Barbara Schoenoff's Three Phases of the Goddess workshop

The Indy Cloth Dollmakers hosted member and teacher Barbara Schoenoff for our annual workshop, the Three Phases of the Goddess.  Finally, here's some pictures from our wonderful weekend with Barbara!

This is the face-drawing diagram she drew for us in class.  The way she added age to the face in layers was really extraordinary.

We spent part of the first day needle-sculpting faces, (as seen above), and we got to color them on Day 2.  Here are just a few of our finished sets of 3:  because, of course, if you are making all three aspects of a goddess, then you need to make 3 of everything!

by Katie

by Jude

by Andrea B. (just a little smaller!)

by Leslie

We also spent the first day sewing curved fabric strips together to piece the bodies.

Altogether a very large group of us got to attend the workshop.  The more, the merrier!

Here you can see our goal -- this is Barbara's original doll.

Three Phases of the Goddess, by Barbara Schoenoff

Lucy Landry's Embroidery class

More pictures from AFICC 2013 -- Two of us (Julie G. and Andrea B.) took Lucy Landry's embroidery class on Friday -- Embroidered Faces from Ancient Sources.  It was an excellent class, brimming with visual inspiration.

Lucy brought many of her own dolls, and the chance to really peer at the stitches up close and see how each one was used in different situations was wonderful.

She also let us peek at her notebooks, and walked us through the design process to create figures and characters based on very old artwork.

One technique she taught us to turn old imagery into our own personal interpretation was something she called 'nearly' blind contour drawing (because it's too hard to resist looking just a little bit!).

Here you can see the drawing that Andrea made while not really looking at the inspiration mosaic.  Details like curls and pupils were definitely added after, but the main lines were all drawn contour-style.

And here are the faces in progress near the end of the class.  We all had a great time and learned a lot.

February - Progressive Faces

Our second meeting of the year saw the second mini-class for our year-long progressive doll project.  Martha taught us to draw lovely features.

Even though our progressive dolls are just getting started, Martha finished one early, as a gift for her granddaughter.  She was unfortunately reminded of the importance of sealing the face if you're using water-based colors, but the doll is still a cutie (and might get a makeover to fix her mascara).

Katie brought a doll-in-progress from the online sculpting class she is taking with Deb Wood.  We can't wait to see her fully painted!

Just to prove that practice really does make perfect, Katie also brought evidence of the hours she puts into her creations -- a bag o' heads in various stages of needle-sculpting and coloring.

We are a multi-talented group, so we naturally make 'things that are not dolls' every once in a while. Shelby made these lovely socks. which are knitted from the toe up.

Ann R. made this stunning little crazy quilt for her antique doll club, the local chapter of the UFDC.  There is a lucky reproduction Jumeau doll that will receive this quilt, pieced from vintage fabrics and beautifully hand-embroidered.

Go home and practice drawing faces, and then put one on your doll!  Next month, we'll learn some simple wefting techniques for making doll hair out of all kinds of yarn.

Who are the dolls in our new blog banner?

You may have noticed that we have a new banner at the top of our blog.  Here you will find a full picture of each doll, along with credit to the dollmakers and the pattern designers.

A collection of faces, made by members of the doll club.

The first face belongs to this doll, made for our Fassett Fabric Challenge in 2011.  Ann C. made this doll, using a Patti Culea pattern from the book Creative Cloth Doll Beading.  It is a beautiful example of the 'standard' needle-sculpted cloth face, with features colored by colored pencils, permanent markers, and acrylic paint.

Greater-Crested Ruby-Throated Dream Chaser,
made by Ann C. from a Patti Culea pattern

The second face in the banner was made in our Spring 2012 workshop with Leslie Molen.  Katie created this cloth-over-cloth face with inset eyes, and used a fantastic beaded fabric for the hat to set it off.  Here is the post about our class.

Princess Chun Woo, made by Katie in a workshop with Leslie Molen

The only male face in the banner is also needle-sculpted cloth.  Mary started this doll in our 2006 Elven King workshop with Judy Skeel.  Due to his strong nose and rather imperious expression, he ended up with a definite resemblance to the Harry Potter character Lucius Malfoy.

Lucius, made by Mary M. in a workshop with Judy Skeel

The center face in the banner was made by Ann R. in our 2011 workshop with Annie Hesse.  This is an in-progress picture taken during the workshop itself, but the doll did eventually get arms!  The fully-beaded face is a departure from our usual cloth faces, but was an awesome technique to learn.

Garden Party doll, made by Ann R. in a workshop with Annie Hesse.

The next picture is an example of cloth-over-clay construction.  The face was sculpted out of clay first, and then covered with fabric and colored.  Nita made this lovely doll during a workshop taught by our very own Leslie W.

GwynnEllen, made by Nita in a workshop with Leslie W.

The next-to-last photo in the banner is an old-fashioned embroidered face, sewn by Julie G. for a Gail Wilson doll.  Julie got to take a class with Gail in the spring of 2010, and made this adorable Lottie doll.  Gail is quite the queen of old-fashioned dollies, so we had to include one of her designs here.


Lottie, made by Julie G. in a class with Gail Wilson

The last doll was made by Andrea B., in a 2004 workshop with Christine Shively.  Our club has invited Christine to teach more than once, because her faces are so much fun to color.  This workshop included both The Countess doll and The Extraordinary Chair.  The flat face was colored using Prismacolor pencils, acrylic paint, and a fine-line Micron pen.

Gothic Princess, made by Andrea in a workshop with Christine Shively

Beaded Faces from Annie Hesse's class

Well, it has been a long time since the last post, due to the icky flu and other life complications, like trying to do homework for upcoming doll classes, and there are probably other things I should post first, but... we have fabulous pictures from our Annie Hesse workshop this weekend!


faces by Julie G., Bonnie, and Lynn

We just had Annie here for a 2-day workshop, and everybody finished the beaded face in class (although there may have been some midnight oil burning too!).  Most of us also got most if not all of the doll finished as well.


faces by Leslie, Martha, and Andrea

Annie taught a seated variation of her Spirit Walker doll; the doll is named Garden Party and has wonderfully extravagant ribbon skirts!  She had nice patterns printed up for us, but they are not up on her website yet.

faces by Nita and Liz

Many of the dolls were still armless at picture time, but Ann R. got her doll's arms attached in time to hold Barbara's beautiful-but-bodiless face for the group portrait!

faces by Mary Jane, Ann R., and Barbara

Annie was a great teacher, and we all had a really wonderful time with her!  She had traveled directly from teaching her Raggedy doll in Detroit (we should have asked her the name of the group there) to teaching in Indianapolis.  Even doing two different dolls in two cities in 5 days, she was totally organized.  AND, she remembered every person who had been in a class with her before, and asked about family members and projects and was just super to hang out with.