometimes go ahead and dress her and try the heads on to see which one she wants. Sometimes she doesn't want any of them and I have make another. The bird cage doll I made the body onto the handle of the cage and dressed her from a blouse I found at the resale shop. Then she had to have a head and face that went with her looking into the sky for her bird that flew away. I think I only made 2 heads for her. The sky is the limit for embelishment. She will tell you when she has enough.

I thank you all for the great response to my babies!!!

Thank you for the explanation, I've made some dolls in my previous life (before M.S.) and know how much work goes into them. I made a few primitave ones as well, had an awful lot of trouble finding the sawdust to stuff them as I wanted to do them the traditional way. I also love your avatar by the way, are you the original 'old' lady who's determent to wear purple, like in the poem? And have you ever made a selfportrait doll? I'm sure that would come out real good. Love, Dea

What beautiful dolls you create :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

Dea, No I'm not old enough to be the original "old lady" haha.
No, I have never tried to do a self portrait. My dolls always have much better bodies than me. Their are many other more interesting subjects to creat. I stuffed my primitave doll with dense poly batting. I don't like sawdust. I have made some dolls with sawdust but don't like it. You have to wet it to make it pack and then you run the risk of it not drying fast enough and it might mold.

You are absolutely right about the molding problem, but I did mine in summer and just laid them out to dry in the very hot Australian sun. Still took about a week with constantly turning them over

YOUR WORK ON YOUR DOLLS IS EXTRAORDINARY,SUCH DETAILED WORK AND CRAFTMANSHIP. HOW CAN YOU PUT A PRICE ON THAT?

Wow!

Thanks so much for all of this information. I was really curious about the whole process and you have certainly "quench my thirst for knowledge". Thanks for taking the time to do that. Love, love, love your dolls and the work is beautiful!

You should enter the Hoffman challenge for the doll category. I've been looking at the past year's entry winners. I think your dolls are better by far as they each have a special quality to them that gives them each a personality all their own. They are so lifelike with their facial expressions and body language. Your fine detail to the hands really amaze me.

Thanks for your compliments! I have considered entering the Hoffman in the past but their reputation for getting your doll back to you is not very good. I have 2 friends who never got theirs back and several who said that their doll was quite a bit worse for wear when they got them back. So I have decided to not ever enter one of my dolls in a contest where you have to send the doll. My dolls are more important to me than the recognition. I am just happy to share them with my groups.

Way to go!

Wow!! what beautiful work.