Yes, It has been a long time!

Before I start writing for the blog again, there are a couple of updates for you. I share this blog with Michelle Mahler of Minidolls.com. Michelle is hoping to sell The Doll Artist’s Workshop, where she sells supplies, fabrics, trims, and assorted items to create and dress miniature dolls. 

 I will be writing this blog. 

 We have worked out, or rather not yet figured out why the reading view was covered up with the red background. We tried many ways to fix this, and the result was to remove the background and voila a readable blog. For those who were unaware of the issues, I will share them with you. And because I am both an iPad and PC user, the information came to me a little late. I hadn’t noticed. Readers on Apple or iOS products (Mac, iPhone, iPad) were getting different views. Is the level of upgrade the problem, or is it Google? Is it something else? Were the programming languages colliding in some way? We do not know but are greatly appreciative of those who checked things out and reported findings. For those who had no issues, this is what was happening. This is the original format and how we wanted it to look.

This picture clearly shows that the background is now covering all content. The background for the iOS users was on top and not behind the content.

The header with Emilie Claire doll will remain the same.

The simplest answer was to remove the background. The content is now visible with the background removed.

I like this view. The content is readable, it is lovely as linen as it represents our primary content is sewing for dolls. Going forward, I have retained a professional to take care of these things for me so I can create some meaningful content. Kathi

 August 15, 2022

A Hitch in my Get-Along

 

Well in another week it will be a year since I last posted.  You would not believe all that happened.  Whew, it is something isn’t it how quickly time can go and get away from us? 

 

I am an irregular blogger to be sure, but a couple weeks from the time I last wrote I had an “event” we’ll say that didn’t bother me so much as the doctor when I described it.  I felt no different, but apparently, I needed tests done, and NOW!  After a few echocardiograms, I was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect.  Imagine at my age finding out I have had this since birth?  Why did I not know sooner?  And this is a common heart defect.  When I was born the hole in which my mother fed me during gestation did not close automatically when I was born. This is called a PFO. (Just look it up, I cannot even pronounce it.) As I aged, the whole grew larger, and a microscopic piece, possibly, of blood trash did not get cleaned up and caused me to have what appeared to be a stroke.  Honestly, I am not sure as it was so minor, but the doctors were being cautious. 

Fast forward to 25 doctor visits, all kinds of them, pick a specialty. 

In January, the hole was closed.  I was all fixed.  Except for a stint in the ER.  Wow, that was scary, I thought “the plug” had become dislodged, but no. Just a fault in the electricity of the heart beats. 

 On July 5th, I got my 6-month check-up and am all wonderful and perfect again. 

I was homesick and wanted to get back to my family and old friends.  We made plans, ready to list the house when I got out of the hospital, to hopefully move back to my hometown.  The areas which we were considering had grown so expensive that it did not make sense to make the move. All the work that one does to put a house on the market now had to be reversed.   The unwinding and redefining what life looks like going forward has taken extra time, too. 

The Queen size bed is stacked under, over, and around.  

And in the bathroom and excess in another room, embarrassing.

I now have boxes stored in the guest room.  However, there is a silver lining.  I have a closet upstairs that the original owner had finished from an attic area.  It is a good 12 X 12 feet on the floor, but the room is not quite 8’ tall.  As we speak my painter extraordinaire, Justin is repairing the walls and repainting.  If all goes well, new shelves are being installed this week.  I am excited to get my hoarded, stashed, stock, yes stock put away and organized in a room of its own.  I shall call it my stockroom.  Stocking supplies sounds so much better than hoarding, doesn’t it? 

I shall share the progress with you.  I hear from my husband that I am lacking in making decisions.  I never knew that about myself, I thought I was quite a decisive person.  I have purged until there is only the best left, and by looks, it appears there is more of that to be done.  No doubt, sad face, I will need to gift and donate some more.    

I will be posting more blog entries as I have not been a sloth while healing!  I will share things I have done, and outfits completed soon. 

Have Fun!

Kathi

 August 26, 2021

When I last posted I was showing that there had been great progress on completing the “Knight to Remember” Dress.  This was an Alice Leverette workshop at St. Simons Island.  It was a full workshop with about 30 participants.  Due to me being in the sponsoring club, I also had work assignments for the weekend and managed to not complete the garment and allowed it to sit for quite some time.

But alas with some perseverance, the dress was complete.  All the beading and flowers have been added. 

It was time to add some jewels.  Here you see a necklace being made, and the earrings to match. 

Progression of making the necklace. 

    Jewels are just right! 

Perfect additions!

She needed some pretty flowers for her hair.  Alas, totally complete.  

Pretty floral coronet

How about a fan!  

What dance is complete with a fan?

Beautiful! 

Complete!  

A new project awaits.  

Whatever you create, 
Have Fun!
Kathi

 August 20, 2021

 

I reported before that I was trying to complete an unfinished project a month until I seemed to be caught up.  I completed this project in May.  The workshop is called Knight to Remember, St. Simons Island, 2013.   This was the inspiration picture for the project:

 

My partially completed project had languished for quite some time. Pulling the contents, I reviewed the directions and discerned the kit was complete.  However, I needed to start over as I had skipped around in the making of the pieces.  The skirt was completed but as memory served the ruffle was giving me fits.  And true it was only pinned in places and basted incorrectly in others.  The main portion of the bodice was complete but I was stopped in the middle of decorating and attaching the sleeves.  The sleeves were being worked one at a time, so one sleeve was flat and unworked the other nearly completed.   I will add, at the time, I was a member of the club sponsoring the workshop and I had other duties to perform during the groups’ visit.   

Here we are with a slip and ready to go.  

This reckoning with what I had done and had not done was confusing at first. Here the sleeves are partially completed.  

The start of skirt repair and redo.

Staring me in the face was the skirt ruffle that caused me a lot of grief.  Removing the ruffle thus began the slow process, of straightening it, pressing it, and dividing it again.  There were many peaks and dips to getting the ruffle on correctly.  I finally made a line with the sections marked was a better method for me to get the proportions straight.  

It took a week, but the skirt, fewer beads, and bows were completed, fitted, and on the doll. It was my intention to complete both the skirt and the bodice before adding any of the jewels and bows that would finish the outfit.  

While I was at it I made the extra bows. 

I was on a roll and would get the outfit done soon.  Little did I know it would take the full month. 

 
I'll be back with more!  
In the meantime, 
Have Fun!
Kathi

 July 29, 2021

 Things are catching up a bit around here, but not so you could really tell.  It has been a lot of work, but I am still working on the dining room table.  I don't know if I am blaming the slowness of my purging and organizing, or if I just like working downstairs where there is more life and sunlight.  Perhaps a bit of both.  

I would be remiss before going forward on my projects if I didn’t talk a little about my Ultimate Fashion Doll.  I had named her Molly after my grandmother Mary Lee.  All her life her nickname was Molly, and we the grandchildren were born, we called her Grandmolly.   Family quirks.  As many use French girl’s names for their French Fashion, my doll had arrived in the USA and Mary became Molly, and that was it. 

I had Molly for quite some years, she’s been in pictures on the blog with her cousin Emilie Claire.  One of her dresses was featured here in 2009,  I think.  

Molly had been corresponding with her friend Simone and planned a trip to visit and be pictured together and going to tea.  On her way to Simone, her “carriage turned over” causing great damage.  (That’s my story and I am sticking to it.) Nevertheless, Molly could not be saved.  She broke her noggin and her life as we knew it was expunged.  No more Molly. 

May I interject here, in spite of the levity which I write, I was devastated.  My friend, Gillian, was quite dejected and did not want to give me the bad news.  I was literally sick to my stomach, and for a little white depressed about the whole thing.  Gillian was to photograph our “girls” together and then take my doll to an Alice Leverett workshop she was attending to deliver her to Alice for a little tightening and refurbishment.  The doll would be returned as Gillian got home.    

The stars did not align.  We set upon the process of making a claim for the doll.  I had paid for an additional $1000.00 of insurance.  After about 6 weeks, the claim was denied at the post office.  I had according to instructions provided proof of value by suing several sold auctions in lieu of an original receipt.  But they wanted the original.  Alice worked diligently to get the original receipt, as I had lost or misplaced mine, I mean three moves since the purchase of the doll, and she produced one for me and even set aside a replacement head at the same time.  It took 3 months to file a claim, have the claim turned down, and then fight for it.  Finally, 6 months later, I was rewarded with about $695.00 on a thousand-dollar claim.  But we were allowed to salvage the body, so all was not lost.  Later, I received devastating news.  The replacement head was broken in a small household accident and the doll was not to be produced any longer.  I had a body and no head!  

I explored the idea of joining Emilie Claire's head to Molly's body.  Emilie's body was not well done (I made her).  But Gillian had other ideas.  Her friend Lynn would make me a new doll head. The next hurdle, she only had a head for a doll face that was not a particular favorite of mine.  More months passed while I pouted and thought.  I was convinced to examine it first and make a decision when I had compared the heads.  So this is what I did.    

What I received was a beautiful face on a Smiling Bru reproduction head.  Emilie’s head was a bit too large for the doll, so I grudgingly place the Smiling Bru on the UFD body.  May I say, after 2 years of hedging and grumbling and fighting it, yea, two years, I now have a new and favorite doll.  It was as if it was meant to be.  I have considered naming her Eugenie after the French Empress, Napoleon III’s wife, or name her after the two ladies whose patience and persistence to replace the lost Molly. She remains nameless today, three years later.   One day I will settle the doll name issue. 

Until then I thought would introduce you to my newly refurbished French Fashion Ultimate Fashion Doll, body by Alice Leverett, head by Lynn S.  (I did not ask permission to reveal her name.) But kudos to Lynn and Gillian.  Thank you. She is just so beautiful.  

More about her burgeoning wardrobe as we go along.  

I am having fun!  

Kathi