Wild art doll by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

I believe that we are hardwired to be fascinated by the shape of human beings.

I think that this is what has lead to the creation of dolls- people ask themselves:

‘How can I take a handful of interesting bits and pieces and put them together so they express something about being human?’

I say: ‘Go for it! Gather up the ephemera of your life, and play with it!’

You’ll see , paper beads, tatting, buttons, dice, incense tiles, beads, charms, bottle tops and more in the dolls in the pictures below.

Do you have some yarnie gadgets that you’d like to experiment with, but don’t know what you’d do with the resulting thingies that you’ll  be making?  Well, get them out, and play with color and texture with them!

The hair on the doll below was made with tiny pom pom makers.  You can also use the flowers from flower looms as hair, too….

Wild art doll by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

Because crochet is both painterly AND sculptural,  it is the most wonderful medium to use in the doll making process.

one of a kind art doll by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

You can add all kinds of  other techniques to embellish the wild dolls. If you are a woodworker, add wooden elements!

One of a kind art doll by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

Love working with wire? I do…. so I build wire armatures as the leaping off point for many of my dolls.

One of a kind art doll by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

It’s important to constantly look at the world in new ways.

Using the doll making process as a way of expressing your creativity will certainly ignite your imagination and fire up your creativity.

One of a kind art doll by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

That’s what I do on a regular basis: I combine crochet, weaving, tatting, woodworking, wire work, knitting and all manner of found and created objects (I have a passion for making unusual shoes for my dolls. What can I say?) and then make all kinds of wild and wooly dolls that are a voyage of discovery and delight!

And, how about you?

How do you put things together in interesting ways?

Have you tried wild andwooly doll making?

I invite you to drop some of your inhibitions, and just play……… joy awaits!

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Here are the links for my mixed media woven dolls:

Woven Earth Listener Angel  Doll

Dame Julian and Neni 

Three young spritely spirited mixed media dolls 

Mixed media dolls with found objects 

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Several people asked if I had pics of any of my other woven mixed media dolls. Why yes! Here are some:

Homage to Dame Julian of Norwich. I wove her on my inkle loom and several small vintage looms. Her hands and face are crocheted. I used cotton and linen to make her. Her body is wood that I carved before stitching on the weaving and attaching her armature.

This is Neni. She’s another Earth Angel doll.

I wove her on the vintage equivalent of Butterfly Looms.

I carved her head, hands, wings and shoes from wood, and drew and burned the face and patterns for the wings.

The buttons came from Grandma’s button jar so are more than 50 years old.

In my next posting: More mixed media woven dolls

Image Source: Noreen Crone-Findlay(c) 

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the spirit dolls of Charla Khanna are enough to lift you right into the stratosphere.

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I knew from the first moment that I started sketching the doll, that I wanted to use spoolknitting for the hair. Patty was born with curly red hair, so I wanted to celebrate that.

I wanted lots of spoolknitted cord, so I decided to use my Embellish knit spoolknitting machine.

I did a test swatch and decided that it was too stiff. I really wanted to use Caron’s Simply Soft in Mango, so I figured, what the heck…. I’d just split it and zip it up………

I am lucky enough to have 2 yarn winders. I bought the first one when I was 15 years old. I bought the other one second hand. It’s really handy having 2 of them!

I clamped them both to a little table, rolled the yarn and test swatch of spoolknitting into a ball:

When splitting yarn, I have found that it’s best to work in short lengths, with the ball secured with a darning needle.

That way, the ball can spin freely.

After I split the yarn (picky picky! when you have 3 dogs and a cat and indulge in a very fiberlicious lifestyle, the yarn picks up all kinds of little blubbitses that make the splitting process quite ~questionable~ as in what the heck was I thinking?)

Um……. it’s not a speedy process, but, I am pleased with the results:

It’s quite gratifying to whir up a heap of cord right off the yarn winder:

And the Patty Memory Comfort doll has her hair….

Her heart and wings will be spoolknitted, too….

On a larger spoolie………

later………

Image source: Noreen Crone-Findlay (copyright)

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