Ok, before you burst into hysteric laughter, I'll give you the whole story. When I was a kid, my mother and I spent about 3 years living in Mexico City. I was a reasonably cute (albeit extremely fair) blonde haired, blue eyed American girl. This had the tendency to get me a bit of attention because blonde hair was considered good luck. I was approached at my elementary school to see if I was interested in doing some modelling. It sounded great to me, as I would get out of school periodically to go do photo shoots, and I had a makeup man! Long story short, I ended up doing a shoot for a new housing development as part of a little nuclear family: father, mother, son, and daughter. Here is the full sheet spread (with apologies for the quality - this is newspaper that is over 25 years old and has been folded for a long time):
Yes, that's me pretending to fish:
me squinting my eyes on the speed boat:
and me playing ball with my "family" on the lawn:
I was too young at the time to understand the social/cultural implications of them choosing an extremely white, blonde haired, blue-eyed model for a Mexican advertisement. I apologize, long after the fact, for having been a part of supporting an unatainable physical appearance for most Mexicans - Barbie was bad enough!
So, all of this to introduce my submission for Loobylu's March's Month of Softies. She is based on the photo of me wearing that awful bikini (haven't worn one since!).
Her body is made of muslin, with embroidered facial features, worsted wool hair, and a cotton stripe bikini with green ribbon ties. Her arms and legs are joined with buttons and heavy cord, so there is some poseability. Here she is posing in a tree:
I have enormous admiration for doll makers after having attempted this. She was, without a doubt, the most difficult crafty thing I have ever attempted. I have definitely learned that my sewing machine, although a very good one, does not like to sew pieces of fabric that are the size of a postage stamp; rather, it thinks these are a snack and would rather eat them! I also wonder how doll makers stuff their dolls so well (Rosa: how do you do it?!?). Here is another shot of her playing ball:
Overall, she doesn't really look quite like what I had envisioned, but now that I know how hard she was to make, I'm ok with the end result. Things to work on: embroidery, sewing tiny things, better yarn hair. I'm most proud of the way her arms and legs were attached, because this was quite tricky, but they turned out great.