More Doll Work

Being a “G” rated blog, we couldn’t leave the LaLaLoopsy dolls naked so it was on to making them clothes.

Marti and Mary cut out the clothes patterns from material to match each doll’s hair color.

More sewing.

And the dolls almost fully dressed.  Here is each finished dress that matches the doll’s hair color.

Lastly was the bloomers.  The pattern was wrong and it took three tries (and lots of giggles and laughing) to make bloomers that actually fit.

All that was left was a some hair ribbons and a bow as a few finishing touches.  Was it worth all the time and effort?  These pictures of little Anabelle, taken on Thanksgiving Day, tell the result.  Not so sure at first,

but then taking the doll for a stroll. Success!

Now we have to bundle up the remaining three dolls and ship them out to our three granddaughters in Missouri.  Wish we were going to be there for Christmas to see the girls open the presents. We need to clone ourselves to be everywhere at once!  ;c)

It’s not the end of the doll making.  A couple of the ladies here at the Volunteer Village want to make dolls for their granddaughters.  Marti has started a trend!

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Marti’s Dolls

Finally, after hours and hours of work, Marti finished the four LaLaLoopsy hand made dolls for our four granddaughters.  Much nicer than the plastic commercially made ones.  Evidently, these dolls are all the rage for the under 10 year old girls.

She started out with ordering a pattern from a source on Esty.  She printed off the instructions and patterns, bought the material and got to work.

She bought different color yarn for the dolls hair so each granddaughter would have a unique one.

Black buttons for the eyes.

Away Marti went, sewing up a storm.

Arms and legs sewn and beginning to be stuffed with filling.

Working on the doll’s head and face.

Marti found it easier to mass produce all the parts for the dolls at one time.  She had to move out from the Journey and up to the Rec Center because she needed more room, a lot more room!

Stuffing and more stuffing.

Mary, one of our fellow volunteers and a master seamstress pitched in to help Marti.

It was nice to have Mary helping because the doll hair took two sets of hands to complete.  First the yarn hair had to be pinned in place,

Then each individual hair strand had to be sewn in place.

On to the pigtails, one,

then two.

Now for some clothes.  Stay tuned.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Buzz Cut

At the Pioneer Days Fair they had so much interesting stuff, it was kind of hard to pick a favorite.  They had antique tractors on display.

This one was special, a newly restored 1938 John Deere tractor, owned by one of the COE rangers and her husband.  They collect and restore tractors and have over 20 in their collection (so far).  I know Rick would love to have it to cut his grass. :c)

These two gentlemen were making syrup from sugar cane stalks, it took quite a while to boil the syrup out of the sugar cane stalks.

Have you ever seen a real example of an 1800’s era Cotton Gin?  I had not.  The tour guide opened the top to show the brushes.

The brushes pull the seeds from the cotton,

dump the seeds in this bin,

and would then blow the cleaned cotton into this bin through a window in the wall (top right).  Pretty amazing.

Also on display was a huge “Turpentine” Still.

It was used to distill “turpentine” from pine sap to be used as a wood preservative.  It was pointed out that the ATF drilled holes in the tank because it was being used to distill another “product”.  No wonder there were no Sunday sales…

The one machine I found most interesting was this sawmill where they turned these big logs,

into piles of sawdust.

Not really, although it did make a lot of sawdust.  They demonstrated how it cut logs into lumber.

Looking at that blade and the lack of any protection made me wonder how much fun OSHA would have inspecting it.

Here is the Grit Grinder machine.  Somehow, I forgot to put it in yesterday’s post.  Duoh!  The corn goes in the black funnel on top and it puts out the grits in the wooden box on the right.  From there the grits are scooped out by hand and bagged, with each bag being weighed for the proper amount by the lady (sorry that I cut off her head) in the light blue coat.

There was also this funny looking machine on display.  I’m not really sure what it is, but it did look strangely familiar.  An early Apple computer, maybe?

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Workamping: It’s Not All Fun And Games

Yet during our time here at J. Strom Thurmond COEs, we seem to have more than our fair share of fun and games.

The other day, all the rangers and Dam (no “n”) power plant workers invited the COE volunteers to a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving dinner at the reception area inside the Thurmond Dam.

The usual way too much food. 

 

We dug in and had quite a meal.

Thankfully, we had Mike with us to help reduce the amount of leftovers.  He can put down some serious food.  Look how fast his hand is forking another mouthful. I wasn’t counting, but he claimed this was this third helping…

On another day off (we do seem to have lots of them), Mike, Terri, Marti and I went to a nearby town for their Pioneer Days Fair.  There was lots of historical items to see.  I was fascinated by some of the old machinery that was there.  For example, we followed these drive belts to see what they ran.

 

And followed them into the next room,

until we got to the machine at the end.  It was a Grits Grinder.  It made cornmeal grits that were sold in the nearby country store.

If you folks are not familiar with grits, it’s a Southern dish that is a staple in many homes.  The taste?  Think lumpy, wallpaper paste.  ;c)

There was an orchestra playing good old country music, all the members were dressed in period costumes.

Even the dogs were suitably attired.

There were lots of interesting crafts for sale, too.  I know in the Bible there are verses talking about beating swords into plowshares.  How about taking the idea to the next level and turn shotguns into lamps?  I think NYC’s Mayor Bloomberg would approve…

I’ll have more in my next post, I don’t want to overwhelm anyone’s bandwidth (or make your eyes glaze over).

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