Patter from Patti

The simple life

Today was a day of relaxation after several stressful days dealing with doctors, financial institutions, insurance companies, etc.  My dad, uncle and I drove to our 2nd favorite place on earth - Arthur, Illinois.  This is Amish country and the Illinois Amish are a strict order Amish.  Absolutely no electricity or motor driven vehicles.

The Amish use Belgian horses as their work horses.  We drove by one farm and noticed 4 ponies.  I stopped, got out of the car and walked to the fence with my camera.  The ponies were over by the barn but when they saw me by the fence they came over to greet me.

Their owner also came out of the barn and I asked him if it was okay to take photo's of these beauties.  He then commenced to tell me a bit about them.  They had just been weened and are 5 months old.  There are four of them, but one was quite shy and hung back behind his brother.  You can see a bit of him between the middle pony and the one on the right.

Afraid I was completely smitten by these four.  Makes me homesick for farm life when I'm here.  Especially amongst the Amish.  And, yes, this is an Amish farm, but I didn't want to show much of the farm for their privacy.

After the countryside we drove to our favorite restaurant - Candy Kitchen in Tuscola.   Afraid I was bad and had a chocolate malt.  But, I'm a Medaris.  We love chocolate malts!

More in the next couple days.

Ms. Maddie Hatter

My new Ms. Maddie Hatter is about finished.  She needs her wrist cuffs and her spools of thread.  All of which are in San Diego and I'm in Monticello, Illinois.    The original Maddie decided to live with a friend in Prague, Czech Republic.  Thus, a new one had to be made.  The new version is the one with the green hat. 

Both of the dolls are from the same pattern.  As you can see, Maddie in the green hat has a smaller head.  By mistake I grabbed the wrong head while shooting the DVD and used hers.  And, that was the last of the fabric.  Ms. Maddie's head is made from a different fabric, but similar color.  The newer fabric didn't have the stretch that the other had.  Never mind.  She still looks pretty cute.

Both of these dolls are workshop dolls.  I'll be teaching them in two places in England at the end of this month, and in Moscow, Russia at the end of October. 

Before flying to Illinois we had guests from Australia.  Phil and Sue flew to Detroit, Michigan from Cairns, Queensland and bought a 1973 Lincoln.  They then drove on as much of old Route 66 as you can and ended up with us for 8 days. 

The day they left signs had been placed along our sidewalks warning us to not park.  I had to take a photo of them next to their car and the sign.

This was also the day I left to drive to The Quilters' Studio in Newbury Park, California.  What a fabulous quilt shop.  I taught a two-day workshop and met wonderful doll makers and caught up with Linda Fisher, who had been on the cruise with us in February.  She'll send me photo's as I forgot to take some.

Come back soon to see those photos.

DVD Update

This week Galli Studios will start editing all the footage that was shot.  It's a lot, believe me.  It will be quite a challenge getting it edited down to 6 hours, but I know Andrew will do it beautifully.

This is one of the dolls I worked on while we were taping.  The DVD will show how to do several faces, along with some of the techniques I use to create fabrics, dye laces and trims, apply hair, wire fingers, lots of sculpting, etc.

Most of the techniques are in my books.  But, it is often nice to be able to actually see the artist working to see how they do things.  Especially the sculpting parts.

Keep checking back often for the announcement of the release of the DVD.  It should be the middle part of October.

While we are on the topic of dolls, I might as well show a photo of our newest grandchild.  Our oldest daughter had her 3rd little girl Sunday, Sep. 4.  Little Kaylahna was in a real hurry and came a couple weeks early.  She weighed a hefty 8lbs. 1oz. and was 21 inches long.  Good thing JB didn't go full term.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's her newborn photo:

Isn't she the cutest little baby?  Can't wait to see her, but I'll have to wait until November.  Off to Newbury Park, California this weekend to teach, then John and I head out to England and Belgium.  Our daughter in Belgium is also due to have her 2nd baby at the end of September.  More grandchildren.  Yeah!