I laid out Cookie to do her the next day and then, even though it was 5 o'clock and the roast was in the oven, I quickly put her together. Only when I started to attach her head, did I see that I had put her limbs in the body sleeve backwards! And she needs her eyebrows!That leaves me something do today!

I cannot believe I am getting this close to painting! Someone has to put the color on these faces I love so much so I guess it might as well be me. I am tying to use as little color as possible and I see the  photo I got too much darkness in the corners of Cookie's mouth ( the top photo). In a bright light it looked right but under normal lighting the corners add their own shadows and take the color over the top. Cookie is about the biggest doll I can get from an American company at 26 inches tall. The Chinese are offering a knock-off copy of Cookie that about 5 inches smaller but the mouth is the same. I have won auctions on eBay but so far none of those dolls have arrived. They claim their dolls are bases on Sandy Faber's  doll named Tatum Noel but Bountiful Baby has also made a knock off of him.
Underneath is Pumkin, also from BB, which I got for $8.00 plus postage by taking one of their 2nd quality heads only. I have two sets of limbs yet from my original eBay order so I am glad to be able to buy just heads. Today I found a good combination of doing what needed to be done on the dolls and being able to rest in the recliner and crochet. I read the other night that dolls sent in for the cuddle therapy program need to have a blanket so I have started to crochet blankets to take a break from pocket peace pals.
It is almost seven in the evening and I cannot see what I am typing. Will put in corrections in the morning.

It is a good thing I am not preparing for a big family gathering for Easter. I was so tired and full of pains that the only thing that felt good was sitting in the recliner in the studio and making pocket peace dolls. So the day gave me four of them. You can see I have a new color for the ruffles. It looks almost as if their petticoats are showing. I am in kind of a rut with my colors. Only running out of the face color forced me to change that one. I did try to use blue for the blouse and then I realized that was the perfect color for jeans and if I ever make any more boys I will need it for that so I went back to using yellow.

 Finished this doll, Crystal, with the week. I was surprised how grumpy I found her expression when she was a whole doll and not just a head. I just kept staring at her and wondering why she seemed so unhappy after reaching completion. I wondered why I had bought her and then I remembered I had been able to buy just her head to finish off the set off limbs I still had from the original big package of heads and limbs from Liz on eBay. I hope someone will be attracted to her mood of introspection. She seems to be thinking seriously about a very serious subject.

I then wondered if Candy would have the same effect - getting grimmer as she was completed. So I put her together even though her body sleeve was not right. She has full length arms and legs and the body had the ties down much lower. In order to make her fit her body I tied her legs on just above the knees and her arms at the elbows. Through it all she kept her smile and I really enjoyed cuddling her and then later looking up to see her looking at me with her smile. That put me in such a good mood I began to collect the Easter rabbits from various displays. I put the two girls in matching sleepers with the hope that Candy would sweeten Crystal. I was surprised that the Steif tiger insisted on being in on all the fun.

I had planned to use a photo of twins and by the time I got to the photo set-up there was a third doll. I had planned to work on the dollies today but got pulled off center by the world and its people so that I spent the day making pocket peace pals because I really needed the peace working on them brings me.
I am surprised how many tiny jobs the dollies involve. And how much they need that is missing from my life. Today I wanted to redo the bodies for the two new dolls Crystal and Candy. I only had pink thread on the sewing machine but the bodies (old ones -cheap - from China) were white. Werner asked if he could bring me anything from the drugstore so I asked for white thread. They sent him home with nylon thread because it is transparent (and slips and slides through the machine so all the tensions go out of whack). Once I had in my mind the use of white thread I could not make myself resew the bodies with pink and that destroyed my only whiff of peace. Dumb I know but I seem stuck with this person.

With the house clean and my soul at rest I started painting the two  heads I have on hand. My big question for today is whether this much color is sufficient for the lips. I have been looking at  lips painted on dollies and see too much color and too much red. I have even googled children's faces.
If you look very closely you can see in the right hand corner of the right eye I have the eyelashes in. They are only clamped in between the eye and eye socket but went in fairly easily. Next job is to glue them in place. I am debating what kind of glue to use.  .  .
Hm, in this photo one eyebrow looks a lot higher than the other. I am hoping it is only the result of camera angle. Will brighter lips draw the attention from this goof?

I took this as a before picture showing how too fat the body sleeve was for this doll in spite of his little fat arms and legs to go with his fat cheeks. I planned to take a tummy tuck starting in the crotch and going to the chin. I did it with more creases than I liked but as I ignored them. But then I discovered the length of fabric from chin to chest was too long so I started a tuck row from arm to arm to shorten that. With that corrected I could see that there was way too much fabric in the arms too! At that point I gave up and decided the best thing I could do was to make the tucks all around with the machine and start over with the limbs taken off the body sleeve while I worked. So it is back to square 1 1/2 with this one. I think these body sleeves were designed by persons selling stuffing also. There is at least twice as much in this doll as the size needs.
 It is amazing that my old eyes let me goof even with hand-sewing. I am hoping that with morning light I can do a better job with the machine.