Wonderful Weekend!!!

This past weekend, my local doll club, Yinz Dollz n'at, held our first doll makers retreat, just north of my hometown of Pittsburgh, PA. This was the best time I've had in a long time - creating dolls all day and hanging with your talented friends - how much better can it get! I was lucky enough to to take the class we organized with doll artist, Judy Skeel. She is fabulous!!! Not only is she a fantastic artist and instructor, but we all feel we've made a life long friend in Judy (check out her site at www.skeelhaven.com awesome dolls!)! Above is my head of the doll we were making. Unfortunately I'll have to post pics of her all put together at a later time because I blew out a finger or two while turning them so I need to do a small bit of repair first. I think I've got Judy's repair technique down pat so I shouldn't do too bad. lol
Friday evening when we arrived at the camp, we handed over our brown bags full of dollmaking fun stuff! We had decided we wanted to do a Brown Bag Challenge and had to pick a bag that wasn't our own and make a doll with the items inside by Sunday morning. I chose my bag and didn't actually get to work on it until very late Saturday night. Perserverance prevailed even though I was dog tired (from all that fun we had had all day with Judy!) - we coined these late evenings "Silly O'Clock" since we definitely got giddy and punchy but still didn't want to go to bed. lol The bag I chose was from our club President and excellent doll maker, Emily. What fun stuff she put in there for me to create a doll from. I just love this little guy - "Silly O'Clock" our new mascot! lol He's made from a wooden cart, beads, yarn, doll eyes, a pot scrubber and even a lining for casting of broken bones before the plaster gets put on. It definitely was a challenge and one that I happily took on. If you are a doll crafter and looking for a wonderful and affordable 3 day weekend then contact me at BecauseILikeIt@aol.com and I'll put you on the info list for next years retreat - we've already started planning it and it's going to be awesome! Yinz Dollz n'at is the only doll club in Pittsburgh so if you are in the surrounding area's please come and join us. We meet on the third Saturday of each month and would love to have you! Check us out at www.groups.yahoo.com/group/yinzdollznat