.Are You an Opsimath?

Cat Lady Mary S. told me recently that I was an opsimath, a noun meaning "a person who becomes a student or learner late in life", derived from a Greek word meaning 'late in learning'. A few of the things I've learned since turning fifty are: how to make a hyperlink, how to make pickles, what the little bucket does in Adobe Photoshop, how to thread a new-fangled computerized sewing machine, and what the word opsimath means.

As I mentioned earlier this month, I was recently bitten by the doll bug, after drooling for a couple years over the many art dolls I was seeing on Etsy.com and elsewhere, including those of Snippet Girl/Cat Lady Carrie.

So I recently joined an online group called Cloth and Clay Dolls, and thanks to tutorials and helpful hints from many wonderful doll-makers, I'm learning the basics of using paper clay combined with a fabric body to create sculptural dolls. In a bold display of opsimathy, I am proud to introduce the results of my first cloth and clay doll:

Tiger Lil

She started out like this, with a paperclay head formed over a cloth body:

...and wound up like this, a little ginger tabby girl named Tiger Lil. She's all ready for Spring in her little frock that has a tulip border at the bottom.

This opsimathy stuff can be really, really fun!
What new thing are you going to learn this month?

Learn more about Tiger Lil at my etsy shop, where she is available for purchase (she's a wild one and wants to see the world and hopes to wind up in an exotic new locale...)