you won't make yourself a name if you follow the rules

I did not find my ruler, but I found a thing with inches marked on it. This is a fifteen-inch doll. (I will photograph doll when the sun's up and the lighting is therefore much improved. I may or may not photograph doll's pretty floral bonnet. It's...very floral.)

( babble )

So, doll restoration tasks, more or less in this order:

✓ go to Walgreens or wherever, buy hair pick and baby shampoo
✓ go to Jo-Ann Fabrics and/or AC Moore, buy saffron-hued cotton fat quarter(s) (if that'll work) and a fat quarter of a heavier material in a suitable color (should work) and embroidery thread and suitable needle
* if fat quarter(s) won't work, find saffron-hued cloth (ideally wool, maybe linen or cotton) and other-hued heavier cloth somewhere online that will work
✓ find pins that will work
† take photos of doll (and photodocument whole process hereafter)
✓ attempt cleaning ceramic, carefully
✓ brush hair and if necessary more involved hair care
* style hair
✓ clean cloth body
* deal with making eyes an appropriate gray
* cut and hem saffron fabric to result in as close to an 18" x 19" rectangle as is feasible—or sew the longer sides together to make a tube instead of hemming side edges
* cut and hem himation fabric to result in as close to a 15" x 22" rectangle as is feasible
* embroider spider(s) on peplos fabric, and other appropriate symbols if ambitious
* embroider something on himation fabric? ΑΘΕ or ΑΘΗΝΑ perhaps?
✓ clean doll stand
✓ make felt sandals
✓ make felt painted cardboard helmet
✓ make teeny knitting
✓ make teeny scroll
* braid wool yarn for belt
* dress and stand doll
* photograph doll with an eye to cover art for Strength of Storms
* dedicate doll

( images )

Compare the first and third images over last post way. Applying a slightly damp soft cloth (well, not soft soft, but the softest I could find that wasn't actually a piece of clothing) pretty much removed the mark on her face. Not quite all the way, but the mark is plainly visible in the photos last post and hardly at all in the photos on this post. Know what it looks like now, though? A battle scar. I think I'll leave it just as is.

I do seem to have removed some of the blush paint on that cheek, though. Look, her face is a little lopsided now. She didn't look lopsided before.

I bought the fabric and thread and needles and a few other things. The himation fabric is not in fact heavier than the peplos fabric, it's the precise same fabric but a different dye lot, but whatever, it'll look fine. I just need to figure out how it's supposed to go on doll in order to both look authentically Greek and cover those parts of doll's arms that are cloth and won't be covered by the peplos!

Without real guidance on fabric color for the himation (I mean, I'm sure guidance exists, I am just not sure I can be bothered), I bought two colors.

( images )



And now I need to go do Other Things.

Doll will require attributes of Athena!

Armor is right out. But could I plausibly make a convincing-looking helmet? (Though that probably means doll needs loose or ponytailed hair, instead of the Janet-Stephens-demonstrated style I already linked.) How would I this thing? (Remembering I'm not a bronzesmith! Though I may well be taking a metalwork workshop in a few weeks, we'll see. I don't know; bronze and match-the-himation felt?)

Given doll's hands—will photo up close tomorrow—can doll hold (preferably without glue) a spear, or a book, or a pair of knitting needles, or a hand loom? (I doubt this. Unless I tie the things to her wrists with thread.) Think a couple headpins from the beading department would make proportional knitting needles?

Ooh, could I give her a sword belt and accompanying pointy metal stick to go with the helmet? And a "leather" satchel with the knitting needles and embroidery-thread knitting project poking out, and definitely a book. (By which I may mean scroll.) Then I will be covering Athena's three most prominent (to me) areas of expertise: wisdom, war, and crafts!

ETA: Or arm her instead like a fairly poor hoplite...tell me to stop, this is overambitious...