A little something new…..

A little whiile back a dear dog friend of mine were talking about different things and she asked me if I had ever thought of knitting doll sweaters.  Huh?  Doll sweaters?  She told me that there was this world of dolls that were collectible and handmade sweaters sold for a fair amount.  She sent me a link to the sweaters and I told her that I didn't think I would have the patience to knit such small items.

What caught my eye however were the amazing customized Blythe dolls.  When I was a child I loved dolls.  I mean I really loved them, so when I had 4 daughters I was thrilled to have a reason to buy beautiful dolls, but do you think any one of them liked dolls? Nope, not a one…well, that's not quite true, Stacey did enjoy them for a spell, but the others….yuck is what their opinion of dolls were.  I finally came to the conclusion that it was me who loved the dolls and if I liked one, I should just get it for me…LOL

I vaguely remember the Blythe dolls when I was in Junior high school…more the commercial than the doll itself.  Kenner produced them for a year and they never did that well and you can see why in this commercial.

They were pretty creepy looking weren't they? When I first saw some of these customized ones, I thought the same thing….creepy and scary, but as I looked a little closer at more images such as this amazing custom girl, I was a bit smitten.  There really are some creepy custom ones and then there are some that are so beautiful, such as this soulful girl.

She is for sale on ebay here.

I know that my days as a wool dyer are limited due to the condition of my back.  Ken and I have talked about different directions for me such as teaching classes and maybe scaling back a bit to just a yarn club and store updates if things don't improve over the next few years, so I am keeping an open mind to other things as well.

When I was a child, in addition to dolls, I loved art.  I used to draw those art school adverts that would be in the back of some magazines, you know what I mean…the turtle head or pirate head, etc (I am giving away my age).  I always dreamed that someday my mother would let me send one in and actually some of the ones I did were pretty good, but those were childhood dreams.

Seeing these dolls brought me full circle right back to those days, which were just about when these dolls first came out in 1972 (I was too old for dolls then).  Sooo….I have purchased some tools and maybe one or two pretty customized dolls and maybe one un-customized one to play with.  Custom hand dyed hair made from alpaca and mohair?  (lots of that floating around here) Hand painted and sculpted faces?  Custom sewn clothes?  Certainly not something you could make a living from, but still……..intriquing.  A reason to still play with dolls even when you are grown up.  Sometimes you really can go back to your youth just in a different way.

This lovely Autumn girl lives with me now.  She comes to me from Spain and her creator is lachicadellunar
. (these are her pictures used with her permission). She has done an amazing job creating such a sweet, fall fairy.  Autumn has lovely painted leaves on her sleepy eyes and along the back of her neck.  It was hard for me to resist her with Autumn being my favorite time of year and coming from a family of freckled faces, I just loved her.

I see all kinds of new things floating around in my mind like fairy dust….