Thanks Courtney

For reminding me that I have a blog. I'm still bubbling with craftiness but less so with blogginess apparently. Here is a recent dyeing endeavor, it started out most ordinary with quebracho red (top), logwood purple (middle) and some madder.


Resulting in this colorful poofy pile of merino goodness:

And then resulted in my favorite dyeing thus far:

I took the excess madder and que red bath and overdyed some indigo romney top, expecting some form of greys with blue and a little red tones but the results were much more pink and rosy purple in spots than I expected.

These are 3 2 oz tops braided together, one did come out much more grey than the other two. I'm deciding between a 2 or 3 ply yarn for this one. Madder and Indigo, my new favorite combo. I think the quebracho red pushed it in a much more purple direction which I adore. But the spinning will have to wait until its washed and until this next project is closer to finished.

"Scary Baby" or "Baby Head" as she was once known, is now tenatively called Molly. She was almost a boy, in order to reflect the gender of my real kids. But the hair, well, it was just too crazy and Baby J didn't care for it at all. If I do a boy doll I think I might just crochet a worsted weight wool cap/wig and sew that on but without sewing in additional "sticking out" hair.

So, meet the daughter I never had: Molly. I let there be some assymetry, don't look too closely at her eyes if asymmetry bothers you. It is my first doll afterall and I was getting hung up on various parts of the process being perfect. In the end, I think I just need to let go and push through. Here she is with hair laid ontop only. Baby J requested "rainbow hair" and "long, long, long, like that-like a sister."

Here are the three yarns used so far to make her hair. On the right is Becan's shetland wool (again from Homestead wool and gift farm) that I spun long ago, in the middle is the brown mohair that she came with from Joy's Waldorf dolls and on the left is the Misti Alpaca sock yarn that I knit a pair of last minute Christmas socks from for my grandmother in Taiwan. I'd like to work in one other darker, richer brown yarn that is not yet spun up. I want a single of dark brown Alpaca that is from a pinto Alpaca I've got stashed away. So soft. In the very front is the boy hair carnage that I'm saving for later possibly boy doll.

I've got no clue if I'm doing this doll hair thing properly. Well, I'm certain I'm not. I got completely stuck on the crocheted cap and gave in to knitting one finally. Now I've stitched the top on with the part and I'm filling in the rest by rug stitching it on, some sort of bastardized rug stitch I'm sure. But I think its going to hold up alright, I don't forsee my boys desperate to style her hair anyways. I do love her little nose.

Stitching on the part, I could fall in love with doll making just for the hair!