carole pitt

So for Steve’s birthday doll I wanted to created something a bit more masculine.  After a bit of thought I decided to base his doll on some design ideas that he developed for Vaudeville Hippie in the early days based on zombie jugglers.

As mentioned in an earlier post, Steve and I enjoy practising circus skills, which includes the art of poi spinning.  Now am I not sure, but I think we were heavily into The Walking Dead at the time, which sparked the inspiration for the zombie juggler range.

To create the artwork, Steve whole heartedly threw himself into this project, posing with a range of circus props in different zombie stances and facial expressions.

These were then hand drawn and then adapted in Illustrator and Photoshop with filters so that they could be prepared for a silk screen print for T-Shirt printing.

I tried to…

This fairy princess, Liliella, was created for my cousin’s youngest daughter Lily. She is based on the final, most complex pattern, ‘Titiana’ from my Jan Horrox book.  This was definitely a challenge and took a lot longer to create than the previous dolls because of the moveable joints for the arms, elbows, hips and knees.  However, I enjoyed the challenge and the process of making all the intricate details for the doll.

The colour scheme was developed from this original piece of textiles that I created for my degree over ten years ago.  Initially I dyed the fabric pale blue, then added red dye on top of the blue to create a bleed effect and purple dye to add texture.  The purple and pink stripes were created through a hand cut screen print.  Finally I stitched basic linear petal shapes over the purple textured areas.  It was nice revisiting an…

This OOAK cloth doll is Gwyneth and has been inspired by a Welsh doll, wearing traditional Welsh costume.  She is a part of my birthday challenge and  was created for my stepmother, Jenny.

I chose a Welsh theme because my dad and Jenny have just moved from the Welsh village of Caersws to the Welsh town of Twywn, in the county of Gwynnedd (which gave inspiration to her name of Gwyneth) and Saint David’s Day coincided with my decision making of the type of cloth doll I would create for Jenny.

This is my modern interpretation of a Welsh doll and I had to adapt the look slightly to fit in with the fabrics and supplies that I already had.  I even had the little wooden daffodil brooch holding Gwyneth’s shawl together!

Gwyneth before I made the traditional Welsh hat

Again, I based the body on a body pattern by Jan Horrox’s,‘Anastasia’

Introducing Elizabeth, a cloth doll for my auntie, Carole (Pitt) and author of the DI Elizabeth Jewell  murder mystery series.  She is named after Carole’s main character and is the reason she is sat on a note pad!

Elizabeth is based the Anastasia pattern by Jan Horrox, which I dressed and adorned in a completely different way to the original.  Elizabeth is an independent, professional  woman who likes to wear simple, but smart clothes and therefore is dressed in slim fitting jeans, a black polo top and a fitted tweed jacket.

Layered hair and fringe, wrapped in a gingham scarf complete her smart, casual look.

I adapted the jacket pattern from Patti Medaris Culea’s Helen doll in the Creative Cloth Doll Collection book.  This was by far the most fiddly item to make out of the whole project, even more so than turning the fingers.  It was awkward to attach the…

I first tried cloth doll making about three years ago when I made a friend a cat doll based on one of her favourite youtube animations Meow it was incredibly fiddly but I enjoyed the process none the less.  This initial success, was followed by a miniature dachshund for Steve’s parents one Christmas and a circus cat for a friend who was moving away.

We therefore discussed the idea of designing and making dolls, which would have printed versions that could be applied to shirts etc as apart of the Vaudeville Hippie brand.

I attempted the doll above about a year later, however I just felt frustrated that although I could make the dolls, it was a struggle and I felt that I was not quite doing it correctly so the idea was put on hold.

Gladly things have changed and as I mentioned in my previous post ‘2015 the Year of…