I am a 46 year old Grandmother of 2 wonderful boys who will be 2 years old and 4 years old very soon. I started making cloth art dolls in late 2000 early 2001. I had been making rag doll type dolls for a short time before I found the online doll community and at that time the Circle City Cloth Dollmakers. I joined several online doll forums and met many doll makers from all over the globe.

It was in the online doll community that I met several cloth doll designers who ended up being my early mentors. Patty LaValley gave me my first taste of a designer doll with fingers when I tested her Mareena Mermaid pattern before it was released to the public. This was the first time I used doeskin for my cloth doll and after learning how to make dolls with fingers and a shape, I was hooked. I used doeskin predominantly after testing the pattern and my Mareena is still on Patty's web site.

I tested patterns for Sandra Corson Walker throughout the first year or so of my doll making as well and Sandra taught me many things about doll making. I tested her Lily Ladybug and Delilah Dragonfly pattern too. I learned a nice technique for making wings from Sandra's pattern.

Among the many things I did with the online doll community was entering many online contests. My very first online challenge was the 3Q challenge in which you purchased a package of 3 fat quarters that had a small token of some sort included in the package. The challenge was to use part of the 3 fat quarters and add a 4 design in whatever you made from the material. I entered a Melinda Small Patterson - Celtic Dragon that I beaded around the pieces and won 1st place in the beginner's category. \par
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By the end of my first season, I'd designed my own first doll for our doll club's Historical Hoosier challenge with Red Skelton as "Freddy The Freeloader". I was very pleased with my first original design.

I entered many online challenges including Sherry Goshen's "Art Deco" challenge that was to make something based on the artwork of Erte from the Art Deco period. By this time, I was designing my own original dolls and I entered "La Femme Dragon" based on two pieces of art by Erte. This was a woman mid morph between woman and dragon.

Another designer who ended up being a mentor to me was Sylvia Schorr. I entered her Miss Galaxy Challenges with 2 dolls in 2 different years. I finally got to meet Sylvia at AFIC in 2007. It was great finally being able to meet one of my mentors.

I had recently taken a break in doll making/designing to ride a bicycle nearly full time until a back injury. I most recently finished a portrait doll of my Junior High School Band Director - Marlin Meyer entering both that doll and another original design in the 2007 Indiana State Fair. I won 2nd place on both dolls.

You may view a 3 part movie of the making of Marlin at the follow addresses. If you can not get to them my clicking copy the address and type it into your own browser. Hint: if you want to copy and paste hi/lt from right to left and click and click on copy go to your browser and click in send space ck again and ck on paste.

 http://www.youtube.com/v/JB6P1TxHcLM

http://youtube.com/watch?v=IdLyGvHYjbE

http://youtube.com/watch?v=iSSc32uueDk

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