Pincushion Swap

I made two pincushions for a pincushion swap for Doll Street Dreamers which is an online doll club of which I'm a member. I found after I'd made them that one was to be a doll and the other an animal but because the sewing machine was complete they let me send it.
These are the pincushions that I sent:

I received a dog and little Matryeshka doll pincushion in return.

Dolls for Houston Quilt Show 2015

Here are my dolls for the Houston Quilt Show this year.

The theme for the Gypsy Challenge doll this year was "Witches, Angels, and Demons". I chose to make a witch doll. This is Owleena Dawn...

And this is my original entry for the invitational part of the show. She is the "Life Gardener"

They returned successfully from Houston only a little worse for the trip. We straightened them out:

Hoffman Challenge doll 2015 - Elf Star Taegg

This year's Hoffman Challenge doll is most likely also my last. Hoffman has discontinued the cloth doll part of their yearly challenge and have added Home Decor. So unless they change their minds this is my last entry and he did make the traveling team!!

This is Elf Star Taegg:

He does have a story:
My doll is Elf Star - Taegg. He is an idol in the Elf World. All he really wanted was to be was a minstrel like his father and grandfather before him. But the Elf public love and adore him - he shouldn't have put up the videos on YouTube. He is now famous and followed by fans and the Elf paparazzi everywhere he goes- who knew they had these problems in their world also! His fans like to emulate Taegg by wearing green contact lenses and Hoffman capes lined in gold lamé are now all the rage...
--
I made his guitar you can see it at the bottom of this image:

Taegg is now traveling throughout the US for a year so we won't see him again until September 2016.

I really like him the pictures don't do him justice..

The Travelers

I made dolls for the Doll Street Dreamers online doll group's display at Artistic Figures In Cloth & Clay (AFICC). This art doll convention is held every two years in Ohio.
The Doll Street Dreamers display them is "Traveling Dolls" with a 2" to 1' scale. It could be travelers at any time in any era.
I've collected nativity sets for years and always wanted to make my own so I finally did!

 "The Travelers"

This is my depiction of how I imagine the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem may have been. I think they needed to take some supplies and hopefully they did since it was several years before they returned to Nazareth.

Views from all sides...

Here are some close up shots:

Mary's face was difficult. I made several heads. I like this one best
of the ones I made but it's still not what I imagined...

I like Joseph's face. We don't know the fashion back then but I like this.

I made this little donkey first
but he was too small to carry Mary..

This is the larger donkey.
She was more difficult for some reason.
I wish I'd gotten a good shot of her face.

I adapted Arlene Original Designs "Ruby" pattern for Mary. I adapted the 2 3/4" donkey pattern "Thistle" by JoAnn Repchuk. I designed Joseph..

I had a mishap today when drilling holes in the base. I have a new Fiskars manual drill and decided to drill the holes myself instead of having my husband do so. I put a magazine under the board but drilled too long and put a hole in my dining room table.

In progress...