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Jean's Newsletters
DOLLY MIXTURES - PHOTOGRAPHY SETS
 Dolly Mixtures photography |
After I have completed the design/knitting, pattern writing and checking for our publications, the next step is making the sets for photography - also my department! Set making is time-consuming but having already spent months creating the dolls and toys I want them to be photographed in appropriate surroundings. Just placing them on a plain paper background will not do. Our photographs have to be picture book perfect, which also provides extra entertainment as knitters work through the instructions. In fact we have received comments that some children think our booklets are picture books. One knitter in particular always purchased two copies - one for the children and the other so that she could get on with the knitting without constant interruptions! |
Which brings me to Dolly Mixtures and Bertie and Bob at the circus. The set was fairly straightforward except for one item - the sawdust. Real-life items like sawdust are often unsuitable for the smaller dolls or animals and these require what I call, 'special effects'. We all know about special effects in the movies, like fake snow which has to be used in studio shots or for outdoor filming in summertime. And if the odd downpour is required, the local fire brigade comes to the rescue because the film crew can't be held up by the weather.
Obviously my special effects are less dramatic but I still have to find substitutes for real-life stuff such as sawdust because the real thing was altogether wrong for the small scale of Bertie and Bob.
I had the same problem with the straw for the Christmas Crib in Christmas Special. Real straw didn't work so I used crushed Shredded Wheat, which as you can see, worked a treat. If any knitter out there requires 'straw' for their own Christmas crib, you have to cut off the Shredded Wheat side seams first, otherwise there will be ugly lumps which will spoil the whole effect.
So, back to Bertie and Bob and searching for fake sawdust. I went to the store cupboard in the kitchen and thereby experimented by attacking the following items with the potato masher:-
Weetabix - too dark
Mini Shredded Wheat - too stiff and spiky
Crunchy Nut breakfast cereal - nut bits wouldn't crunch
Potato chips, Pringles, Mini Cheddars - all too greasy
Spaghetti and macaroni - impossible to crumble
Fast forward to the biscuit tin - CRISBAKES!
Hurrah, lovely golden colour and easily reduced to tiny grains with the potato masher. Then I used a fine mesh tea-strainer to separate the finest bits from the remaining hard bits.
Come the photography session and I scattered Crisbake dust randomly on the circus floor. Only a small section of the sawdust is visible in the photographs but 
the effect works beautifully - miles better than just gluing down a flat piece of sawdust-coloured paper.
I also had to find a solution for Jake the pirate's desert island. We don't use beach sand for photography because it tends to look dark and dismal. So we have a stock of beautiful golden sand which is manufactured for real flame gas fires. It is perfect for large dolls, but not small dolls like Jake.
I wonder if any knitter would guess that I found the 'island' at the bottom of the linen cupboard. It's a very old stockinet pillow case with very fine texture. Plumped up with lots of paper to get the raised island shape, I painted the fabric to look like sea-washed sand.
In the history of bed linen I don't suppose that a humble old pillow case ever ended up impersonating a knitted pirate's treasure island.
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Dolly Mixtures photography |
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