Hello! Boy, it sure does feel good to be writing in my journal again! Thank you, thank you, for all the much welcome comments from the convention post. I love taking you all on my journeys. And, by sharing them, I get to relive them - but it sure is a lot more fun with friends along for the ride.
The day after coming home from convention, actually a day and a half later, my husband had knee surgery (a torn meniscus), and it was hotter than you can imagine with temperatures in the triple digits, plus acridly smokey air, night and day, from the horrid wildfires throughout the west coast. So staying indoors, taking care of David, and working on a new project was just the thing for another unpleasant California summer. I should report that we've had a reprieve, and with blissfully cool mornings, the temps will stay in the mid 80's for a week. Maybe that's why I feel so good this morning. I can walk out the front door without seven buckets of sweat pouring off of me.
Alice. I do love Alice. This may be the last Alice doll I make, but that only means that should I find a new illustrator that I love, I'll simply add a new outfit and accessory to Illustrated Alice's wardrobe.
Earlier this year, I came upon this extraordinary book illustrated by Spain's leading illustrator, Angel Dominguez. After spending hours in this book, I must admit that this one has to be a true favorite. Angel Dominguez has the kind of imagination, and artistic talent that thrills me to the core. Dominguez lives in Bilboa, Spain, and has illustrated many books around wildlife and children’s stories. He combined his love of Britain with his love of nature in his first children’s book, Diary of a Victorian Mouse. A professional artist since 1971, he is also a keen collector of rare children’s books, particularly those of Arthur Rackham. His Alice intrigued me with both the style of her dress, which had a "curious" display of soutache, and his characters were some of which I could never have imagined before. He had FUN with this, and I had to bring his Alice to life in a doll.
The dress was a beautiful shade of orchid, which would look bright and cheery on my shelf, and I found the perfect silk dupioni for this from Farmhouse Fabrics. I'd also never done soutache in loops before, so this would be a challenge for me. I'd asked several friends, competent seamstresses all, if they knew of any tutorials on how to sew soutache, and the only answers I was given were "Oh, its easy", or "Once you get going, it goes pretty smoothly", or my favorite "Oh, you just draw the design on and go". There isn't one single Youtube on this, and zero tutorials. There are descriptions in books about what soutache is (a trim), and that Victorians decorated their clothing with it (duh!), and that it was also used on French Fashion doll clothing (second duh). So I had to start from scratch and teach myself how to do this. At the end of this post is a little tutorial I put together just for you. If it helps in even the slightest way, should you wish to try this yourself, I'd feel wonderful.
I began this Alice with a 14" rescue Lawton, Hanna the Milliner's Daughter. I gave her new blue eyes, and a fabulous strawberry blonde wig with lots of curls. The wig was restyled with my fingers, separating the larger curls into fluffy waves. I actually did this twice. With the first wig, I trimmed the bangs, and might have taken a bit too much off of them. I'd also rinsed it to get some of the curl out, and that wasn't too successful, either. Dominguez had drawn her with bangs, without bangs, and strands that flew away from her face, so I went for a compromise of all three.
Knowing this doll would be an art doll, and never redressed, I put in the effort of creating a half slip and knickers for her, both trimmed in matching lace. I used a fine cotton batiste for both pieces, trimmed with a French lace 1" wide. I happened to have a lot of this lace on hand, and that was the deciding factor there. Again, I hate doing undergarments as you never see them, but I do know they're required. I also made her a new pair of stockings from white knit jersey.
The bodice of her dress has a matching, notched collar, and three little matching buttons are sewn down the front. Buttons are the odd thing sometimes, in that you often don't see them, but they're essential to the outfit. In Angel's illustration, I could see a button now and then peeping up from the top edge of the pinafore, so I imagined they would go down the front. I also made a tuck fold in the center of the bodice to represent a natural place for the buttons to go. After studying the Ten Ping clothing of Ruby Red Galleria, I chose to use hooks and thread eyes to finish the dress in the back, with the inclusion of a sewn in placket.
Her pinafore is the traditional "Alice" pinafore with the wide winged shoulders, closing with two buttons in the back. Two generous patch pockets were sewn to the skirt with a hidden ladder stitch. Large ties make for a pretty bow in the back.
Now a bit about the soutache. First of all, its just a trim. Its not a braid, which is flat, but a trim consisting of two cords covered in thread. You hand stitch through the middle of these cords to attach the trim. As I was desperately researching for tutorials, I saw many on how to use this trim to make corded jewelry. Like some laces, you can pull one or both cords to cinch the threads up and curl them. I fussed with this a bit to see if this was the way you'd made those loops, but it wasn't correct.
I looked on Pinterest for examples of soutache and found many on Victorian dresses, and of course, French Fashion doll clothing. Beautiful as they were done, I could not find a photo of a close up showing "how the trim was looped". As in "go to right, make a loop, bend over to the left, cross it in front"...rather like Boy Scout knot tying. I finally saved off one file, cropped it, then enlarged it to see if I could find the course of action. Its a puzzle at best and a dizzying to the mind and eyes. My guess is that many who have done looped soutache trim, have done it in a French Fashion class where the pattern was imprinted on the fabric already. That's where the "It goes pretty smoothly once you get the hang of it" comes from. Terribly frustrating answer when you're starting from scratch. It actually takes a lot of measuring and designing of the way it will loop, to get something to work with (see my tutorial at the end for tips).
What I ended up with, was my own version of Angel's design. The way he had drawn the design was not one you could duplicate, but more of a ribbon edged in white and looped over itself. The "idea" of soutache. So by adding a row to the bottom of the looped soutache, I was able to create a facsimile of his design. From start to finish, it took me a few days to complete. And, by the way, you cannot pin the trim on then sew. You have to manipulate the trim as you continue to loop it.
Now to the fun part! The characters! The accessories. Oh, did I have fun with these! When I first purchased the book, I was mesmerized by the incredibly unusual characters Angel came up with to illustrate the story. Yes, the tried and true are present, but there were so many others. If you go back up to the book cover photo, you'll see this wonderful buzzing parade of what I'll call "hippo-bees". Now how cute is that?! A hippo-bee. I had to make one. I love bees. But add the body of a hippo into the mix, and you have a fantasy critter to die for! These huge, ponderous animals are at best quite adorable as babies, but highly aggressive as adults. I wonder if this scenario was how Angel came up with them? To what purpose are they in the story? None, but they're a curious eye candy and flights of fancy. The one I did not do, but may just because, is the airliner fish-bird. Modern, not in the least bit Victorian, contemporary and just plain fun. Maybe I'll make one for her to hold and place Bill standing on his own in front of her. I don't know. I just love it though, and apparently Angel did, too. Here are some photos of the hippo-bee.
The second character I wanted to do was the dodo. He was dressed in a fabulous British Navy Admiral's costume, and he made me smile. However, as I contemplated the effort to create him in needle felt, I became obsessed with how large he should be, or how small he might be, and what would look best as an accessory for this doll. I do not shy away from such a challenge, but to do him correctly, and with all the details, I'd have to make him rather large. And, I just don't have the room to display such a piece. So I looked around in the book some more, and decided on making Bill.
Poor Bill never seems to get much a mention besides shooting out of the chimney. And, he was the right color. He looks marvelous with the orchid pink of her dress with the silly soutache. On an artist's color chart, its the perfect green opposite this red-purple. And, he's a cutie.
To recap, Alice once again goes through a change of size when coming upon a bottle she shouldn't be touching. She grows to enormous proportions in this little cottage, to the point where her arm is hanging out the window frightening all the wildlife around her. So they send in Bill to the rescue. He's a slim lizard who should fit down a chimney well. He's to climb up his ladder, shuttle down the chimney to "do something", but ends up being booted back up, and out, by Alice's restless foot appropriating itself in the fireplace with a kick.
One of my favorite things about Angel's illustrations of some of these characters, is how they're dressed. At first I thought Bill was dressed in nautical attire, like many of the Caucus Race characters, but as I began to dress him, I discovered this really wasn't the case. I've never seen an outfit like this, so I must assume its some sort of "service" uniform. Like the milkman, or delivery man, or electrician. I have no idea, but if he were to provide a service, perhaps he is dressed in a uniform to provide one.
I also made his little ladder. I tried to find a doll house one on Ebay, but they were scaled to 1:12, of course. This little ladder is a little over 5" tall and has nine round rungs.
And, last, of course, she needed shoes. I do believe the soles are a little thick, but they're still a nice pair of button strap shoes. I must remember to toss that piece of leather or save it for much larger dolls.
Below I've included a few of my favorite pages from Angel Dominguez's book. One of them includes Bill in the juror's box. Another is of the dodo that I almost did. If you love these, you'll treasure owning a copy of this amazing book.
And, next? The Alsace doll. She's been sitting on a pile of fabrics for a month now and would love to come out and play.
Love,
Melissa
And, now for a quick tutorial on how I did the loop soutache.
In this first photo, you'll see some sketches of the pattern I was trying to achieve. Believe it or not, it actually helps drawing out the pattern so you can figure out how you wish to sew it on. Its a little like cursive writing. There is a basic direction the trim should be looped and crossed over to achieve a uniform look to the design. The center sketch has arrows on it showing the direction of placement. Even when tying a bow, there's a rhythm of movement that you must adopt.
With this particular design, and you are welcome to use it, I started at the left, made a loop to the top-right, going under and looping this to the top curve, looping that down to the left, up and over to the right, then down over the band that began the first loop. You'll see this in the arrows drawn in the middle sketch. I didn't make this up. In the next photo you'll see an up-close image of someone else's process. I just did it a bit differently by ending the looping trim on top instead of the bottom of the left loop. (They did not use traditional soutache, but some kind of textured yarn-like trim.)
In the third illustration, I made a pattern on tissue paper and poked holes in it to be able to mark where the design goes. You could probably use pencil, or a marker (it will get covered up), or a colored chalk. This didn't work for me, but you can try it. Instead, I cut out the edges of this "shamrock" shape and lightly drew around it as a template, directly onto the silk. Then I stitched the trim over the lines. If you think you shouldn't draw on the fabric, I read that "Louise Hedrick" tells you to draw on the fabric ;))
Fourth photo. This was just a sampler I did to get the hang of it. A mock, up if you will. Its also important to determine the size of the design, and how far you wish it to be from the hem of the dress. Yes, you need to get out your ruler and do a little math and measuring.
Fifth photo, and this is the cool one. Once you know how large you want the design to be, and how far from the hem, measure up from a pressed hemline, and do a large gathering stitch across the fabric. Then measure up to the total height you want the design to be, mark it, and sew another gathering stitch across. This gives you an accurately measured space to stitch your design between.
How wide would your like your design to be? How long is the runner between the loop designs? Say its a total of three inches. Mark off three inch segments, then do a gathering stitch vertically every three inches. Now you have perfect little equidistant boxes to sew your design into! As you begin to hand stitch the trim on, you can manipulate the trim to bend and flatten it. I kept my sampler pinned above my work to make sure I stayed on track as far as how wide the loops would be, and how far from the "stitched box" the ends of the loops were.
If I could figure it out, you can do it. Its not easy. It doesn't go quickly, or smoothly, and its work. Just a head's up on that one. For fancier designs, I can't help you. LOL I think this was "it" for me, but I did do it once. If you have a tutorial that you like, or know of a Youtube, please share a link with us! This "tutorial" is how "I did it" only. And, I hope this all made sense :)) missemouse
I wanted to do something birthday themed, and the only cake in the story (Through the Looking Glass), was a plum pudding called a Looking Glass cake. Making the cake alone simply wouldn't do, so I set out to make at least the Unicorn, from which the cake came from in the chapter, The Lion and the Unicorn. But, then he really needed the Lion or the story couldn't be told properly, so this birthday gift ran away with me a bit. You think?
So let's recap. I'm sure my "Cliff's Notes" here will sound about as strange as the story, but here goes. So the King is on one of his normal rampages. Alice is there of course, and the king is waiting for his messengers Haigha and Hatta. For those of you familiar with the book, Haigha is the one that hands the king a "ham sandwich" from his messenger bag. The king hears a noise and Alice asks, "Who are at it again?" "The Lion and the Unicorn, of course." "Fighting for the crown!" Which happens to be the king's crown. Then Alice remembers an old song. 
So the two messengers, Alice and the king, go forth to watch the fight. The king calls for a ten minute refreshment break seeing that the Lion and the Unicorn are fairly spent. Silly conversation commences, of course, with Alice being singled out and identified as a monster. Yet Alice sees the unicorn as a fabulous monster, and now they can both agree that something unique has happened. They've both seen monsters. This means a refreshment better than brown bread must be had, so the unicorn exclaims "Come fetch out the plum-cake...". The lion shows up and asks Alice to hand round the plum-cake. (I'm really editing here!)
But, of course its a magical plum-cake and no matter how Alice saws away at the thing, the pieces keep joining together again. So the lion says, "You don't know how to to manage Looking-glass cakes...Hand it round first, and cut it afterwards." Naturally the unicorn is miffed thinking the lion got a larger slice (the lion's share??). And, the gist of all this is, the plum-cake is a stand in for Jean's birthday cake, and I had to make everything.
I think one of the reasons I love doing these needle felts, is that I want to see what the characters look like from all sides. I naturally have to make this up, following along with what I believe the illustration would look like should it step off the page. I also get a brief education in animal anatomy - sort of. After beginning to create one of the anthropomorphic critters, I find myself doing research on the real animal. When I have a bit of understanding on the animal, I go back to the illustration and work between the two. Its one thing to say you know what a lion or horse (with a horn) looks like, but quite another to sculpt it, dress it, give it a court costume or put glasses on its nose!
The Unicorn gave me a chance to explore folds in clothing. Also, it gave me an opportunity to work with "sticking hands in one's pockets". Neither of these things is a no-brainer. I really have to teach myself how to do things as I go along. Yes, I make mistakes. I love mistakes...no I don't, not really...but, they do teach you how to look at it again and do it correctly. 
Finally we came to the birthday, or plum-cake. I purchased a set of yellow Barbie plates to get the platter, and a miniature kitchen knife to resemble the carving knife Alice sawed away with. Tenniel's must have been a bone-handled knife, so I painted the wood handle ivory. You really have to study the illustration, but the cake has little "red dots" on top, so I assumed these would be currants or similar, and dotted my cake accordingly. 
