"A Penny For Your Thoughts" Penny Doll
Challenge Results:
Beginners:
First Place--Cindy Alldredge
This is Hilda Rose. She is named for my
grandmother. I tried to copy the coat and hat my grandmother is wearing in
an early photo of her. I researched and found that the coat was a popular
style in the early 1920s. I also found out that it was very stylish to cover
your forehead and that is why you see the cloche hats and others such as my
grandmother's which go down to the eyebrows. My grandmother farmed a half
acre of sugar beets on her stepfather's farm and cleaned houses to earn
money to go to college to get her teaching degree, then she taught in a
one-room schoolhouse. I know that she worked hard to get the coat and I'm
sure she was proud of it so I wanted to honor her by making the doll in her
honor. When I got the pattern and saw all of the pattern pieces I was
nervous but I took one step at a time and I did it!
Second Place--Kristy Effinger
My doll's name is Abigail, and she lives in the
year 1850. She is dressed to attend a high society ball, in an aqua (to go
with her eyes) three-tiered ball gown made from Crêpe de Chine that is the
current style featured in Godey's Lady Book, with two kinds of lace, voile
sleeves and neck trim. The bodice of the dress is fully lined. She's also
wearing a cameo, tied with a satin ribbon around her neck. I want to thank,
not only Claire Pruitt for her lovely doll pattern, but also G.P. (Teri)
Jones for her costume inspiration from her doll book, "An Easy-to-Make Godey
Doll." Even though I had to alter the bodice of the dress considerably to
fit her, I learned a lot about costume construction. Abigail herself is made
from Southern Belle muslin, with wool roving hair. Her face was inspired by
other dolls of the period, with large eyes and a tiny mouth. I hope you
enjoy her as much as I enjoyed making her, and watching her come to life!
Third Place--Dottie Beckstrom
My doll is made of craft velour, hair of yarn,
embellished with silk flowers and face painted with acrylics. Her name is
Flora because I used a floral theme for her. She loves to frolic outdoors in
the garden. The various fabrics in her costume all have flowers of some
sort.
Intermediate:
First Place--Rita
Hernandez
"Florence ready for the Carnival"--her costume
is 99% hand stitched. Florence's original name was supposed to be Florinda
(which means beatiful flower) but when I first send the pictures of the
doll, Yahoo kept on returning me the pictures as undeliverable, and in my
frustation I typed Florence, so I guess the doll insisted her name was
Florence LOL, it is eerie sometimes how some things work. I went to my doll
club and usually after the meeting we have an exchange of fabrics, trims
etc. and do you know there was a good amount of fabric scraps with large
flower designs, left over from someone's upholstery business, so I knew just
then what the Penny doll would wear, needless to say everything fit exactly.
The flower on the sleeves fit perfectly, the pieces on the vest as you can
see fit just right even the head piece fit which is a large shapely leaf, no
pattern needed. The story continues with the trims I used two (4 yds pack of
rick rack) which I twisted to make a different, more formal look, and
embellished with matching glitter dots, so, this top skirt has a total of
over 16 yds of trims...I estimate there are more than 25 yrds of different
kind of trims on her outfit, there is five different size beads, three
difference kinds of sequences, three different kind of metalic threads,
etc...except for the underwear most of the outfit is handstitched. Her shoes
are lined with suede as well as her face mask...her hat was formed with wire
then complettly beaded and then embelished with blue and gold trims with
feathers and finally lined. The doll is made out of pima cotton, her hair is
mohair which I curled and set with hair gel, she has real eyelashes. The
process took about two month of afternoons and evenings.
Second Place--Roxanne Sienkiewicz
Mimi, was made with hand dyed muslin. Her face
was colored with acrylic paints and Prisma color pencils with real people
blush. 3D Crystal Lacquer created her fingernails and the sparkle in her
eye. The upsweep hair-do was made with purple roving to match her feather
hat and silk gown. Silk pantaloons complete the two piece dress accessorized
with a beaded handbag that hold her pennies.
Third Place--Jody Kieffer
Her name is Lady Ophelia Barclay-Smythe. I
appliqued Ultra-Suede for her shoes with a gold buckle. Her hair is linen
top, which I put on her using directions from Susan Parris in Doll Crafter &
Costuming magazine. She even has earrings and necklace.
Advanced:
First Place--Deanna
Hogan
My penny doll is made from the original
doesuede fabric. I thought with a knit, I'd be able to give her chin a
little more prominence. I painted the visible body parts with Messy Mix
(about 4 coats), gesso, and acrylic paint. She has sewn and stuffed (muslin)
ears. Her hair is Tibetan lamb on the hide. Her clothing is removable.
Second Place--Judi Ward
My Penny Doll's name is Belle, short for
Isabelle. She is dressed for the 1927 era using the 1927 Sears Catalog as a
guide. She was a fun project and the wiggly rayon dress fabric "near bout"
drove me to rink!
Third Place--Stephanie Novatski
I named my doll Penny Bowles sort of like the
character in Caberet though the correlation didn't occur to me until I set
her hat on her head. The fabric the doll called for was cotton drill which
is just a bit lighter weight than canvas or duck. The color of the drill was
natural and I didn't dye it. It was so light it spoke to me of Goth or
SteamPunk. Her jacket and skirt can be removed. Her lace overskirt, mitts
and neckpiece are from vintage lace. She has a silk with burnt edges under
skirt and a black with red sparkle tulle petticoat. The soles of her shoes
which are not visible were sculpted from apoxy sculpt. Her boots are faux
shiny leather.
33" Doll Category:
First Place--Judy
Jacques
Patches is a gypsy girl. She sells her flowers
from her little wooden wagon. She wears layers of clothes, and loves orange.
Her boots are painted and she has sewn laces, also has lace at the top of
the boots. She has an orange and black stripe onesy type bloomer under
garment. A skirt with a patch work waist band, same as the patch work on the
skirt, lace on bottom of her skirt. She has a blouse with a patchwork belt
at the waist of the blouse, vintage hand made lace on the bottom of the
blouse. Her vest is reversible with vintage lace on the pockets. Her lama
hair is tied with a bright orange with black dot ribbon. She has a paper
clay sculpted oil painted face.
She loves her hat. Her Auntie knitted it for
her.The flower in her hat is hand made from antique handmade lace sewn into
a flower.
Second Place--Diane Mansil
"Laura Katherine patiently awaits the arrival
of her beau."
Materials: body is made from unbleached muslin.
Hair is curly acrylic faux hair, stitched and glued in place and tied with a
burgundy satin ribbon. Lace and hands are needle sculpted. Features are
painted with acrylic craft paints. Eyelashes are made from eyelash yarn
trimmed and shaped, then stitched and glued in place. All clothing is made
from recycled materials. Hat is a purple cotton doll's hat found in a thrift
store, covered with a shirred section of a white sheer curtain. Silk flowers
were pulled from several retired bouquets. Lace blouse is constructed from a
vintage lace dresser scarf. Green & cream rayon print was an old curtain, as
was the rose print cotton and the purple and white striped cotton/poly. More
of the white sheer curtain was used at the back of the skirt where the
fringed and draped portions were layered below the bustle. White cotton
pantaloons are trimmed with eyelet lace and the white cotton bustle is
attached with white satin ribbon. A sheer black scarf was used for the
stockings. Black gloss craft paint was used to create shoes, which were
finished with brown painted "soles" and gold buckles made from closures of
some type that I found in a jar of old buttons. Her pink enameled heart
necklace was originally an ankle bracelet.
Third Place Tied--Pam Davis
My doll's name is Daidaiiro (Japanese for
"orange"). She 33 inches tall....is basically self dressed...is sporting a
"swing" skirt, gloved hands and tie-up style boots!
I love making these dolls; the best feature of
the pattern is the versatility of the pattern and the jointing. The feature
that will change in the next dolls will be to add ears and stretch out those
fingers! I really enjoyed this opportunity to expand my horizons...Good for
Claire Pruitt; may she continue to make patterns!
Third Place Tied--Sharon Hall