Winner of the Spring Zoom Loom Doll Challenge

Winner of the Spring Zoom Loom Doll Challenge

We asked Spring Zoom Loom Doll Winner "HotAfricanQueen" a few questions about her doll!

What is your name? "Chantal Hoareau"

Where are you from? "Born in Africa, I now make Los Angeles, California my home."

How long have you been weaving? "I have only been weaving since March 2014. This is the 1st loom I have ever worked with consistently."

What drew you to the Zoom Loom? "I am a tool-gal. I am always looking for new tools to use or hone a skill. When I saw the Zoom Loom at Stitches West 2014, I immediately saw the potential it had—so I had to get it. I am glad the vendor selling it had a partially worked project on it. That is what drew me to the loom."

What other fiber arts do you do? "Knitting & Crochet"

What was the inspiration behind this doll? "I ended up working on the environment first, then the doll much later. Inspiration happened while I was on a coffee run one spring morning. I stopped to observe a newly planted flower bed that was facing the sidewalk. Their classic spring colors were a welcome sight from the dreary winter colors. Even in California. Tall and short flowers, some open and others still, others partially open, yet others almost shyly, closed shut. The still-shut flowers reminded me that Mother Nature un-folds flowers to show them off. It occurred to me that I could possibly reverse the process by folding a flower into place. I thought this would be a good experiment to try some origami using the Zoom Loom squares. My experiments revealed that regular yarn did not match my perception—it created too much bulk for what I had in mind. So I moved onto finer, thread yarn and came up with a lace origami flower! It took me a weekend to fine-tune the process as I wanted to include as many flower components as possible from 1 (one) completed Zoom Loom square. In the end, I succeeded in making them small enough to include petals, stamen, pistil and stem. To keep the idea fresh, I wrote up a pattern that is now posted among my Ravelry projects. The flowers were done by April. These served as inspiration for the dress for the doll when I decided to use the same yarns as the flowers. Fun project!"

winning doll and her accessories

What yarns do you prefer to use? "Cotton"

Do you have plans for the next doll?"I am still toying with ideas for the summer doll. There are so many sources of inspiration. A friend even gave me the idea of a dancing Hawaiian girl!"

If you could have one super-power what would it be? "Erase all hatred and greed"


Thank you to everyone who participated in this round! If you would like to participate in the Summer Doll Challenge, pop on over to the Ravelry thread!

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