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I’ve been working on some ju-ju dolls. This is the first of the larger size that I’ve finished. She’s embellished with embroidery thread, glass beads, fresh water pearls and a silk flower with a shell bead in the center. I know, I still have to finish the Queen Anne doll. I will, some day. Soon. I [...]

I’ve been down with a cold for the past few days. I’ve made friends with the NyQuil bottle. During my convalescence I revamped Cutemojo with a completely new look, new theme and re-installed the shopping cart that I took offline when I moved last year. I have to build another light box and start taking photos of my inventory [...]

I bought Barbara Schoenoff’s In the Style of Queen Anne pattern as a birthday gift to myself (two birthdays ago, at least, maybe more) and although I’ve admired it greatly I haven’t gotten around to giving it a go until now. I don’t know why I have this freak-outedness that goes with doing someone else’s pattern [...]

I ran out of poly-fil. I managed to exhaust what was left making persimmon shaped bunnies in my attempt to use up all of my remaining holiday fabric. Using a whole bag of poly-fil is quite the accomplishment for me, because I’m pretty sure that like wire hangers and those little plastic bread bag clips if [...]

In the past I’ve gone on about my mother’s hoarding collecting of craft supplies (and more recently Beanie Babies, but I’m going to focus on crafts right now.) One of my favorite things to do was to sneak into the boxes she kept stashed in my closet and think about all the cool things I [...]

As I was experiencing a distinct lack of mohair, Theresa at Yarn Over came through for me with a big bag of the stuff. After spending three days of my life gluing nylon curls on this doll (in an attempt to make-do) and producing what can only be called a ginger-fro, I was only more [...]

Without cutting sew the shoulder and side seams using very small stitches. Then I cut away the excess fabric, making sure to leave enough to turn the raw edges of the neck and arm holes down for finishing. I finger press or carefully iron the seams open, trying not to cause more fraying at the [...]

Cleaning up patterns the first time around can be a little intimidating, it really is just a matter of going through the right steps with the right tools. The muslin pieces are so small and floppy they need to be stiffened up in order to facilitate tracing. Fusible interfacing works, so does buckram and fabric [...]

I usually find hard plastic travel dolls for $3-5 a piece, up to $10 for the 10 inch tall ones. I’ve yet to find one that is horribly expensive or rare but still I look for ones with messed up hair and clothes so I don’t feel guilty about ruining an original in good condition. [...]

This little guy started life as a pair of knit gloves. Usually I find stretch gloves perfectly useless as gloves but I haven’t made a softie in a long time and the idea of a maneki neko was way too tempting to resist. The paw holding the fish is the thumb of the glove, and [...]