Dreams and Dolls

 I've been sick with pneumonia for nearly a month now. It's nothing to worry about, it's a mild form, but it gets in the way of all my plans. In my loungeroom there's the doll house I've been working on for a year and a half, a Kish doll sitting in a box full of pattern pieces waiting to be dressed, and under a towel there's my new treasure - my first bjd; waiting for a face up. I have plans for new clothes for my Patience and I haven't even measured her yet. And every time I try to do anything, suddenly I'm tired and my head spins and I just know I'm going to mess it up!
 My bjd though, performed a miracle. The two boys that I live with, mostly ignore my dolls, if they acknowledge them at all it's to comment that they're creepy. This doll, on the other hand, they're both actually impressed by.
 I say it's my first bjd, but it will probably be my only bjd. I'm not patient enough for that kind of doll. I got a Dollmore Zihu and even though she took less than six weeks from the point of ordering to get here, that was the longest six weeks of my life! I'm not patient enough for that.
 I'm going to do her face up myself. Even though she's the first and only bjd I have ever seen in person. That's a little daunting. Every day I think of that and then think "You can't honestly be planning to do this! This is crazy!" But on the other hand another voice in my head says I can, I have years of experience doing pastel and water-colour portraits, which is probably the perfect practice for that kind of thing. I know I can do it. I also know that if I mess up, I can remove it. I'm still terrified of starting. Possibly because this is a doll I've dreamed of having for fifteen years.
  I always wanted a doll that was a good size to make clothes for that could be customised as Claudia from Interview with a vampire. Anyone that likes the story will probably at that point ask "From the book or the movie?" and all of them would be annoyed because my reply is neither. Somewhere between the two. Zihu is perfect because I wanted a doll that was firstly pale without being a fantasy shade, they pass as mortals in both the book and movie and no matter how bad the lighting was a Dollpire doll or something similar, isn't passing as mortal. Secondly and most importantly she had to have a child body. That means no boobies. I decided years ago she would have to be a bjd but when I started researching bjds I discovered that the ones with realistic child faces tend to have breasts, sometimes they're small but they're there. On the other hand the ones with the realistic child bodies tend to have unrealistic oversized heads with huge eyes. It came down to a choice between two dolls, Narsha (the main doll from the collection Zihu is from) and Zihu. I chose Zihu because whilst Narsha has a prettier more doll like face, Zihu has a strange personality to her face, I could easily imagine the mind of Claudia inside that face, whereas it would be easier to imagine Narsha without a mind.
 Meanwhile, while I'm here, I have to say I LOVE Dollmore! So far for my Kish girls I have bought bjd products from Alice's Collections (just shoes and they were great and a great price), Luts (wigs and shoes, I wasn't overly impressed by either. Wigs look and feel quite plasticy, shoes very average in every way except price which was high), Leeke (one wig, one pair of shoes - both excellent with qualifications. wig very frizzy but I wanted it to be and chose one that was, shoes were fantastic quality but would have preferred shoes of slightly lesser quality at a more reasonable price), and Dollmore (shoes and wigs.)
  Dollmore's wigs (I have three now) are consistently great quality, their shoes are well made, and their prices are really reasonable. Alice's has cheaper shoes but Dollmore has a bigger selection. Also they send free gifts. A lot of free gifts. My Zihu came with a pair of black lace tights, a pair of underpants, eyes (as expected), a wig, a headband (which will be perfect for her when I'm done), a bookmark, a russian doll keyring and a cute cat keyring. (Just to be fair Alice's Collections also sent me a free magic eraser with my order from them.) It made opening Zihu's box like Christmas!

I'm sorry I have no pictures today but this isn't a real post, just writing this because I can't sleep because of coughing. I should be well enough soon that I hopefully can get another proper post done.