Well hello there, many apologies for my extreme absence. No it was not beginner blogger love loss, it has in fact been a couple of months of continuous baby illness, weekends away, birthdays, parent illness, Christmas and a whole 3 weeks of no Wifi. None, nothing, nada... due to a supplier switchover blah, blah, blah. I cried when they informed me. NO WIFI??? big fat tears. But here I am, with determination to be posting frequently forever more. In the absence I have however done A LOT of work and will be adding a lot of posts in the coming weeks. Most have been sewing projects, I have got my sew on in a big way. Plus I now own a book which states the names of sewing stitches. Result, but I shall try and mix it up with the different topics.
So to begin, this little doll is my daughter, a mini little felt version I made for her 4th birthday last month. She measures 35cm long, the size of a standard plastic doll and is sporting my little ladies: colouring, hairstyle and one of her outfits (that I picked, not her). I hand sewed her and she is made of felt, faux fur for the leopard boots and a combination of assorted buttons, ribbon and embroidery thread, and is stuffed with cotton wool. I did not use any tutorials for her, I sketched how she would look then thought for a very long time how best to create her, step by step.
Front:
Reverse:
Head detail:
The entire outer of the doll was sewn using a blanket stitch and the individual clothing and inner parts were sewn using a running stitch. (I know the stitches... woop. professional aren't I?). The clothes are attached.
At this time the little lady had been fashioning doll beds out of random things, Lego lids, plates, toy cars, she wasn't fussy but I decided that this doll needed a little bed to join her, and which could hold plastic dolls should she wish. So I made a simple moses basket. here I used pink felt for the side, striped cotton from Ikea for the base, this was double layered and stuffed with white fleece, to give dolly that extra comfort, and the handles are made from faux tan leather. The pillow is pink cotton with felt and button trims and the blanket was knitted by my mum. Team effort. It is very colour coordinated as a piece and matches her room, I am anal like that and I was pleased with how it turned out as a whole and the general colourfulness of it all. I have been able to clean her with a cloth/ wet wipe and am happy to brave her in the washing machine once she's beyond wet wipe repair.
Moses basket and pillow:
Casually hanging about:
Indeed I was quite proud of the gift, and eagerly awaited her opening it. she ripped open the packaging, stared at it in a little freaked out kind of way, said 'is that me?', to which I nodded. she looked at it freaked out a little bit more, then threw it on the floor and told me she wanted a real baby, to which I then told her we had a real baby, her brother. She informed me 'no not like him, I want a real plastic baby'. Marvellous. But all is good, she soon went back to her and now dolly little lady sleeps next to real little lady each and every night, bless.
Following this first doll, I made my lovely little goddaughter a doll of herself for Christmas, so please let me introduce dolly Erin Rose. I based her upon a photo, her colouring is more appropriate and she was made in the exact same way. I hope you like.
Miss Erin Rose:
Head detail:
Cost: The fabric stash was replenished in November which I intend to blog about soon so as always all fabric supplies were here. The only thing I had to buy especially was the cotton wool at £1, which stuffed both dolls and the pillow. My brain may pop if I attempt to work out the cost of individual pieces of fabric, but as always I have made it all using the cheapest means possible, and this really was a very inexpensive project.
Supplies: Felt in various colours, white fleece, red fabric paint (dots on dress) and faux leopard print: Faricland, Faux leather and assorted buttons: eBay, Striped cotton: Ikea, Cotton wool, embroidery threads and embroidery needle: Sainsbury's, card, scissors and a pen.
Time taken: The Erin doll was much quicker as I learnt from earlier mistakes plus I could reuse most of the templates, but on average a doll took 5-6 hours. The moses basket and pillow took 2 hours.
Have you had a go at making a doll? how did it turn out? If anyone wishes to see a detailed explanation of how these were made, or more details about where I source my supplies, I would be happy to share.
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