My 1000th doll

I am a bad blogger. I forget to post often for months at a time. Currently this is only my third post this year. I am a slacker.
    In January, as I was updating my brag book (photos of all of the finished dolls I have made) I realized that I was fairly close to 1000 dolls. As in I would get there sometime this year. Friday I made doll #1000. I wanted it to be an unusual doll because #1000 is a pretty special spot in the doll lineup. I have been trying to come up with what I could make that would be different and fun and I asked for opinions on my doll page on Facebook. I did get a variety of ideas but none of them seemed quite right. But I did get an order for a very cool doll from Laura Skillern. She wanted a Pony Express rider.

Now the thing about Pony Express riders is they were wiry and very light because their horses needed to have as little weight as possible so they could get the mail delivered as quickly as possible. Being the rider needed to be slight all of the available male dolls on the market were out for this type of rider.

With that in mind we decided turning an Yvonne into a pony express rider was the way to go. Yvonne can move in ways that almost no other doll can. She really is the perfect choice.

So between starting off giving a doll a sex change and the unusual costume a Pony Express rider really turned out to be an outstanding choice for my 1000th doll. I have never made one before but I certainly enjoyed the challenge.
    This weekend was one of the busiest non-horse-show weekends I have ever had. Thursday my sister (who flew in from North Carolina) helped us with all of the shopping for Elecktra's graduation party. Friday she came over along with my friend Crystal to cook for the party. That was an all day event. Saturday was running all morning and the party all afternoon. A combined graduation/18th birthday party is a big event but I had a lot of help (and I forgot my camera! Dad let me borrow his but I don't have the photos yet) and it turned out well. Yesterday we had an impromptu cookout with my best friend from high school and were gone most of the day with that. So busy. So tired.
    But this morning the first thing I did was type up all of the names of the people entered in the free doll contest, print them out and cut them into a bowl. Elecktra consented to be my name puller for fairness.

Here she can be seen making sure the names are thoroughly mixed (they are also folded so she can't see them).

and it's more fair if you don't look while you pull the name so she looked away and pulled...

Heather Downing! Heather wins a free doll of her choice. Once she decides what she wants I will put it in my work rotation and she will get a free doll in the mail fairly soon after that.
    In the nine years I have been making dolls I have had an incredible amount of support from the hobby. I have a large variety of repeat customers for dolls and now for my horse boots and other horse accessories in my etsy store and the miniature food as well. It has made it possible for me to stay home and raise my kids (and still be my son's caregiver) and contribute financially to the family. I am more appreciative of that than I can ever put into words. This drawing was to say thank you in a small way for all of this support. Hopefully I will still be making dolls for many many years to come.