New Year Needle Felts

Welcome February.  The month that doesn't quite know if Spring is coming, or winter is still six weeks away.  On the 2nd, the groundhog, poor fellow, is coaxed from his burrow to see if his shadow is visible.  If he sees his shadow, six more weeks of winter is predicted.  This never made any sense to me.  If the sun is out, its supposed to warm up...Spring...budding on trees...right?  Not that I'm going to criticize the Germans who brought this tradition to the U.S., but it is rather silly.  My take on it is that there's not much going so, so let's grab a fat little rodent and have a bit of fun with him.  Phil of Puxatony is once again burrowing for the remainder of the calendar winter.  And I don't blame him. 

But here, where I live, the narcissus is blooming, and winter seems like a dream that exited January 31rst.  Even earlier, since after the three-week deluge of rain, that was very unusual, we're back in our drought pattern.  Oh, it's cold enough, but nothing compared the winter storms still thrashing the east coast.

I never quite know what to think of February, since I'm not a big Valentine's Day enthusiast.  I love the old vintage Valentines with the Chinese themes, even though they are considered un-PC these days.  And I get a sentimental feeling for the other vintage Valentines we were expected to hand around the classroom come the 14th of the month.  They're witty and fun and sweet.  This doesn't keep me from dressing a few dolls up in heart print dresses, but it slips by as just another day in this household.  

What I'm still enjoying, however, is Chinese New Year and the beauty of China's art and culture and the beautiful fabrics and traditional costuming.  So, I've decided to continue down this path creatively.  When my silks from Poppylollipop (an Etsy seller in China) arrive, I have costuming plans.  From concept to shopping to delivery, all these things take time.  So, in the short while I worked on a couple of other things.  Needle felts.

A new friend of mine did an extraordinary favor for me, for which I will never be able to thank her enough, and she had commented on loving the Remmie Lou needle felt I'd done.  So, I asked her what her favorite dogs were, and one of them was the Corgi.  So, I made her one to thank her.

I know her from the Ruby Red Fashion Friends groups on Facebook, so I made the dog sized to be a pet for these 14" dolls.  

Unless you're a breeder or own one, you most likely know this dog as Queen Elizabeth II's favorite.

A little research told me that these dogs have been in existence since the 10th century.  One theory says these dogs were brought to Wales by Flemish

weavers.  Another says they may have descended from the Swedish Vallhund.

This intelligent, friendly and highly active breed was developed for herding, but is today, considered one of the favorites in family pets. 

They sure are cute!  But oh, so funny to try and needle felt.  Foxy little ears, a short, narrow snout and impossibly short little legs.  Stubby tails.  "A little of this and a little of that, and Hunts Tomato Sauce".  I'd love to meet one in person and get to bury my face in his or her belly and love on them awhile.  Sweet animals!

So, I set off with some wool and a wish and prayer.  I decided not to make him with wire armature as I didn't want to be constrained by the size of this area or that area.  It's easier to remove or add wool, but impossible to delete or add wire without messing up the entire figure.

In hindsight, I should have used the snow-white batting wool instead of the off white.  For when I set to add "fur" in white, the colors differentiated.  In the photo of the Corgi above the needle felted one, you might be able to see why and where I started out with the off white.  sigh   Well, who's to say there isn't a Corgi with these colors!  There is now.   

The backside.  Tails always go on last.  

Here's the little tugger which I believe has been named, Jack.  So, it's a boy in case you were wondering.  Always happy with his little pink tongue out panting.

I also added plastic eyes so they were shiny.  I won't glue these peg eyes in as people suggest, but they do look nice.  I used to simply needle felt the eyes.  If I had to make a distinction as to why, I think a toy should have the plastic ones, and a piece of artwork, the needle felted ones.  I could change my mind about this tomorrow.

I made a collar and leash from rose pink leather for the little guy so he could be walked by the Ruby Red Friend dolls.  

Prior to starting the Corgi, I began a rabbit for a Year of the Rabbit toy to display with Good Luck Gracie.  Last year, in her debut, she received a tiger for Year of the Tiger.  It was only appropriate that she be displayed with the proper toy animal for the year.  If I live long enough, I'm sure she'll own every animal represented in Chinese astrology.  

The rabbit was inspired by the same person who made a crochet pattern for the tiger.  I just adore her Chinese red and gold jackets on her creations.  Her crochet amigurumi shop is called Little Bamboo.

This Year of the Rabbit rabbit is 4" in height and was made with wire armature so I could pose the arms and bend the ears.  I love the BIG feet and pink pads of this bunny.

Tail end.

The yellow details are both wool and embroidery.  I spent way too much time on the embroidery.  When you're still a novice and winging it, its trial and error before success.

Good Luck Gracie is happy with him, and I'll find a place to store the little tiger, which I'm sure I'll promptly forget about.  LOL  I must get better about my storing practices.

While waiting for the trees to bloom and the fabric from China to arrive, I plan on making a Year of the Rabbit purse for New Year Angel Lia, from Ruby Red Galleria.  She was introduced for this Lunar New Year and did not come with any accessories.  I saw a Chinese fish purse that was done all in rhinestones on metal.  I might just try something similar but that will require the gluing placement of hundreds of tiny flat backed rhinestones.  Still, it would look pretty.  Why not?  It's something to do.

February has more noted holidays than any month I've detected so far.  Groundhog Day, President's Day, Mardi Gras (the 22nd) and Ash Wednesday for the Catholics.  I bought a darling Mardi Gras outfit for Blaire, the American Girl I dress up and display.  I have no idea why American Girl never made a Mardi Gras outfit for their line.  Cecile sort of got one, but for the contemporary girl, you'd think this would be a no-brainer choice to make.

I love Mardi Gras.  I never went to one as a child, but my grandmother would send us boxes of beads and doubloons and whatever else they threw from the floats to the crowds during the parade.  I don't think my sister or brother where particularly thrilled, but the box of beads was a treasure chest for me.

So, February isn't all that bad.  You can make whatever fun you choose to with a little imagination and a doll or two!

Attached are a couple of delightful and gorgeous mid-century Chinse trade cards. One shows a mother with her children and the snowman they made that is exactly their size.  The other is a woman taking her children toy shopping.  Notice the glass cabinet to the left with Lunar New Year puppets inside.

I wish you a wonderful month to enjoy every single day with gratitude and purpose.

Love, Melissa

Year of the Rabbit with Hansa Panda

 

Alice Illustrated's Year of the Rabbit

 

Here it is.  The eleventh hour and my last minute, or last weeklong Chinese New Year project is done.  I was sitting up in bed reading last Saturday night bemoaning the needle felt rabbit I was going to make for Good Luck Gracie.  It wasn't turning out well, and I was uninspired.  I was thinking to myself, "I'd rather be sewing."  When all of a sudden, a light flashed in my head and told me to make Illustrated Alice a Chinese New Year, Year of the Rabbit outfit.  What could be more appropriate?!  And wasn't I just saying that I wanted to do another "Alice" this year?  I never tire of sewing for Illustrated Alice.  I knew exactly what I was going to do, and this all happened in my head in a matter of moments.

So, I began the search for images to embroider on the apron.  Apron?  Yes. Ruby Ho has made several dolls with this traditional Hanfu apron that goes over a dress, and I thought, why not try it?  I have her Ruby Red Fashion Friends doll, Dawn, and her costume would be my inspiration.  I am always inspired by  

Ruby's work.  Always.

But this was Alice.  And I don't think I've ever seen a Chinese Alice.  I made a Korean Alice long ago, but never thought to try something like this for Alice Illustrated.  After all, her wardrobe is comprised of outfits from my favorite illustrators that did work for the story.  

For anyone new to my blog, Alice Illustrated is a reborn Wendy Lawton doll, wood and porcelain.  She's 12" tall and was originally a Prim and Proper. 

With a week to do this, I also had to purchase fabric.  I figured that I'd beg the sellers to send it quickly and I'd simply apply myself to the embroidery work while awaiting the fabric.  FIVE DAYS I spent embroidering this apron.  And that was after I drafted the pattern and made a mockup for it.

One thing you don't want to do, is spend five days embroidering something only to find out the pattern you made isn't right.  

The images were taken from an Etsy seller called The Magic Happens.  These were actually pdf stickers and when I downloaded them, they had black backgrounds.  I did a work around and got them saved off to work from.  Sizing, placing, figuring out an appealing design took some time.  I was putting little pieces of paper on a piece of the pattern, and I wasn't liking any of it.  

Finally, I took out my light box and taped the images to the box and placed the fabric over it and drew the outline of the designs on the fabric with a Prismacolor pencil.  I was not going to satin stitch these images but work them as outlines.  The rabbit was the most important, and the cherry blossoms followed with a cloud on top.

It was an afterthought, but I really wanted to embroider the teapot as well, because as we all know, Alice attended a tea party!

Here's a close up of the embroidery work.

One thing I wanted to try, was using gold metallic embroidery thread.  The Magic Happens artist used gold accents on her images, and I wanted to see if I could make this work with my embroideries.

Wow.  Don't try working with this stuff unless you have a lot of patience.  It unravels.  It's hard to pull through fabric.  It's not "user friendly" in the slightest!  But that's the kind of stuff I do.  I try to challenge myself, stretch myself to learn more and take things to the next level.  I think I could have passed on this one.  But I didn't.  I persevered and accented the images with shiny gold thread.  The cloud especially was difficult, because I literally embroidered the design twice.  

The gold accents are in the centers of the cherry blossoms as well.  I even made French knots with the infernal stuff.  

What you can't really see, is that the apron is made from a large dotted Swiss.  My original intent was to make the dress from this baby blue embroidered dot silk.  I'd purchase this light robin's egg blue satin as well, and when it arrived, I liked the look better.  Not the fabric, but the look.  I felt like I was sewing with plastic when I made that dress.  Plastic that frayed like crazy.  LOL   But, I do love the look!

I made Alice a pair of striped salmon pink stockings to pick up the color of the cherry blossoms.  

She also got a huge bow, tipped with pink tassels, that hooks on the back of the apron.

Her slippers are matte gold leather with the traditional Ruby Ho, Ten Ping doll soles of linen.

The wig.  Whatever I did to the wig would be that way for eternity, so I didn't wish to tamper with the one she normally wears.  I was lucky to find a Monique human hair Priscilla in size 6/7 in my stash and washed and rinsed it to take out the curves left from years of storage in its box.  I wish I'd bought all the human hair wigs they had.   I should have.  They were so expensive though, but this is what I like to use on my "reborn" dolls, especially the Lawton ones.

I wanted to do this traditional Chinese style with the little braided buns and long braids.  I am NOT a hairdresser by long shot. This was a challenge in itself.  I had to do the whole thing twice but finally got the look I wanted.  I first set the braids with tiny elastics, then later used thread to secure them.  The buns are sewn to the wig cap as well. 

Alice's outfit wouldn't be complete without the Chinese hair ornaments.  

I colored forget-me-nots with a salmon pink alcohol marker then sewed a gold bead through the center and glass leaves to the base.  Blue beads dangle from the chains to match her dress.

Hopefully you'll be able to see the gold threads in the close ups I took. 

I also made Alice a rabbit fan to hold from a gorgeous Chinese illustration.  I love the shape!

I haven't worked so fast and so hard in ages.  And I even took Wednesday off to go cross country skiing with my dog and husband!

I'm ready for a day of rest tomorrow, and to celebrate the Lunar New Year, I'll make my delicious Mongolian Chicken.  Maybe make my Fried Rice, too!  I'll have the time.  I'm exhausted, but happy to have this done in time for tomorrow.  I did consider embroidering a bit on the ties of the bow, but just couldn't bring myself to put the effort out.  Maybe next week.  Just some little cherry blossoms in the color of the tassels.

Below you'll see The Magic Happens images, and a stock photo of Dawn, who inspired the costuming.  Once again, Happy Lunar New Year!

Love, Melissa

Grace and Dolly's Year of the Rabbit

I'm going to remember these days when summer comes.  When the earth is cracked and dry, and fires rage in the California Sierras again.  It's been raining for two weeks solid, maybe longer.  The creek has flooded several times, and we've lost some of our very old and very beautiful oak trees.  My husband is getting very good with the chainsaw.  Well, he has been, but more practice makes perfect. 

Yesterday was the first day the sky allowed the earth to soak up some water, and I was able to get out a bit.  Brighton got his walk the morning and while my husband was finishing up his umpteenth burn pile in the last few months, the sky opened up again.  It's a perfect day to sit and write. Or take a long nap!

Many of us have experienced a difficult or challenging start to the new year.  Some have lost friends and family members.  Some are struggling in other ways.  And some,

like me, get to look forward to harrowing dental work.  But through it all, Rachel Hoffman's Club Grace boxes arrive, and those subscribers get to play and find some pleasant distraction with our dolls.  Rachel has spoiled us!  Club Grace for November was beautiful and bountiful with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and Kate.  December's blew us all away with those fairy princess gowns and a gorgeous red, fur trimmed coat dress. But this month's...oh my...THIS MONTH'S was all about my favorite, Chinese Lunar New Year.

 

Ruby Ho created these gorgeous red and gold brocade New Year dresses for Grace and the box was extravagant with Diana Vining's enchanting illustrations.  The box was filled with

gold Chinese coins, little wooden fans, a paper parasol perfect for Grace, and delightful t-shirts that the folks at Ruby Red Galleria made special for us.  The shoes were a gold affair, but many of us bought a pair of the add-on gold lame boots that look stunning with this dress.  I'm sharing some of this with you in photos at the end of this post.

So, I just had to make Dolly something equally special, and chose the traditional Hanfu style to dress her in.  Undressing her from her Christmas tree costume came too early.  No matter what I make for her next year, she'll wear that costume again for a couple of weeks at least!  

This time the inspiration for her outfit came by way of Etsy.  If I had a small daughter, I would buy these glorious Chinese New Year outfits for her.  They are often referred to as winter outfits but worn for Lunar New Year celebrations.  Good Luck Gracie's was such a costume.  They typically have fur

trim, but Dolly is such a difficult little doll to dress, and I wasn't up to fiddling with tiny strips of fur.  At least not for her costume.  Another thing of note is that while t-shirts and jackets might sport the year's animal, the winter dresses are decorated with Chinese characters and Spring Festival flowers like the lotus.  However, this is Dolly Dingle, and I wanted rabbits on her costume - because it's FUN.  And sweet.

So, what does the Year of the Rabbit mean to us?  According to Chinese astrology, the rabbit represents peaceful and patient energy.  The rabbit is a gentle creature known for thinking things through before acting on them.  This energy will encourage us to approach challenges and opportunities calmly and rationally.  We can look forward to a more harmonious and peaceful year.    

It is also a Water Rabbit year.  This encourages us to focus on relationships and work on building bridges instead of walls.  A good 

year for diplomacy and professional relationships.  The Water Rabbit brings us good luck.  Being open to new possibilities and not being afraid to take risks, is what this year is all about.  (Sounds a lot like what I do every time I sit down to a new project.)  In short, this will be a lucky year for many, so be ready to embrace the unexpected and see where it takes you.

Dolly's outfit was inspired by the one you see here.  I had every intention of including the fur trim for authenticity, but it would have meant buying more teddy bear fur and one with very dense and short hairs.  I'll look for some as it will be helpful to have in the future.  So, I made the jacket with a traditional high collar and lined the jacket in a pale pink, which is brought out in the trim around the panel in front of the skirt.  The Hanfu pattern is a feminine and beautiful one.  I'd made one for the Korean Alice if you recall her some years back.

Tiny bunnies and lotus flowers decorate the shaped bodice section, and the panel attached in front of the skirt, called a bixi.  The decorations are hand painted. 

The silk skirt also features two layers of Italian tulle.  I'd asked the seller of the tulle I'd used for the Christmas holiday costumes, to please describe the differences or names of the various tulles.  She directed me to Italian tulle as the lightest, softly draping tulle you can buy.  She also sent me samples on a card of the various tulles.  She just made a loyal customer of me!

I made Dolly two little hair ornaments of bunny heads with dangling beads on chains.

Sadly, Dolly's hair is taking a beating with all the hats and hair ornaments I've been using on her since I started sewing for her.  Her wig has this traditional Dolly Dingle style from sewing the curls into place, so in order to style her hair nicely again, I'll have to start all over.  Some day.  I did buy an extra wig anticipating this before Monique closed its doors.

I actually saw a Chinese child in an Etsy shop, in a Hanfu dress wearing slippers with bunny heads on them, so made a pair for Dolly in gold silk.  Tiny pom-poms are wonderful for Chinese doll clothing.

And then there's the Imperial Empress Remmie Lou.  Rachel had asked how I'd dress Remmie for the Lunar New Year celebration, so I thought long and hard on it.  Remmie Lou is our star.

Chinese people dress their pets in brocade coats and wraps for the holiday.  Even though this fur trimmed wrap is on a cat, it can be worn by a small dog as well.

Hence, here is where I labored over the fur trim. That round little body of Remmie Lou's was a challenge to drape.  The pattern is a sort of elongated crescent shape.  The fur trim is completely hand sewn on.

The tassel and pom-pom trim has a faux frog on top made by creating French knots with embroidery thread.  I know it's not visible, but it's there.  

Side view of Imperial Empress Remmie Lou's robe.

I made her pom-pom, chain and floral head ornaments.

Diana Vining provided us with some illustrations for lanterns and I made this one for Remmie, adding jewelry findings, beads and another tassel.  She carries it in her mouth by way of a stick.  Dogs do that, you know.

Here's her little round back side.

Dolly and Grace's lanterns were found online for children's projects for the Lunar new year. I simply reduced them in size when I printed them.  

I also found some party headbands and Chinese hats to print out as well, and Grace got one in the shape of the bamboo sun hat. See below.  A few of my other dolls got the same hat as I kept printing them out to get the right size.  They're fun and easy to make.

Dolly is holding a rabbit lantern, and a rabbit money card with a red good luck note inside.  All these little details are seldom seen, but they know they're there.  I also made Grace some jade earrings which pick up the color of the green dragon in her hat.  

I love Chinese New Year.  It's that wonderful, exotic, colorful treat after the start of our new year.  Am I done?  No.  I'll make a rabbit toy for Good Luck Gracie and retire her tiger.  I also might dress another doll or two, but only until January 22nd, which is the start of the Lunar New Year celebrations and lasts two weeks. 

I hope you'll enjoy some photos of Grace in her stunning brocade dress, Diana Vining's beautiful artwork, and some other Lunar New Year images.  Remember that you can click on the photos to enlarge them and see the details better.

Wishing you Gung Hay Fat Choy!, Melissa