As much as I love to sew things for gifts to friends and family and sew items to sell for my sewing business, I guess there is no feeling better than sewing for those who are less fortunate. I joined a group of wonderful ladies about 4 years ago:  The Lone Star Smockers. This group of ladies gets together each month to show things they have made (Show & Share), teach other members hand stitches and techniques (not just smocking), and generally discuss what is going on in their lives. We really have 2 groups, but one non-profit organization. There are those of us who meet in the mornings and those who work outside the home and attend the night meetings. We meet each month and also have certain activities on the weekends where we all do projects together to raise money for our main function: Providing preemie gowns for local hospitals.

The Wee Care Project has become very popular among members of SAGA (Smocking Arts Guild of America). My chapter, The Lone Star Smockers, provides hand smocked and hand embroidered baby gowns for premature babies. It is a comfort for families who have these precious little ones hooked up to machines in NICU fighting for their lives. These baby gowns are small enough to fit these tiny babies so the tubes are somewhat covered. Unfortunately, some of these gowns become bereavement gowns. For the little ones who do not survive, they have something beautiful to be photographed and buried in. Here are some quotes from the SAGA brochure:

“Thank you so much for the beautiful gown that you donated…please know that your charity made us enjoy the minutes that we were able to hold our little boy.”

“During her first week in the NICU, my little girl was hooked up to so many machines that she didn’t look like a baby…it wasn’t until they put a little dress on her that I truly felt like I had a baby.”

“We would like to extend our sincere appreciation for the beautifully smocked gowns…we donated the first one to the family of a baby girl who did not survive…they had her picture taken in it, the only picture they will ever have of her. Thank you so much for helping to ease the pain for this young family.”

It is so heartbreaking what some families go through, and the knowledge that there are those in the community who care about their grief, is a great comfort at such a hard time in their lives. My family actually experienced this about 5 years ago. My niece was in her 8th month of pregnancy when she suddenly realized she hadn’t felt her baby move for hours. She had just been to the doctor the day before and everything was fine. She went back to her doctor’s office and they did an ultrasound and told her the baby had died and there was no heartbeat. After going through hours of labor, she delivered precious little Emily.  She looked like a perfect little doll. My niece and her husband were shown several little baby gowns that they could choose from to put on Emily. They dressed her, took turns holding her and taking photographs, and she was buried in this donated gown. I was so touched by this that I knew I had to be a part of the wonderful ladies who provided this service to our community.

We also sew pillowcases for Cooks Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas. Each child that is admitted to the hospital is given a personal sized pillow that is theirs for the hospital stay and they take it home with them. Many volunteer organizations donate pillowcases to fit these pillows and each child gets to choose a pillowcase of their liking. They admit about 100 children per week to the hospital so that is a lot of pillowcases! We just concluded a “Pillowcase Workshop” and these will be taken to the hospital for children in North Texas to have for their hospital stay at Cooks.

We do several fundraisers to make money to buy fabric to make the gowns that we smock. The pillowcases are made from our own private “stashes” of fabric. The ladies I have been associated with are very smart talented ladies with generous and giving hearts. It has been my pleasure to be a part of this organization for the past few years. We have a workshop scheduled next month to make more gowns to donate to area hospitals. I hope that no one in my family is ever the recipient of one of these baby gowns again. One of my grandsons was taken to Cooks Children’s Hospital emergency room and spent several hours there being evaluated but everything turned out well. Many children are there going through cancer treatments, surgery, and terminal care. I am thankful for all my healthy great-nieces, great-nephews, and grandchildren. My heart goes out to those who are not as fortunate as me, and have children who need these medical services.  I am thankful there are organizations who are giving to others and help parents and children who are in need of some special human kindness.

Volunteering is very rewarding in many ways.  The one who volunteers is the real winner. Thanks for all those who give what they can, when they can. “Charity” means love, and there is no greater feeling than to be able to give. You never know when you may be the one who depends on another’s charity.  Acts 20:35 “Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

July 2010 – Many of us read Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland when we were young, or had it read to us. I really barely remember it but just recently bought a book on ebay that has both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. I haven’t read the latter, or if I did, I don’t remember it.

The “Alice” theme has recently become very popular with dolls and with a modern version movie by Tim Burton. The original illustrator was John Tenniel and those are the pictures I remembered as a child. For many young girls…..who doesn’t remember having a tea party and inviting your dolls, bears, or other stuffed toys?  I had 5 younger siblings growing up, so there really wasn’t much room to invite a lot of “non-living” entities to my tea parties. I never had a nice tea set, just a plastic one. Now I have 3 very nice porcelain tea sets, and my dolls enjoy them.

So, I guess I am getting to re-live my childhood, to some extent, by playing with dolls, having tea parties,  and enjoying the “Alice in Wonderland” story all over again as an adult. Regression can be very stress relieving, you should try it sometime! I know many people who did not have a happy childhood, but mine was, and I am very lucky indeed.

Using my Kim Lasher dolls, Anya, Adeline, and Simply Alice, along with my Himstedts, I have had fun designing outfits for these dolls to wear using the Alice in Wonderland theme. Here are a few of my “Alice” outfits and pictures. I hope you enjoy the trip back to “Wonderland”.

June 2010  I have a doll named Tammi Himstedt from the Annette Himstedt collection of 2003. The Asian dolls have always appealed to me and I love to sew for them using some of my Oriental styled fabrics. I liked her face but I’m not a big fan of the wild looking mohair wig. There are those who feel that these dolls are a piece of artwork and to change a doll is like changing a painting that an artist has done. This is not my point of view, but I totally understand those who feel that way. What I love about these dolls is that once they are mine, I can make them look the way I want them to look. They are works of art, to be sure, but I have added a part of my creativity to personalize them. Here is Tammi, before the wig change, dressed in something I created:

My friend Bev at Dolls Mane Page is an expert on re-wigging and changing eyes on dolls. I met her at the “Texas Doll Party” this past October and she showed us some of the wigs and eyes she sells. She gave me the instruction and courage to try changing Tammi’s wig. I bought a wig from Bev and then went to work following her instructions. She told me to start at the back of the neck, and using a butter knife, slip it between the wig and head. Before trying this, I pinched the wig at the hairline to see how secure the wig was and it came up very easily. I was able to gently put a finger in and ease the wig away from the line of glue around the head without any difficulty. It came right off!

When the wig was removed, you can see the pate of the head that is removed to replace the eyes.  I didn’t mess with that since I like her eyes just fine.  This is the picture showing where the old glue was originally placed:

Then I used Aleen’s Brush On Tacky Glue and brushed it on the old glue lines around the perimeter of the head:Then I positioned the wig on her head and moved it around until I was satisfied with the placement. I waited 24 hours before doing anything else.

Then I styled her hair in double coils, and dressed her in a new outfit I had just completed. But I decided the bangs were too skimpy and I wanted more.So I took her hair out of the braids and cut more bangs to match the ones that were already there.

Then I dressed her in another outfit. My husband did a video for me to show how I made the braids on each side of her head and coiled it above her ears. You can watch that by going to the top of this page and clicking on the VIDEO category. Here is the final result:

So……if I can do it, you can do it. This was my first attempt at changing a doll’s wig and I think it turned out pretty well, if I say so myself.

I belong to a smocking guild…..The Lone Star Smockers. We were able to get a grant to hire an instructor to come to our area of Texas to teach us how to do several hand stitches that some of us had never tried before. It was 3 days of classes learning new smocking stitches, heirloom hand sewing techniques such as Hardanger, drawn thread, where you pull certain threads out of linen and then do hand work to create a beautiful design.  I also learned to do some beading, which has always been one of my interests.

The instructor was Barbara Meger from the Baltimore area. She is such a great teacher and nice person to know. I was honored to have her stay in my home during her visit to north Texas. She is easy to talk to and I enjoyed her instruction.  I hope that other guilds will take advantage of her skills and schedule her for classes in the future.  You won’t be disappointed.  I really need to get some of my projects finished!!  Here is her website: www.classiccreationssmocking.com and below are pictures that I took from her website that show the completed projects that we learned how to sew.  I really must get busy!!

This is the smocked silk purse I learned how to make:

We made the bridal bag by drawing out certain threads and learning hand stitches to decorate the spaces left where the threads were removed:

This is an old technique called Hardanger where threads are cut out after stitches are done to hold the weave together.  It was very scary to cut out the “holes” but nothing came unraveled.

And the last class was learning how to make a honeycomb smocked scissor holder. Barbara had beautifully dyed floss in each kit and we got to choose our colors.

Pictures used here are completed projects from Barbara Meger’s website, used by permission

While at IDEX I met a “face up” artist.  Her name is Leah Lilly.  She is a friend of Kim Lasher’s and lives up in that part of the country. I chatted with her at the Pizza Party at Jeanie’s condo during my trip to Orlando. I told her of my SD BJD that I bought. It was my first BJD and I really didn’t know that much about them but wanted to. My doll is made by “Angel of Dreams” and came with a “factory face-up”. I have learned that I will now never order a BJD and take the factory face up.

This doll, who I named Rhianna, got many negative remarks when people came into my sewing room to look at my dolls.  Her eyebrows were too severe and I didn’t like the way her nose came to a point.  I ended up just putting her in a closet.  I hadn’t thought about her much until I talked with Leah.  She told me maybe I would like her more if she had a different “face-up”.  So, when I got home I took her head off and mailed her off to Leah for a transformation.  I accidentally pulled the elastic off the “S piece” and the cord popped back into her body cavity. YIKES!!  I had to use a bent hanger to get it back through the neck hole.

Here are the before and after pictures.  Thanks Leah!!  leah@froggyduds.com If you have a BJD that you don’t like, let Leah give you a new face.

Before:

After face up by Leah:

At IDEX I met a doll artist named Dawn Donfronio. She sculpts dolls and then has kits made for reborn artists to paint and add hair and make bodies and attach the limbs and head. She “reborned” 6 of her own kit called “Tiny Sleeper”. This kit is a preemie baby body and sculpt that is about 12 inches long and I really loved this baby.  Dawn also had a larger doll named “Fiona” and she was pretty cute too. The Tiny Sleeper stayed on my mind as I went from booth to booth looking at all the reborns and I finally decided that she/he was coming back home to Texas with me.  I have created a couple of outfits for “Samantha” and now I need to make a few for “Sam”.

I loved the Kish display and really admire these pretty little works of art. This was the first time I had seen a Kish in person.  After the show, I stared looking for a Kish and found Piper Chasing Butterflies and got her.

Here are the new ones for 2010:

An artist I had heard of before but never really paid any attention to is Susan Krey.  Her booth was magnificent.  The costumes of the queens she created were amazing.  She had young Queen Elizabeth, and older Queen Elizabeth, and Anne Boleyn. Here are some pictures I took.

I had lots of fun at IDEX!  This was my first trip to IDEX and also to Orlando, so I didn’t know really what to expect. I arrived on Friday, 1/29/10 and took a shuttle bus to the hotel where IDEX was hosted. My friend Jeanie (also from Texas) had already arrived with several others who were sharing a condo, just down from the hotel.  I was picked up and taken to the condo to help get ready for the pizza party.  It was lots of fun and I met some new people and renewed my acquaintance with others that I have met before at an annual Texas doll party.

At the party, I met a couple of nice ladies from “across the pond” who live in England and Scotland. I have only lived in Texas (mostly), Oklahoma, and Louisiana so my ears and brain were not accustomed to processing British and Scottish accents but we managed to communicate just fine.

Later on I will make several posts about things going on that weekend and what I learned. I wanted to make sure my camera was all charged up and ready to go, so I plugged in the battery and sat the camera underneath it. Like a dummy, I left my camera there charging and didn’t realize it until I unpacked in Orlando.  Lesson learned.  I had to use my phone to take pictures so they are not very good quality.

On Saturday I met with several ladies who are members of a forum called Debbie’s Doll Town. Debbie was there and we had a nice breakfast, courtesy of several thoughtful and sweet members. Thank you so much….you all know who you are.  And a special thanks to Tina, my roommate at the hotel, whom I had met at the Texas Doll Party a few years back. It was nice to catch up with her life and what is going on.  We both like to sew for our dolls so we had lots to talk about.

At around noon, the retail room was opened and I got to look around in there. I took some pictures of Connie Lowe’s booth (Marbled Halls) and even bought a red curly wig for my BJDs to fight over. She is very talented and her creations are magnificent.  I have a few pictures here.

Then at 1 pm the collectors were allowed on the floor and I got to meet Kim Lasher.  I collect Himstedts and Lashers mostly.  I have a few reborns too but not from any one artist. I have Anna and Miley, (not BJDs) that Kim sculpted, and also Anya and Adeline. When my Anya arrived, one set of her eyelashes was skimpier than the other.  They were asymmetric and it bothered me.  I took a few pictures and emailed Kim to ask what I should do.  She immediately replied that she would send me out a set and within 2 days I had them.  Now that is customer service!!  Kim was nice enough to pose for me in front of her booth and here is her picture. She is one talented young lady.

Here are her upcoming dolls:  Simply Alice, Dark Alice, Lotus, Azaleah, and Ivy.  I have Simply Alice, Lotus and Ivy coming to me sometime this year.  I will post pictures when they arrive. Here are the pictures I took at her booth.
Simply Alice:

Dark Alice:

Lotus:

Ivy:

Azaleah:

Well, more about the other exhibits in the next post. There is so much to talk about and too little space! Until the next installment, enjoy your hobby or passion and pass it on.

Here it is the beginning of a New Year and the beginning of a new adventure to me.  I have never had a blog before and my husband has been working on this website for me. I am so lucky to have a husband who supports me and encourages me to enjoy my doll collecting. He is my “IT” guy in many ways!

I have been collecting Himstedt dolls since 2004 and it is sad that there are no new dolls to anticipate since the factory in Germany closed down. The 5 dolls that were released last year, very limited, very pricey, were a real surprise but not many collectors were able to get them.

The new “mother mould” dolls are beautiful, but nothing more beautiful than the previous couple of years, in my opinion. Annette is a very talented artist and her creations are greatly missed by those of us who collect her work. I was lucky enough to be able to see 2 of the 2009 dolls when I went down to the Houston area for a “Doll Party” this past October. I got to see Kateri and Antha in real life, plus many other Himstedt dolls.

My plans for this blog are to talk about dolls mostly, but also, family, friends, sewing, collecting, etc…..all the things that a 52 year old woman like me might be interested in. I have been sewing and selling doll clothes since 2004 and many of you reading this are my customers or friends and I thank you for that. I started collecting the dolls because I missed sewing for my little girl, who was in her last year of college when I started all of this. The dolls became like little girls to me. They needed other outfits besides the ones they came with.  That’s how I got started, and it has been lots of fun.

Since I started collecting these dolls, I have met some wonderful “doll people”. I belong to several doll forums and we all enable each other by showing off our dolls.  I have been to the “Doll Party” in Houston for the past 3 Octobers and now I am planning to attend IDEX (International Doll Exposition) at the end of this month. That will be lots of fun and I will see some of the people I have already met plus some new ones. We will talk more about IDEX after the trip. Until then, be the best you can be….at whatever you want to be!