We did it!

We just had a wonderful weekend, a regional convention hosted by Lesley and Mike of Ellie's doll workshop and the Southern Belles Chapter. The venue was perfect, the food was fantastic and an awful lot of chatter was going on the whole time!

 Sylvia and Eddie minding the Southern Belles stand at the fair on the Sunday

 Some of the modern baby dolls in the competition

 Miniature and small dolls in the competition

 Lesley and Sue had a fun evening on Friday meeting with the Essex ring of dolls Chapter who had travelled from Essex and the great Western Chapter who had travelled from Bristol. I guess the Southern Belles are in the middle in Bournemouth!

 Mareen Rose gave us a wonderful insight into different silk and cotton fabrics and she has a wonderful collection of beautiful fabrics which she was happy for us to touch and feel, and some of the better 'polywatsits' as she calls them!

 Carol gave us a lovely demonstration on wefting mohair to make wigs for antique dolls

 Trudy has worked very hard in updating the gem award system, she explained the new system to us and several gem certificates were awarded.

Elaine gave a workshop making a little sewn box for keeping trinkets.

We have to thank great western too for giving a very busy workshop making leather shoes, unfortunately I didn't get a picture, I hope someone did to show later.

Next meeting.......

Our next meeting is on sat 13th August at the usual place. Hope to see you all there. The workshop this month is ribbon embellishment to compliment the fabric embellishments from last month. Please bring a sewing kit with you.

At our last meeting..............

A great time as always was had at our last meeting in July. Lots of 'show and tell' and some very interesting workshops to suit everyone. We also had a few boxes of goodies that Hannah, Angela's daughter very kindly donated to the club so that they may go on to another creative outlet. Thankyou Hannah.

 Crazy Quilting with June.

 A little fortune teller doll which was one of the workshops at the Convention in Oxford in May

 Elaine's miniature Kestner which won the costume award in Oxford

 Elaines K*R114 which won the judges choice in the DAG competiton in Oxford

 Lesley leading fabric painting demonstration

  Fabric embellishment with Pat

Next Meeting.....

Just a reminder that the next meeting is on Sunday 10th July. Usual place, usual time!
This month we have 3 for the price of 1! 45 minutes each of 3 different fabric techniques - Use of an embellishment machine, silk painting and crazy quilting. Pictures to follow after the meeting!

Looking forward to seeing everyone there.......

As I'm sat here nursing a rotten cold I thought I'd try and sort out some of the old photos, so here a few from the archives which I think are typical of our meetings at Wellow hall, much gossip lots of work and great fun!

All the awards......

Jean just emailed me to let me know exactly what all the competition places were for the Southern Belles at the IDMS convention in Oxford in May this year. which nicely rounds up our achievements......

"Hi Sue Looked at the blog page, Thought I had better let you know on my Tableau I got a 1st place and a popular choice, the rosette is on the back of the chair for 1st place and the one on the front was the popular choise.

If you want anymore picture's I can look to see If I have anything decent

Gemma and Margaret got a star award which is like an achivement award. Gemma for her Jenny in the painted eye section and Margaret was for her Henry you told her to put in the German Painted eye section.

Elaine in German dolls with glass eyes got 3rd place, Costume and Popular

Elaine in baby dolls got a 3rd and costume

Elaine in Miniature,dolls house and small bisque dolls up to 9" got 3rd and costume

Carol in French children 13" to 26" got 2nd place and Viv got Popular

we wiped the floor clean in the All Bru dolls with

Carol getting 1st, costume and pop, Viv got 2nd place and Yasuyo got 3rd place.

Elaine in Fashion dolls got 1st, costume and pop

In Modern section.

Yasuyo in All dolls under 18" including babies, got 3rd place

Melanie in Painted eyes got 3rd as you know

Me in Tableau 1st and pop

Elaine also got best in catergory for her all bisque 9" doll

AND Best Antique for her Portrait Jumeau

also received Blue Tudor Rose for Best painted

Pink Tudor Rose for Best Costume

Lesley and her IDMS Special Award for all her service to the events

And you already have Viv's Maggie but I think there were more DAG award which Lesley might have.

Does this help you.

Best wishes

Jean"

Look out for more photos soon...........

Brighton Doll festival

I just had an email from Ceinwen with information about the 2012 brighton Doll fair. This is mainly for reborn artists but one or two other interesting things too have a look www.brightondollfestival.co.uk