Quinn Knits a Twisted Yarn

Dressing up

I had so much fun yesterday, instead of embellishing dolls with all manner of things I had the opportunity to turn on myself. A western themed party was the excuse. So I popped out to a favorite run of charity shops and picked up a frilly black blouse and gold buttoned jacket. I spent the afternoon adding fun bits of old jewelry and ribbons to the jacket. My character was a bandit / mexican / spanish / senorita with a sort of Mary Poppins thing going on with the legs and boots, but in the end my dolls were the biggest inspiration. I took some rather bad pics as I was on my own and in a bit of a rush.

 

Evolving characters

I am plotting the progress of my dolls because I think it's quite fun to see how ideas evolve and change. I start with some pretty clear ideas and usually a few sketches, but as I start to construct three dimensionally the look and feel of a character develop, sometimes not quite as I had imagined. This is fine, I then play around adding and subtracting until I get the right feeling about a piece of work. At the moment my female doll doesn't feel 'dark' enough for her strange companions, so as I sew her together I am constantly thinking about how she should proceed. Below are some pictures of her progress.

 

 

 

 

Doll progress

I've been working hard for two days and feel like progress has been made. I am tired with a chest cough that has been going on for four weeks so do tend to loose focus, I am waiting to go and collect the kids from school and not sure whether or not to sew up another pair of legs or attach a couple of hats.....so instead I will take a break and blog my work so far.

 

 

Creative Kids

The girls have been doing some lovely drawings recently. On Saturday morning they had woken me up at 6am but I had managed to drift in and out of sleep until 9am. I shuffled downstairs to a kitchen table that had completely disappeared under a frenzy of creating, paper, paint, card everywhere, my heart sank at the mess but i had to concede that the work produced was pretty good and so a reprieve was handed out. Sadie had covered a cereal box with toilet paper and then painted the whole surface gold, she had left her textured card to dry then carefully cut out and constructed this wonderful cat, no help or influence from an adult!

 

 

Sadie also panted these shapes, an amazing abstract composition. Below is her delicate water colour portrait, Sadie is 8 years.

Then there is Rosie who's bold imagination just blows me away every time, Rosie is 5 years.

 

 

I love this party in a tent!

Sewing Begins

Well at last I found time to sit down and begin sewing a new doll, It is a great feeling, I have lots of ideas for this series. A circus / side show/ interesting character theme again......but still so many ideas in this area. I drew out a couple of body patterns, this one has a nose the second head shape is flat, I am going to try some different ideas with the dolls limbs, maybe model some clay legs...or use wire. So far I have a linen body with an embroidered face, the hat and tail coat are felt, the skirt is made from strips of vintage silk. I had fun making up the little ribbon Rosette.

 

 

Drawing with Me

I have not been feeling at all well for the last couple of days, I have been coughing for three weeks, which has exhausted me (chest infection caught from the kids). So I have been resting and drawing. Adding more characters, some strange, some sinister, some benign and some that are almost sweet. I am enjoying this a lot, it has been soooooo long since I have been able to spend some time with my own work, I feel a little lost as I try to find my flow again, but ideas for textile dolls are forming, I just need to recoup a little more energy before I proceed. So here are some images of the growing drawing.