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My First Stop Motion Animation

December 12, 2011Film, Stop Motion Animation, Works in ProgressYour Name11 Comments

Life has been a bit mad around here (do I start every post that way? I can't remember anymore...) Last week, I had a 10-page final translation project due and M. and I were both sick. I managed to finish, and I'm so deeply relieved to be done with my class. Interesting as it was, it was so much work and it left me very little time for my much-loved activity of stuff-making, as every time M. took a nap, I was racing to finish translation assignments. I'm thinking that I won't continue my Translation degree (Mr. L will, however - do we really both need the exact same degree?) so that I have more time for writing and doll-making. This weekend, we also had a little birthday party for M., which was so much fun and a little emotional for me as I can't quite believe my sweet little baby is already a year old.

I'm still chipping away at my most recent group of dolls, but during my crazy week, I came to terms with the fact I won't be able to finish them in time to mail them out before Christmas unless I pull a few all nighters, something neither my eyes nor my sanity can withstand these days. I do apologize if anyone was planning to buy a doll as a gift, but I can't bring myself to spend so much time on the sculpting and eye-making just to rush through constructing the costumes and wigs. And the dolls won't stand for it!

Even though they're coming along slowly, I'm really happy with the faces and the new eyes have turned out. I'm officially in love with glass.

Over the weekend, I put together a very brief stop motion animation with the ball-jointed doll I made last summer and a small, antique porcelain doll head given to me by my dear friend Sue. It's my first try and quite primitive at that, but I thought I'd share it here. Even though I made lots of newbie mistakes, it was fun to play around with and exciting to find out I can do this with just my camera and my laptop. I used iMovie and this very simple tutorial.

Glass Eyes & Shrunken Heads

November 27, 2011Works in ProgressYour Name5 Comments

I've finally finished sculpting the heads for my most recent batch of dolls, which means I can start to sand and paint them and then assemble the bodies. Painting is my favourite part - it's when the character really emerges. And then the clothes, which is my second favourite part... I think I might have to postpone my plans to make Alexander McQueen-inspired clothing; I want to at least try to do him justice, and I'm running out of time to finish these dolls before Christmas. But I will definitely get there - I ordered the book Savage Beauty and was once again taken aback by his exquisite designs.

If you look closely at these photos (sorry - not my best!) you might be able to see that I used my own glass eyes! I'm so excited about these. They are still quite irregular - each one is different from the next - but I think it somehow suits my dolls, which are far from symmetrical.

Anyway, I'll be sure to get really good photos once they're done so that the detail of the eyes can be seen. I feel like I'm finally getting closer to making what I see in my mind's eye, which means it's taken me over 5 years just to get close. Practising patience...

Bits and Pieces

November 6, 2011Works in ProgressYour Name7 Comments

I finally feel like I'm making some progress with my latest batch of dolls, even though it's been ever so slow. But almost all the parts have been made and varnished and the assembly line i underway.

Some dainty feet and legs with real stockings...

I came up with a new technique for hands and am finally very happy with how they've turned out. It's very time-consuming, but worth it, I think.

The heads are still missing their faces (spooky!) because out of the most recent batch of eyes I made, only one turned out well enough to use. I'm going back to the glass studio this week to make more; I have to remind myself that it's okay to be bad at something in the beginning and that I will get better with practice, but I'm frustrated that I have so little control over this medium.

My translation class has turned out to be rather grueling, but I'm hoping to have these ladies ready in early December...gotta go string some legs together!

Survey Says...

October 13, 2011MiscellanyYour Name4 Comments

I had hoped to have some WIP photos ready for this post, but I'm not quite there...next time for sure. I was fresh out of ideas for post, so I stole the alphabet survey below from another blogger (thanks, Charis!)

A: Age ~ 36…hard to believe, as I remember being a kid and feeling so very sorry for my mom when she turned 36. I figured her life was basically over. But I'm happy to find that I don’t feel old at all…

B: Bed ~ Something I don’t get enough of these days…

C: Chore that you hate ~ Dishes. The WORST. Ever. I actually fantasize about the magical day we’ll have a dishwasher.

D: Dogs ~ We have cats, but I can’t wait to get a dog when we move to the country. (That’s when we’ll get our gorgeous dishwasher, too!)

E: Essential start to your day ~ English breakfast tea in my giant ‘Mrs. Darcy’ mug. (Yes, I have a secret Pride and Prejudice obsession. So girly.)

F: Favourite colour ~ For clothes, I like black, but I also love pink. And deep, wine-coloured reds.

G: Gold or silver ~ silver. My wedding ring is white gold. Can’t pull off gold at all.

H: Height ~ almost 5"9

I: Instruments you play ~ None. I’m not very musically inclined. I played trombone(!) in junior high and high school, but was mediocre at best.

J: Job title ~ writer, dolleteer?

K: Kids ~ a bee-a-oooootiful ten-month old boy who makes me laugh about a thousand times a day.

L: Live ~ Montréal, dans la belle province.

M: Mother's name ~ Suzie

N: Nickname ~ Fabe, Faberlicious.

O: Overnight hospital stays ~ One grueling night in the ER after I broke my knee. Almost a full week after my C-section, which didn’t go quite as planned.

P: Pet peeves ~ People who get in my way because they’re fondling their cellphones. People who nearly run me over because they’re fondling their cellphones. The general erosion of good manners and basic social etiquette. Call me grandma.

Q: Quote from a film ~ “I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed.” (Lloyd Dobler from Say Anything)

R: Right or left handed? ~ Right.

S: Siblings ~ Hannah, David, Jules, Lulu & Tisha (it’s complicated)

T: Time you wake up ~ 12:00am, 2:00am, 4:00am… you get the picture

U: Underwear ~ natural fibres, preferably no seams. I used to have a $5 limit, but have recently increased it to $12 if they’re really comfy.

V: Vegetable you hate ~ Is fennel a vegetable? And those miniature corn cobs in Chinese food – does anyone actually eat those?

W: What makes you run late: My husband. (I’m actually pretty punctual.)

X: X-rays you've had ~ my knee & teeth

Y: Yummy food that you make ~ Unbelievably good chocolate cake (recipe from my step-mom) with raspberry icing.

Z: Zoo animal ~ Zoos make me sad.

A New American Gothic

September 29, 2011Artwork (of Others)Your Name3 Comments

While visiting a friend this summer, I happened upon the work of Andrea Kowch in an art magazine and was blown away. Similarly to what loved about Jane Eyre, I'm drawn its restrained Gothic sensibility.
Her paintings are haunting and beautifully dark, but without being overbearingly so. Sometimes it seems like contemporary Gothic artwork is all about black corsets and striped tights; those more obvious elements are fun (I've used them in my own work many times) but lately I find myself drawn to more subtle expressions of the genre.

I hope to have some WIP shots of my latest dolls in my next post; my little guy (never a great sleeper) has been partying all night long this past week, so I feel like a zombie half the time, but I'm forcing myself to work on them because I was really missing having a creative outlet in my day to day life. Mind you, parenting feels pretty damn creative most days!

Jane Eyre

September 15, 2011Books, FilmYour Name10 Comments

Life is very busy these days, as Mr. L and I have both started school again (our translation degrees). I'm only taking one class, but must squeeze all the reading and writing into baby M's naps or after he's asleep for the night, and by that time, my brain is basically mush. I have started my next batch of dolls, but they are moving slowly...will post some WIP photos as soon as I have something worth documenting.

We did make time to watch a movie this past weekend: Cary Joji Fukunaga's adaptation of Jane Eyre, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I've professed my love for for Gothic literature on this blog before, and Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights is one of my favourites, but somehow I've made this far without ever having read Charlotte's Jane Eyre. Anyway, now I feel I must because I loved the movie. It had all the delicious elements of the Gothic I love - desolate English landscape, dark castle, brooding man, struggling-to-be-free woman - but without descending into caricature or ridiculing the genre, which is easy to do. It's actually quite understated and beautiful and Micheal Fassbender (who plays Rochester) is a serious honey.

I even enjoyed Mia Wasikowska; she put me off in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (so disappointing!) and I didn't really get the big fuss about The Kids are Alright, but I thought she was very well-cast here. So, another addition to my ever-lengthening list of books I don't have time to read. Oh, how it mocks me. If you have such a list, you might consider this in the meantime...

Home Again, Home Again

September 4, 2011TravelYour Name3 Comments

We're back after a month visiting our families in Maine and Cape Breton. So wonderful to see the sea, see the trees. I long to move to Cape Breton, so as much as I love visiting, it's always bittersweet because eventually I know I'll have to leave. Given that I've been fortunate enough to find a place on earth that's my own pastoral paradise, it feels profoundly wrong to leave it behind to return to a hot, humid city. Especially with a baby who seemed happier than he's ever been naked on the beach and crawling across endless grass. But we have a three year plan. We'll get home for good, one of these days.

While we were in Maine, we visited the Four Seasons Farm, with the most spectacular vegetable beds and these beautiful flowers.

But my dad's lilies, pictured above, can rival any professional. (He was also the town zucchini champ three years in a row, ahem.) And he even let baby M. pull apart some of his lovely roses.

Many days at the beach, like this one where my little love was whisked off by my sweet sister, gone to meet the sea-babies...

Stuffed Cat, Silly Cat

July 24, 2011Dolls (of Others), ToysYour Name6 Comments

Last weekend, some friends came over for lunch and brought baby M. the most charming little stuffed cat: his name is Serge and he comes from Raplapa, a boutique in Montreal that sells lovely handmade dolls and animals.
They sell their toys at various boutiques throughout North America, Europe and Australia, but you can also buy from them online. Serge is beautifully made (he came with a little story), and these little fellows below are also available:

Speaking of funny-looking cats, our little black friend got his annual summer haircut, which never gets old. We do it because his fur is so absurdly thick, it spares him much heat-related misery, but it also happens to be one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you might have seen variations on these photos in the past, but I can't resist any more than he can resist climbing into any ridiculously small space.

Alexander

July 9, 2011Artwork (of Others), FashionYour Name6 Comments

I didn't post about it at the time, but I was very saddened by Alexander McQueen's suicide last year. Though I spend most of my time in jeans and Adidas, I love extravagant fashion. To me, McQueen was an artist; his clothing was dramatic and structured, romantic, dark and sometimes aggressive. Often breathtaking.
Lately, I've been trying to think of ways to challenge myself with my dolls because for a while I felt I was in a bit of rut. I want to experiment with the structure of the dolls themselves (I have a few new ideas for joints), but I also want to do more interesting things with clothing. So, I've started my next group of dolls with the incredible architecture of McQueen's clothing in mind. It seems almost too bold to say so, but I'll get bored if I don't keep trying new things.

If you're anywhere near NYC, there's a McQueen retrospective at the Met that looks amazing. Savage Beauty is on until August 7th and it emphasizes both his exceptional designs and his skill as a craftsman of bespoke clothing. If, like me, you can't there, the site for the exhibit has great photos and video (both of the exhibit itself and footage of some of McQueen's runway shows).

The Alexander McQueen website also has video of all his runway shows, which were as dramatic as the clothing itself. 'The Girl Who Lived in a Tree' (Fall/ Winter 2008) is a personal favourite, and you can find it under the runway archives. I don't know yet which dresses I'll look to for inspiration, but I'm so excited to try!

p.s. Thank you so much to everyone who commented and emailed with kind words about the Black Swan dolls - they have all been adopted and are off to their new homes in Toronto,the UK and Australia!

Black Swan Shop Update: July 2nd

June 27, 2011Ye Olde Shoppe UpdatesYour Name1 Comment

Mail service has resumed, so I will updating my Big Cartel shop this Saturday, July 2nd at 2pm EST/ 11 PST. (You can convert this time to a different time zone by clicking here.) All the dolls (photos, descriptions and prices) can be viewed in the shop now.

Update on Hold due to Postal Strike

June 22, 2011Music, Ye Olde Shoppe UpdatesYour Name1 Comment

Just a quick note to let you know that, while the newsletter is all ready to go and the doll listings are finished, I'm waiting to announce a date for the update until the Canada Post strike is over. It looks like mail might resume here by the end of the week, but I want to be on the safe side to be sure that no one is waiting too long for a doll.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a video by my favourite new band, Mountain Main. I bought their beautiful album, Made the Harbor, while I was pregnant with my lovely and it still makes me feel all warm and fuzzy whenever I listen to it. I've always fantasized that I might sing gorgeous, lush harmonies in front of an olf-fashioned microphone, surrounded by candles while holed up in a sweet little house. Sadly, I can't sing. (The same reason I'll never share the stage with Nancy Wilson and rock out to 'Crazy on You', but that's a different fantasy...)

Swan Lake Dolls

June 12, 2011Dolls (Mine), Ye Olde Shoppe UpdatesYour Name11 Comments

I've been away from blogland for a while, but I return bearing treats...I have finally finished and photographed all of my Swan Lake dolls! Completing these five dolls felt a little like a marathon at times; gone are the days when I could sit and work for hours at a time. Now I sneak in an hour here, twenty minutes there. So, while spending time with my babe is my absolute priority, I'm pretty proud to have finally finished these, despite being way behind my projected schedule. ('Schedule' is a word that is beginning to seem preposterous to me!)But enough babbling and onto photos:

~click photos to enlarge~

Over the next week, I'll be making up the doll listings with descriptions, sizes and prices for each doll. I'm going to wait until the listings and the newsletter are done before announcing the date of the update because I don't want to get stuck racing to finish things at the last minute. I'll provide links to the listings in the Shop Update announcement. Remember that if you would like to receive my newsletter, you can sign up by filling out the badge in the upper right hand corner of this blog, just below the banner. I send out a brief notice a few days before each update, as well as a notice just before the dolls are added to the shop.

The Evolution of a Glass Eye

May 17, 2011Artwork (Mine), Things I did Today (or Yesterday), Works in ProgressYour Name10 Comments

In my last post I mentioned a mysterious workshop I was slated to take last weekend...it was flameworking! Also known as lampwork and torchwork, it basically involves working with rods or tubes of glass over a small, table-top torch. The workshop was so fascinating, but because I'm still waking up several times a night to feed my dear one, I managed to forget my camera both days. Here are shots of the various stages of my attempts at glass eyes taken at home:

Here we have the victims of thermal shock (eyes that cooled down too quickly, causing them to crack).

And some other early disasters...

Getting there, but still mostly heinous.

Closer...(the two on the far right were made by the very nice instructor, Gérard, who had never made eyes before but made two beautiful ones right out of the gate).

Ah! It's amazing what you can learn in a single weekend. While these are far from perfect, it's not really perfection that I'm aiming for. I love the little irregularities, and the fact that molten glass is a medium that you can't entirely predict. The way the different colours swirl and combine isn't something you can control, so each one is unique. By the end of the course, I actually came close to making the kind of eyes I would have to pay a pretty penny for if I were to order them for my dolls.

Because I forgot my camera, these are not my arms, but just a shot to give you an idea of what the set-up looks like.

Getting set up to do flamework in one's own home is quite expensive, and I'm not crazy about the idea of having tanks of explosive gases in my apartment! But I can go to the studio where I took the course and rent their facilities, so I will definitely get there when I can. At the slow rate I'm going with dolls, I hope to have my own glass eyes in the next batch of dolls that come after the ballerinas.

Speaking of the ballerinas, I apologize to anyone who's hoping to adopt one - they're taking me longer than I'd planned. I'm hoping to finish them up in the next two weeks.

Learning to Be, Letting Go of to Do

May 6, 2011How to be a Domestic Godess, Works in ProgressYour Name11 Comments

Fundamentally, I've always been a pretty lazy, selfish and somewhat melancholic person. I like to stare out of windows and contemplate memory while listening to depressing folk music and tuning out much of the world. But I also fear getting to the end of my life and realizing that I didn't try hard enough, so the last few years have been busy for me. I got a Master's degree, started a second, wrote a novel and started my own business. I took great pleasure in writing long 'To Do' lists and crossing off each item. These days, if I clean the bathroom or get to the post office and mail a single letter, it feels like a big accomplishment. These days, I'm learning to be with my beautiful baby boy and not get anxious if little else gets done in a day. I'm learning many things:

That tracing the outline of his nose and watching him while he sleeps is more important than finishing the laundry.

That making him laugh his so much better than keeping on top of emails and housework.

That I'm not as selfish and lazy as I always believed myself to be.

That I can be simultaneously more exhausted and happier than ever before.

So very tired. So very grateful.

On a more prosaic note, I am still making (very slow) progress on my Swan Lake dolls. Mr. L has had a promotion at work, which is great except that is has meant that for the past several weeks he has had to work weekends as well as during the week. Also, I ordered some supplies especially for these dolls that never showed up, so it looks like I'll have to order them again. And in the evenings, when the babe is finally asleep and dinner has been made and eaten and general tidying is done, it can be pretty hard to get motivated to sit and focus on the construction of very tiny things. All this is conspiring against the timely completion poor little swans!

But at least now they all have handmade paper bodices (so pretty - why didn't I do this earlier?) and most have tutus. The tutus are epic - each one took hours - but I think the effect is much nicer than just making a gathered skirt, which is what I had planned to do before I found the technique for the style seen above. I won't get to finish them this weekend, because I'm taking a top-secret workshop. But I'm hoping I'll be allowed to take photos and all will be revealed in my next post. At very least, I'll have photos of what I'm going to be learning to make...

Doll Swans

April 15, 2011Works in ProgressYour Name14 Comments

Several of you guessed right away that I was referring to the movie Black Swan in my last post as that which has inspired my latest dolls. When it was listed as an Academy Award Nominee, it was given the category 'ballet psychodrama' - how could it not be great? It's quite absurd and over the top in some ways, but if you surrender to the melodrama, it's thoroughly awesome. I didn't like Aranofsky's filmmaking style when dealing with heroin addiction in Requiem for a Dream - a dark, heavy subject matter treated in such a heavy-handed, melodramatic way - it felt too self-serious and relentlessly punishing. But that style coupled with ballet as the subject matter - somehow the contrast was really appealing.

The ballerina dolls are coming along slowly. I don't know if I'll have them done by the end of April as I'd hoped - my little monkey has had a few very rough nights sleep-wise, so I've been forcing myself to go to bed early rather than work on dolls so that I'm not a complete wreck. But I've really enjoyed spending more time on the faces, and I've made real pointe shoes for each doll. I use silk for the slipper and sole and silk embroidery ribbon for the ties.

They literally take about 10-15 times longer to make than a painted shoe, but I think it's worth it. For ballerinas, aren't shoes half the point? (Oh, bad pun! NOT intended.) I'm sorry for the quality of the photos - I didn't have time to get my macro lens out, but I'll be sure to get some better shots once the dolls are finished.

Dance Me to the End of Love

April 4, 2011Works in ProgressYour Name13 Comments

I was quite excited to finish sculpting the faces of my five most recent dolls this weekend. I hope to have them finished by late April, with an update following shortly thereafter, but of course it's more up to my dear little M. than it is to me. He is a champion micro-napper - 30 to 40 minutes at a time - so mostly I work on dolls in the evenings after he's gone to sleep for the night.

I decided to make five larger dolls this time around, rather than 8-10 smaller ones. The smaller ones were fun, but I was starting to miss the greater involvement of a larger doll, and the detail in sculpting and costuming that are hard to achieve in the very small scale. Sculpting the faces and making each one truly distinct from the others has been my favourite aspect of this latest batch. You might have noticed that the eyes are smaller than usual on these dolls; I thought it might be interesting to play around with proportion a little. Unfortunately, it's very overcast here today so these photos aren't great, but they'll give you a rough idea.

Although there will only be five dolls available this time around, they do share a theme; it was inspired by a movie that came out last year that I particularly loved. I'm sure most of you who follow my blog can guess - you probably know my tastes by now! But here's a big clue, just in case...

Cabin Fever Triptych

March 23, 2011Artwork (of Others), Melancholia, Things I did Today (or Yesterday)Your Name5 Comments

For the first few months, east coast Canadian winters can be quite lovely. Snow falls on the land and every last branch sparkles. People like me - somehwat hermetic by nature - have an excuse to stay inside and curl up under blankets and read books and do crafty things with impunity...

and the cats curl up with each other and sleep for days.

But by February, even I'm bloody sick of winter. Come March, I'm ready to climb the walls and the cats....

feline warfare reigns.

Last week was beautiful and sunny and I took my little fellow out for a long walk every day and 'Spring, spring, spring' repeated in my mind like a mantra and it was glorious. Then two days ago, this:

It was lovely to look at, but too horrible to contemplate. And that's winter in Quebec; just when you've let your guard down, one more snowstorm, just to remind you how silly you were to forget Every. Other. Winter. But the sun is back, so hope pokes back out of the ground...

Now let me try to use my blog for good rather than whining, and let you know about a very talented young musician and dear boy, Max. Max is my friend Katie's nephew, and I have fond memories of sitting in the grass in Cape Breton this past summer with a bunch of friends on a perfect summer day while Max played guitar and sang for us and we were all lulled into some kind of dream state. If you feel so inclined, please take a few seconds and vote for Max to win the CBC's School of Rock Competition. You can find the link to his song, "Morning Lark", here. With a name like Maximillian Cooper-Flint, he has to be a rock star.

Beautiful Anastacia

March 5, 2011Artwork (of Others), Dolls (of Others)Your Name8 Comments

I'm the very proud (and lucky!) new owner of a doll by Christine Alvarado, aka. Dubuhdu Designs. I've been following Christine's work for a few years now and it has been fascinating to watch it evolve. As you can see, her dolls are exquisite and her attention to detail makes me quite envious...I've never had the patience for things like beading or handmade flowers, but I'm inspired enough by Anastacia to try.

If you're familiar with Christine's work, you probably know that her dolls fly off the cyber-shelves. So I feel sooo lucky to have won this lovely girl as part of the recent One World, One Heart event. Christine's was the only draw I entered and I was one of 760 entrants - whoot!! The last time I won something was about ten years ago when I won $400 at bingo in Cape Breton and got lots of dirty looks from the regulars (my stepmom and I were mere dilletantes, giggling away while the numbers were called out and scooping up a pot we hadn't paid into and generally not taking things nearly seriously enough...)

Photo credit (all images): Christine Alvarado

Thank you so much, Christine!

Bisous!

Poltroons, Beware!

February 28, 2011BooksYour Name9 Comments

Where has February gone? These days I'm functioning on about half my pre-baby brain power, such as it was, and I have almost no concept of time. I was shocked to see that it's been over three weeks since I last posted. M. had a few fussy weeks when even his once-loved sling couldn't console him, which made me so sad, and every spare I had was consumed by the more mundane aspects of life like laundry and dishes. But it seems to have passed and he's now settled into a sleep routine, which makes for a much happier baby. He even goes to bed at a regular hour, which I never expected to happen so early, so last night I started a few new dolls and it felt great to get back to it.

Back when baby M was just a brand-new little squishy and slept all the time, I read a great, non-fiction book called In the Heart of the Sea. It's about a 19th century whaleship, the Essex, that was rammed by a sperm whale and later inspired Herman Mellville to write the most excellent Moby Dick. After the ship sank, some of the crew survived over three onths at sea in the smaller whaling boats, but many perished from very unpleasant things such as starvation and cannibalism. I have a bit of thing for hight seas adventure tales. They strike me as very romanitc and exciting (well, not the gruesome, eating-your-shipmates parts). But I know they were most likely quite miserable most of the time and you couldn't pay me to go to sea. Like most 'exciting' things, I'd much prefer to read about it than do it because I'm essentially a pretty dull, cowardly hermit at heart.

So if you're in the mood for a good read, I heartily recommend both these books, and even The Perfect Storm - which was a very bad movie - is an interesting read. Not the most inspired writing, very some very interesting accounts of fishing and weather and life in New England fishing communities. We're still in the clutches of deep winter here, so a little escapism is very useful...

Cara Carmina

February 2, 2011Artwork (of Others), Dolls (of Others)Your Name5 Comments

I'm stealing a moment while Mr. L has a sleeping M. in the sling to share a favourite dollmaker. I wanted to get my sweet boy something special, even though he's still a bit young to play with dolls (but not to young to be indoctrinated). And while I've long admired the work of Norma Andreu, aka. Cara Carmina, I finally had an excuse to buy one of her lovely, colourful dolls. (Not that one needs an excuse for dolls!)

This was a custom order, and Norma was such a sweetheart to work with. You can choose a name you'd like embroidered inside the heart on the doll's shirt (which can also be a star or a cloud). She also makes adorable girl dolls - I'll be getting one of those next. And, coincidentally, she lives right here in Montreal - in the neighbourhood right next to mine, in fact. We agreed that some day when the city isn't buried in snow, we'll get together and talk dolls and fabric...

photo credit: Norma Andreu