Saturday

I have the bug to pick up my sewing again (not that I ever really stopped) and make a cloth doll.  I have done it in the past and did a pretty good job.  So, like many of my hobbies where I do it in spurts, it's time to dust off the sewing machine and pull out my doll making books and begin again. Creative Cloth Doll Making by Patti Medaris Culea is one of the best out there.  Her cloth dolls are beautiful and fairly simple to make.  I cannot say that my creations are very artistic (I don't think I'm that creative), but it is fun to do and since I am an avid collector of fashion dolls such as the Robert Tonner line, making my own is sometimes fun.

I actually became an doll collector years ago when I decided to begin collecting Barbie dolls.  I had always loved Barbies and had made a promise to myself that I would one day have every Barbie made.  The advent of the Internet showed me an entire world of doll collecting and better still, repaints.  I discovered that people were taking vinyl fashion dolls and repainting the faces to make new characters.  Some of the work I discovered was beautiful and very unique.  However, these artists weren't using Barbies.  They were using a doll named Gene Marshall- a 16 inch fashion doll modeled after the movie stars of the 1930s and 1940s.  I fell in love with the Gene doll after that and never looked at another Barbie again. 

Gene Marshall introduced me to the world of Tyler Wentworth dolls, designed by Robert Tonner.  His dolls are amazing and he has expanded his line from Tyler Wentworth to include Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, and Wizard of Oz, just to name a few.