X like Xikanx Doll (3)

No new pictures since the last time.

I’ve been thinking about making clothes for this little person.

I was originally planning on a skirt and then decided halfway to make it overalls*

This is because Napa’s friend was wearing a really hot look with little overall shorts and and a blusa cut off at midriff.

And because of the gender queer aspect.

And, prob’ly most important, because of the little boy who wanted it.

I didn’t want to ‘cause trouble with a girl doll in a skirt.

(you see how deep these things are buried?)

Anyway, I’d already made the skirt so tried to turn it into overall-skirt, and then tried to change the drape so that it looked like very full trousers.

And now I’m ready to bag all that and start from scratch.

So I’ve ordered some yarn in a a red and white twist, so that I can make the red and white overalls* called for in the X children’s story.

The problem with designing from real life.

I first started working on this doll last year, when I heard that my high school classmate Yvette Monroe had died suddenly.

I prob’ly hadn’t seen Yvette in thirty years: I remember when I met her husband Yusef, and their beautiful baby girl Monique.

Yvette had turned out braver than I ever expected, falling in love with a man her small-town family didn’t approved of, and snapping her fingers at them and building her new life together with him.

Yvette Monroe and Lila May Roybal were the first two people I met on my first day of school at West Las Vegas Junior High in 1978. Yvette played the clarinet in the band, Lila played the flute, Alicia played the piccolo, and I was a drummer.

That first day of school, Lila asked me if the school was very different from my old one in California, and Yvette asked me if the boys were cuter in California. (given they my prior experience was limited to boys at my very small Catholic schools, I was quick to acknowledge that the WLV boys were way cuter. Not to mention taller.)

We spent one summer learning baton twirling for marching band. Alicia and Lila and Yvette went on to become baton twirlers.

Our high school mascot (in a repetition of Conquest and erasure) was the Dons, and our marching band outfits were white shirts with a ruffle and black tie, a forest green bolero vest with a gold button panel in the front, and flared green trousers with a gold stripe down the leg that flared into a gold triangle. With a black felt hat, with black pompoms all around the brim.

The twirler outfit was a modified version of this, with a long-sleeved gold blouse, a green and gold skirt with bootie shorts (then described as “spanky pants”), green bolero vest, black boots, and the hat.

So that’s what I’m trying to recreate with this doll: shapely body, bronzed skin, dark brown curls.
I’m sure Yvette’s (and Lila’s and Alicia’s) daughters and granddaughters never imagine she wore booty shorts.

The difficulty lies in the fact that I prob’ly don’t have enough sunshine gold yarn. I’m at the top of the sleeves.

I thought I had a whole skein of gold yarn. but it’s a different brand and more of an “antique gold” than sunflower.

As a doll designer, I could switch to green at this point and make the top look more like a rugby shirt, which would be hella cute.

But that’s not what the twirler uniform looked like.

I did find a tiny little ball of the right color yarn, and i’m playing “yarn-chicken” trying to finish the project before the color runs out.

I could prob’ly manage to make the top a scoop neck, like a leotard.

But that’s not what the twirler uniform looked like.

There’s a pretty good chance I’m going to end up unravelling the gold blouse I made for butterfly boi earlier this weekend. <>

[Later]

I finished the blouse and the head without running out of either yarn! Up next: wig, face, bolero, and skirt.

[Later still]

Person’s wig is pinned on now. The pinheads make it look like they have pink pearls in their hair.

Huipil and Skirt for Butterfly Boi

Patterns used:
Weebee Nelly Doll - Pirate Outfits by Laura Tegg
Weebee Nelly Doll - Halloween MCAL 2018
Hooks
3.75 mm (F)
4.0 mm (G)
Yarn
Loops & Threads Impeccable Solids
Colorway:1613 Gold

Red Heart Super Saver Solids
Colorway: Denim


Eventually, all your dolls start complaining of having nothing to wear, The doll I call Butterfly Boi really wanted clothes today Last night, i fell asleep imagining the huipil and blue skirt I would make for them. I was rolling around the colors in my head: a sort of denim blue for the skirt, and either a gold or red huipil. Today the red looks too bright, but the gold looks absolutely perfect. Also, the gold yarn is slightly lighter weight, so should work up the right weight for the huipil without being too stiff.
Note: the skirt is too stiff.
For the skirt, i followed the pattern for the Pirate Nelly skirt, but then skipped the front V section and added another increase row. Oh, and went up a hook size halfway through
For the huipil, I’m following the blouse or dress-top from the Nelly Halloween doll. Around row six, I stopped increasing and instead just alternated rows of sc and hdc. Going to have to continue this for a while, because the top needs to be plenty long. (I think I made this doll a bit long in the torso).
It’s not 100% finished: I just hid all the ends in the back.
Person now wants pants or shorts, to have variety.

X Like Xikanx Doll (2)

Doll Update:

Yesterday, this doll starting giving me THE LOOK.  They have been six weeks with no clothes and person was tired of standing around nekkid.

Person started trying to find clothes to wear out of the rag bag, but that first dress was too tight! Person would have been grouchy all day if they were squeezed up in that dress.

Then person squeezed into a little yellow top and ran off to pose among the cempasuchil. With no pants!

Then person jumped into my project bag as Luz and I headed out to the Abuelita Medicine workshop at Galería de la Raza.

Once we got there, I decided person needed some clothes and started making them a skirt. And then a little boy came up and totally wanted this doll, and I was all like, I would give them to you, but they're not finished yet! Their dad--an artist--tugged the child away, while also imparting a lesson about how crafting with your hands calms your spirit so you could sit still.

By the end of the workshop, the person was clothed and had hair, but the child had gone home, their little sister was just too tired to make it through the second workshop!

Lesson learned: when munequerxing in public, always have a ready-made doll to share if the appropriate child comes up!

PS: Luz says person has the best hair yet!

Medicine Maker Doll

Project info
Name: Medicine Maker Doll
Pattern: Afro Puffs Ballerina Doll by [Yolonda Jordan] Don't Get it Twisted Crochet
Hook: 3.75 mm (F)
Yarn: Lion Brand Vanna's Choice Solids, Heathers & Twists
Colorway: 124 Toffee

Notes

9/24/2018

I started this doll at the Medicine Maker’s Brunch, by Sandra Pacheco, Curanderas Sin Fronteras, and a lot of other WOC and QOC. That is, I showed up with a skein of yarn and left with a head, two arms, and one leg.
It was Autumn Equinox, the Full Moon, and folks were making scullcap tincture and elderberry cordial.
I didn’t actually engage in the medicine making but we all agreed that this doll contributed to the atmosphere and also absorbed it.
Okay, the first time I tried this project it seemed SO HARD to get the legs to join to the torso correctly. I mean, I literally wrote to the designer and asked her for help! (and she calmly told me to chill) Today it was easy peasy!!

[later]

Oh, NOW I remember what the problem was! The alignment of the body decreases. Yolonda told me to just move them to sides of the hips if that was easier for me, and it SO IS!
Note: since I don’t use a dowel for support, it’s best to sew up the crotch before doing the hip increases and stuffing the lower body.

10-20-2018

This doll was mostly finished a month ago, but then things got busy at work and then things got busy with familia, and I haven’t had a weekend free. Today I took yarn to the abuelita medicine workshops at Galería de la Raza. I made clothes and hair for the Mina doll I’d made, and then, when i just couldn’t “people” any more, I sat in the car and started the neck decreases for this medicine maker doll. They’d gone into the workshop with me, in my bag, but, although there’s less work to be done on this doll, it requires more peace and quiet than I could find at the galeria.

Dorrie: Little Dorian Corey

Project info
Name: Dorrie: Little Dorian Corey
Pattern: My Little Buddy Doll by Ornicka Owens
Hook: 3.75 mm (F)
Yarn: Red Heart Super Saver Solids
336 Warm brown

09-08-2018
I’m putting the start date as September 8, but the truth is that I made the head some months ago. The head languished with no eyes and only one ear. But this evening I felt the need to cast on for a different doll, and thus this kid was pulled into action.
Note: some dollmakers that I admire greatly refer to the “doll graveyard” as that space in which dolls languish in a state of limbo. unfinished, awry, perhaps never to be finished.
I prefer to think of them as in doll rehab. They disappear from view for a while but will return with a renewed determination and a stronger sense of self.

09-09-2018
From my recent experience with the Stylin’ green dress, I’ve decided to incorporate nether garments when the pattern does not do so.
I used two full rows to get to the starting stitch count (this is a deviation from the pattern that has the full stitch count on the first row) so I’m making the legs 1 round longer than called for by the pattern.
To achieve nethergarments, I’m subtracting two from the adjusted leg count, changing yarn color to white, doing 1 color change row and 2 regular rows before finishing off.
Starting the body (from bottom up), I’m using color: white for rows 1-4 and then a color change row.

09-28-2018
At the eleventh hour, I decided to attach the legs with button joints. I didn’t do a perfect job (to say the least).
In part, I was hampered because I’d made underpants instead of a singlet/leotard/unitard. Any of those three choices would have looked better, I think.

But I really wanted her legs to be able to move, and wasn’t comfortable sewing them on in either standing or sitting position if they couldn’t move.

So I’m happy with the way they came out.

The face is more “soft sculpture” than any I’ve done so far.
The pattern is very clear and very easy. A few more photographs on sewing on the legs would’ve been helpful, but then I didn’t end up doing them the way the designer did.

I haven’t yet decided what to do with their hair…

09-30-2018
I’ve named this doll Dorrie, as they remind me more and more of Dorian Corey (ca. 1937-1983), of Paris is Burning fame.

I’m sure this is because I did the button jointed legs, so this person is my first doll who sits down. And Dorian Corey was seated at a vanity table, applying makeup and telling truths, in PIB.
Once I decided to embrace Dorian Corey, I felt more inspired and took more risks.
I embraced the wig cap--because for most of their interview in PIB, Dorian Corey was wearing a wig cap.

So I didn’t have to try to make the wig cap look like hair, or NOT look like a ski cap. Instead, I made it of crocheted mesh (i.e. sc1 ch1) and did the decreases the easiest way (skip one stitch) so it would be comfortable and not make their scalp sweat. Then I latched on the hair strands one at a time to the wig cap. I used cherry cola yarn, because it’s always made me think of fabulous hair, and I cut out any colors I didnt’ like (there’s this one weird brownish green…)

I embroidered their mouth with metallic thread.
I mastered eyeliner for the first time. I drew bold eyebrows.
I even dressed this doll in a bralette from a dress that hadn’t worked out, because I didn’t want to have them all naked.
What they really need is a kimono, though…
She looks fabulous.

I’ve decided to extract all my doll-making adventures, notes, and dolls from Ravelry and resurrect Queermaculture as muñequerx blog. I have all those notes on the Ravelry database, photos, dates, etc. And here I can share them in that silly blog way that’s just about what I’m thinking and trying to figure out. Sharing the research bits that I’m having the best time with.

The fact that I read Lisa Guerrero’s article on Bratz yesterday and then almost without a pause, I saw her mentioned on Lalo’s facebook.

“Can the Subaltern Shop? The Commodification of Difference in the Bratz Dolls” in Critical Studies <=> Critical Methodologies, Special Issue on Race and Kids’ Pop Culture, 2008.

The midwife dolls that Julieta Kusnir sent me a foto ofand and the way they’re sold by a AngloAmerican midwife living in Oaxaca but likely crafted by Oaxacan women, which has some parallels with the “invention” of the “Maria” dolls.

The different birth dolls I’ve seen. The anatomically correct dolls.

The African American women dollmakers, like Aniqua Wilkerson (My Kinda Thing) and Yolonda Jordan (My Pretty Brown Doll), who clearly articulate how the crafting of African American dolls is derives from African American culture. And how before they started doing it (and teaching it), there were few folks selling handmade African American dolls and some of those were just white dolls made with brown yarn.

White dolls/Brown Yarn

Yeah, I think maybe I’ll do this, even though it’s prob’ly only for my own pleasure!

Note: blog posts older than 9/14/2018 were actually journal entries, and were all imported to the blog today.

Here's an example of research:

10 diferentes tipos de muñecas artesanales y de dónde vienen