a little refresher: a few months ago, i mailed some organic bits to a woman in vermont. some hair, some puppy teeth, and a kidney stone.
then, more recently, i did a little bit of blackwork on linen -- and sent that back to her as well, after using some chintz pattern pieces she had sent me, to frame the borders i was stitching.
are you ready? are you ABSOLUTELY ready?
okay, then, if you say you're ready.
beth and i have been calling her "amber junior" or little amber . she is, for me, a reminder of an inner expression -- something i need to use for writing, and for knitting, too. (Things are in the saddle, / And ride mankind, warned ralph waldo emerson in the mid-nineteenth century.)
i hesitate to call this a collaboration because obviously the very talented beth robinson did the hard stuff -- sure, i did the blackwork, passed the kidney stone, harvested the dog's teeth, and grew my hair (in june, my hairdresser DID find the missing piece: "why is this section back here so much shorter than the rest of it!?"). but beth really made her what she is.
i got "in progress" photos along the way.
the first pictures were of just the head. as beth and i had discussed, we would use the kidney stone to represent the mole on my left cheek. (ben has this exact same mole in the exact same place.) and, of course, ripley's baby teeth -- gathered one at a time throughout her first few months with us -- were inserted into the mouth.
then we conferred back and forth a bit on how to do the clothes. dress pieces had already been made; they were sent to me, in chintz, and i used some linen i had here at home to re-create them, and add the blackwork.
soon, she was on her way.
this was a luxury for me -- normally i do not spend any money on things just for myself, unless they are tools for knitting or letterpress, or an occasional book or cd. but that said, beth's dolls are much more affordable than they ought to be, and are getting more and more press all the time. i do not think that little amber will be the last strange doll i get... although it seems that to date, my request was, even for strangedolls.net, pretty strange!
more pics will be forthcoming, of little amber in her new environment. we are just loving the heck out of her.