Doll: Part 3 of however many it takes to finish her

He loves the beach!

And he made a new friend

Give me a moment to catch my breath. As Saturdays go, this one was... full. An afternoon at the beach, another chicken, wasp sting- Steve not me, and subsequent rush to the pharmacy for some cream to stop the swelling and pain of said sting. Ok, written out, it doesn't sound like a lot, but I feel like I've been full on all day!








Steve made me a new tool, and I'm pretty sure it'll work. I tried it out, and it does seem promising, but I was a bit distracted by other things today.

This is what the tool looks like, and not only should it be useful for making holes to insert strands of yarn for hair, but also a very effective self defense weapon!

But the thing that distracted me today, in addition to beach, chicken, and child, was beads. Which can be seen in that picture right there ------>

My distance vision is, well I wouldn't say I'm blind as a bat. More like, blind as a moose. Moose are very near sighted. Sometimes a moose will like, "Yo Dave! How are ya bud?" But what they think is their friend, is actually a car. Because from far away they can't tell the difference.

It made more sense in my head.

The point is, I'm quite nearsighted, so doing beading work is easy for me. However, if you have a hard time seeing the tiny holes and whatnot, there are tools out there that can help. I found the coolest magnifying glass! It hangs around your neck so you still have both hands free to work, but magnifies what's in your lap so you can see what you're doing. Cool, huh?

I decided that I'm not overly fond of the body of Periwinkle, since it's quite rough. Since the plastic of her body was so shiny, normal acrylic paint wouldn't stick to it. You can buy plastic paint, and chances are you can buy an additive for acrylic paint that will make it stick to plastic. I didn't do that, though. I simply lightly sanded the body so the the paint would have a rough surface to stick to. The reason is that I fully intended to completely cover the body, though with which method, I hadn't yet decided.

Still with me? Cool!

Last night I was struck by sudden genius! It's ok, I'm used to it. Out of the blue a thought gripped me in it's warm grippiness and shouted BEADS! Oooooo... a beaded outfit for Periwinkle!

Now, I can feel your trepidation. You're thinking, "That's too hard!" But oh no it isn't! Beading techniques, while they can be a bit tricky at first, are incredibly easy once you learn how to do the basics.


First step: I put her head back onto her body without the top of her skull... technically, Steve put her head back on. It was a tight fit, and I'm not enough of a feminist to refuse help from a man when it's offered.








 Steve can't help but laugh every time he looks at this. Sometimes he's so immature. I swear I don't have the slightest idea why this is funny.

Nope, not at all.

<smirk>

I'll be using the peyote stitch to form a collar. The beads I'm using are not the best for the peyote stitch because they're not uniform in size or shape. The best seed beads I've found to use are Delicas because they're very uniformed.

But that's ok, we work with what we have.

To begin, run your beading thread through one bead several times so it can't slip up or down the thread. Leave a long tail- at least several inches. The purpose of this bead is to stop all the subsequent beads from falling off. It will be removed later, so the color really doesn't matter.

Next, string enough beads onto your thread to wrap firmly around the neck of your doll. Put the needle back through the first bead to form a loop.

String another bead on your thread, skip one bead from the first row, and thread the needle through the next bead. Continue until you've gone around the entire loop.

This shows the first couple of beads in the second row. The first row are white, the second is blue. You can see how I've alternated the beads.



When you get to the end of the row, run the thread through the bead in the row above, and the first bead of the row you've just finished.





That's all there is to the peyote stitch. It's quite versatile, and in sorting out the beads for this project, I've realized how many red and gold beads I have! Since we here in the southern hemisphere are in autumn, I see an autumn beaded bag in my future!