Butterfly Belle

My latest completed project is a small cloth doll I made for a swap sponsored by the Glitter Town Dollies Yahoo group.  We were all to make a doll using the same pattern.  The chosen pattern was designed by Natalie Bird and is available here:
http://www.thebirdhouse.com.au/Freebies/freebies.htm

Here's a picture of Natalie's doll:

Cute, isn't she? 
I wanted to put my own spin on this design rather that trying to duplicate it, so this is what I came up with

I used the pattern for the basic doll, but I did it with black velvet instead of muslin or calico.  I couldn't get around the difficulty of painting such a tiny face and giving it more expression on a black background, so I decided to use my own face and tranfer it to fabric and stitch it on.  I redesign the size and shape of the wings, but used the same quilted fabric method as prescribed.  I used a couple of different decorative stitches in black and gold to quilt the wings.  I really didn't like the idea of a butterfly holding a butterfly net, so I made this a "mama" butterfly holding her pupa instead.  The pupa was sculpted in polymer clay and then rolled in felt.  She has beads around her face, fun fur yarn hair and bead antenea.    I hope my partner will enjoy her.
My partner is Glo von Gesselein and if you hop over to her blog at
http://mrsartdollmaker.blogspot.com/
you can see the beautiful doll she has made for me for this swap.