Crocheted Goddess of Upcycling doll

A couple of days ago, I found two pillowcases at a yard sale. I posted about them and how challenging I thought it might be to upcycle them.

They were quite extraordinarily ugly, because of their odd combination of elements. The centers are  wonderful embroidered flowers, and they are actually the reason why I rescued the pillow cases from the ‘free- please take away’ box.  I am thinking about how I will upcycle them, and have  blogged about using photoshop to sketch out possibilities.

Separating the neon orange polyester fabric

from the embroidery made them both look better.

I began to see the potential of

the orange fabric.

Sadly, so did Ms Kitty.

She was determined to

keep possession of the

pillow case.

I made her a nest on

her favorite bench

and then took my scissors to

the orange fabric.

It didn’t take long

to turn the pillow case

into Fyarn (fabric strip yarn).

I was feeling inspired

to get out  a copy of

my book:

Our Lady of the Hours

and my crochet hook

and get to work,

crocheting

A Goddess of Upcycling Doll.

I started crocheting with just the Fyarn,

but it was flat and uninteresting, so I tore

it out and started over again.

I added several strands of silk, rayon and cotton, as

well as a strand of upholstery weight sewing thread.

Oh much better!

I used a slice of wood

that I had cut from a

pruned branch from our apple tree

for her face.

I drew and then  burned the image of

her face and added some shading.

I glued it to her head.

Then, I thought about her crown….

Perhaps, I could use the zippers from

the pillowcases for that?

yes……

I twisted the stops off the ends

of the zippers with pliers,

and slipped the zipper pulls off.

I separated them,

then started rolling, and

gluing the zippers into coils.

I glued glass beads into the center of the coils.

Then, I glued the coils around her face.

There was netting behind the embroidered

part of the pillows,

so I used it to create the ruffled corona

behind the coils.

I couldn’t resist gluing

the zipper pulls to her crown.

After all, she wouldn’t want me

to waste them, would she?

The earth bead was in a

bag of beads that I bought at

our fave thrift store.

Her breasts are acorn caps from

my sister-in-law’s Garry oak trees.

And, here she is:

The Goddess of Upcycling.

She’s about 9 inches tall and

her ruffled corona/veil extends

another 3 inches beyond her head.

She took me completely by surprise.

She was utterly compelling to make-

I had all kinds of other plans for the day,

but forget about that!

This little Goddess wanted to be made,

and made she was!

Building this doll was one of those

lyrical, time out of time experiences.

Lovely!

What an adventure it has been to transform 2 unwanted pillow cases into all kinds of upcycled treasures.

And, I have only just begun…..