IOLCC Dolls

Gosh, what a busy time I am having this summer. I haven't been terribly productive in blogland. Being so darned busy, I have had little to no time to work on my IOLCC Dimensions in Dollmaking entries. Mentioned here in an earlier blog some ideas I had, and until this last week, didn't actually start doing anything towards those goals. Then again, that's SO me.

I do have two in the works, and they really have very little to do with this years theme: Make Em Laugh...or Make Me Laugh. Not sure which and does it really matter? As long as somebody's laughing.

I don't have photos yet, but they will be up hopefully this next week. When the girls are decent enough to be photographed.

I am almost ashamed to admit, that all I did was pull two abandoned projects lying dormant in my drawers to finish up so I could enter SOMETHING. I'd promised two, and I have to deliver.

The show is most severely lacking in entries this year. So if I bail it will be noticed, and these ladies are so nice I can't leave them shorthanded.

So if you have a doll that you want to enter, please, please do so!!! Just google IOLCC or Imitation of Life Construction Company. It's here in San Diego and their Dimensions In Dollmaking Show will be held September 16th at the San Diego Convention Center. Home of Comicon!!! They are taking entries up to September. From anywhere in the world. Get's lots of coverage in the magazines.

At any rate, the first doll I decided to finally complete is a historical figure who really had a lot of tragedy in her life. A nice lady with a sense of humor despite all the awful things that happened to her family. She's wearing mourning clothes, is depicted in middle age during the time her daughter committed suicide.

You probably think it's disrespectful to enter this poor lady in a show with humor as the theme. But really, this woman could use a laugh. She deserves it. I am temporarily renaming her for the show. Then she'll go back to being herself, and on another post closer to Halloween, I'll let you in on who she really, really is.

But for now, she's Anita Goode-Laffe. 'Cause she really could use one. Yeah, I know it's corny. But it's all I could pull out of my hat at the last minute.

The other entry is from Singing In The Rain. She's a representation of Kathy Selden jumping out of the Monumental Pictures Cake. Why? Because I don't think I can make a decent yellow slicker for her to wear. Was showing my little Sophie the youtube video of 'Make Em Laugh' with Donald O'Connor when she spied on the side column a tiny photo of a girl in pink jumping out of a cake. She HAD to see it and constantly requests it. Triggered an idea in the dusty attic I jokingly call my brain.

Don't think anyone will 'get it'....but then no one at this show ever does 'get' what I do! I'll post photos next week of their progress.

For now, headed from sunny, breezy San Diego for a fun filled family reunion in Tucson, where I hear tell it's not really THAT hot...it's a DRY heat you know.

Lazy Daze of Summer

I haven't done too much sewing or dollmaking, and I'd better get to that...

but I thought I'd show a few photos of Sophie in a couple of her little dresses I made her.

Here she is, wearing the same dress I made for her when she was a year and a half old. I have shown her in this on previous posts, when she first got it, and when she was two. It's a Civil War reproduction made from Civil War repro cotton. Amazingly, it still fits her and will probably fit her when she's four as well. I'll have to let out that tuck at the bottom by then. Got lucky and she was suddenly in the mood to wear her 'long ago' dresses and let me take photos.

Trying on her 'glass' slippers.

Sophie's third birthday request was a Cinderella dress. This came as a surprise, as she's no interest whatsoever in Disney princesses, Barbie dolls, etc. While she loves books, she's more Fern Arable than Belle. You'll see. Anyhoos, I remember how disappointing it is to NOT get what you ask for on your birthday...yet I could not bear to spend my time on a Disney production either. Since Sophie's never actually seen the Cinderella movie, I took great liberties. I made her another 19th century period dress...but in a lovely blue watermark print I have had laying in a drawer for 5 years (lots of things lie dormant in my drawers, and I mean that in every sense of the word). I decided to make a 'sparkly' overskirt that was removable so that she could have more versatility.

Here's Sophie tending her flock. She must have really been going for the Cinderella theme this year, because she also asked for baby chicks for her birthday. She received three chicks, oh so cute but my, how they've changed. They seem to be turning into chickens. Pooping, pooping, poopy chickens. We visit the poop coop daily. No eggs yet, but they will be fabulous colors when they start coming! No plain jane white eggs for this gal. And don't you just love a gal who's willing to wear her glass slippers in a poopy chicken coop? So down to earth.



Sophie and Blanche (she prefers the French pronunciation) . Here you can get a glimpse of her sparkly overskirt.

I didn't have any of those fancy new-fangled coverable buttons, so I used metal washers. Handmade the button holes. Unfortunately, this type of detail goes largely unnoticed in the three year old brain. That's why the good Lord helped us to invent cameras.