Hope

Well, I finally finished the first of the series I am working on." Hope" was my favorite so naturally she demanded to be completed before her sisters. I am pleased with her, as with all of my dolls she had a few surprises for me. I made her a gorgeous set of vintage lace wings and she announced quite loudly that she DID NOT want to be an Angel, she wanted to be a Bride. I've found it's futile to argue, so a Bride she is. An Edwardian Era bride to be exact. A beautiful bride if I do say so myself. (Ok, probably a little bit of bias here.) I have her up on my Etsy shop hopefully someone else will love her as much as I do!

This was the first doll I have made with a gusset head. I have to admit I was a bit nervous going into this but Kate Erbach has great patterns that haven't led me wrong yet. So I took a deep breath and sewed my first gusset. Easy peasy. I don't know what I was so worried about. I do like the look of the more three dimensional face that the gusset allows. I'll have to do a few more now that I know I can handle it.  I've added a link to the Treasure Keeper pattern that I used for "Hope"

When starting these dolls I really didn't expect them to take so long without having legs, and the costuming being part of the doll. However, using vintage and antique materials I found it took a lot of time to stabilize them so that they will not be too delicate and cause the doll to fall apart in any way. I put at least the same amount of time into them that I usually do on my dolls. I know I am too much of a perfectionist with all of my art but I can't seem to get away from it.

I have "Love's head finished and drawn, now that I have "Hope" done, I plan on working on her next. The red velvet heart is still bothering me so I am going to try a pink one, it won't be velvet but I do have some nice pink vintage satin that I think will work up nice. I really want the emphasis on these girls to be on their fabrics and their face so I plan on trying to keep their head pieces the same neutral white as their gowns. It is proving to be a bit of a challenge, but a fun one!