Playing with Dolls

I wanted to post some photos of a super fun little project I completed earlier this year.

Each January our EGA chapter hosts a workshop that does something requiring a needle and thread. . . but usually a little outside of traditional embroidery.

This year our guest teacher was beading instructor Cathy Helmers, who taught a 3-dimensional beading class.  You can see some of Cathy's work here.  We could choose either a little fantasy animal (called a snootie) or an art doll.

The stuffed fabric doll and snootie forms were premade (complete with the cabochon doll face), and we were each allowed to select from a great selection of fun beads.

I chose the doll was thrilled that I completed her over the winter.  Here she is in all her glory:

Back view (love the wild and crazy hair!):

And here's a super close up that shows the underlying fabric.  Deciding what to do was a challenge for me (at heart I'm a counted thread embroiderer).  But I'm really happy with the large diagonal motif across the front and back.  I think the brown textured beads were the key here.  They provided EXACTLY the right amount of color and texture contrast.  And I went all out and added the tiny pearls all over where there were little white dots on the underlying fabric.