Sewing for Toddlers--2 more projects

I've been having fun making some projects for the newest addition to our family.  Now that the baby is coming up on her first birthday, she's at the perfect age for a happy sewing Auntie!

Above is my Petal Fairy.  She is a Waldorf inspired doll.  I created the pattern for the doll.  Her head is 2" tall.  The entire doll is 11" from top of her head (cap not included) to the scalloped petal edge of her gown.  So that makes her longer than the typical ratio of 1:3 for a doll.  But it's looks fine because most of her length is her dress and as we all know, long gowns are beautiful!  She is not stuffed, making her safer for a baby.  She is as much a lovey as a doll. 

I also made her a SeeSaw Dress from FishsticksDesigns.com.  I haven't really used any knits for years so it's fun learning new ways to sew them.  The fabric I used is mostly cotton with 5% Lycra. It's got happy stretch with great rebound. 

 I have a serger but found my regular machine had so many great knit stitches built in, that I didn't bother with the serger. This dress will have a nice drape on a child which isn't really evident on a hanger!  I'll see if I can get a photo of her wearing the dress on Instagram one of these days!

SeeSaw Dress by FishSticksDesigns.com    95%Cotton, 5%Lycra  12 month size

Fabric Dolls--Episode Six: It's a Boy!

Here's my first try at making a Waldorf-type Boy Doll.  This little surfer guy is 10.5" tall.  It took me more time to make him than the 2 larger girls I made before him!

I didn't find any clothes for boy dolls his size so I had to design everything he is wearing.  I don't have any training designing patterns.  It takes me a while to fuddle through the process.  His pants were initially too short in the back despite his straight trunk and his shirt was too big and needed to be taken in.  Once I do figure out what seems to work, I go back and re-draw my patterns so it will be easier next time I have to make clothes for a doll this size. 

His sandals were the easiest part of his outfit!

The cutest? His sun-bleached thatch of hair!  Or, maybe his underpants made from a white knit with a tobogganing polar bear print!  Too funny since he is wearing board shorts! 

I've finally starting be able to get a doll's head rolled a bit tighter and I now know how to made tight ball under his head so his neck doesn't wobble. I think rolling the heads tightly enough is one of the hardest things about making these dolls. 

This little guy just makes me smile!

Fabric Dolls--Episode Five. Bamboletta.com's Piccolina Girl Kit

At the beginning of February I ordered a doll kit from Bamboletta.com.  This January the good folks at Bamboletta started offering kits for their Piccolina dolls.  These dolls are 9 inches tall. They sell this size doll at craft fairs and events but not in their on-line shop. The site states the kits are intended for the "crafty, not crafty person."  January and February 2015 they offered the Piccolina Girl doll. With the Piccolina Girl kit I purchased, I had a choice of a couple skin colors, 3 hair colors, 3 eye colors, 2 lip colors and a choice of two different dresses. This month, March, they are offering a Mermaid!  (A post on Instagram this weekend stated that they will have the regular Piccolina dolls available again on their website this week. They are currently all sold out).

My Piccolina Girl kit arrived last week.  What a beautiful kit! The kit itself is a work of art! (See above)!   The kit includes a mostly completed doll body, the head ready but not yet attached to the body, yarn for hair, wool roving to stuff the torso and all the other supplies you need to finish the doll, including needles and thread. 

The kit has wonderful, very detailed, instruction manual with lots of great drawn illustrations.  On their website there are also 4 great videos for the kit.  Everything you need to know to make your doll is brilliantly explained!

The afternoon my kit arrived, I sat down after supper to read through the instruction booklet. Right. That lasted 5 minutes!  The instructions are so great that I felt totally comfortable doing the steps as I read them. Granted, this wasn't my first doll, but I not sure that made much of a difference.  I was still a bit nervous about getting this doll right.

One of the suggestions for tools in the kit booklet is have a pair of plier and a thimble. I'd say absolutely to both!  The wool in my doll's head was so tightly rolled (a good thing) that I really needed my needle nose pliers to get the needle to grab a bit of the wool in the head and back out to the torso when I was sewing the doll together.  I would also recommend getting a back-up set of long doll needles. (I found Dritz doll needles at my Joann's Fabric).  The 4 inch needle my the kit ended up so curved that I needed to switch it out for new, straight needle so I find the exit points I wanted when I embroidered the doll's face. 

Here's my doll with her head attached to her torso. She is wearing the underpants supplied in the kit.  

PIccolina Girl Kit, body assembled.

Arriving at the point of embroidering the face is one of the best places in this kit.  The booklet explains EXACTLY how to place the eyes and mouth, as well as giving detailed, illustrated, instructions for the embroidery itself.  But they also state that if you want to do your doll's face differently, to feel free to do so--they want this doll to be your doll. I really appreciated that comment in their instruction manual.  I used the green embroidery thread in the kit for my doll's eyes but mixed it with a deep blue thread.  The resulting 2 color mix is really subtle. 

I had been planning to do a step-by-step photo essay of embroidering the doll's face.  But I was having so much fun I totally forgot to take the pictures! (I think that was a good thing!)

Adding the hair is also fun too.  There is lots of yarn included in the kit!!  I added a about 12 strands of other colors of wool yarn.  I chose the blonde hair offered in the kit for my doll. I added a bit of orange yarn, a couple strands of brown and a couple of red. 

Here's Karen, my finished Piccolina Girl Kit Doll.  Look at her outside in yard in front of the snowbank!  She's got attitude! She wanted to stand, NOT sit!!, on the the doll chair!  Isn't she cute?

If you want to make a doll yourself, absolutely buy a Piccolina Kit from Bamboletta.com!  It's so much fun!  When you are done, you'll have a lovely new friend.  Her body is just the right size to hold in a hand.  The Piccolina is the perfect size doll to go places with a child.

I can't wait to see what special doll kit Bamboletta.com creates for April!

Fabric Dolls -- Episode Two. Dolls I designed for play.

Today I'd like to introduce you to some of the dolls I've designed and made.  They were sewn in the 1970s and 1980s.  My Mom gave me a copy of Jean Ray Laury's Doll Making:  A Creative Approach.  It is a great resource which explains how to design, joint and add hair for children's toys as well as art dolls.  

My dolls are all products of their day:  Their bodies are cotton polyester fabric and they are all stuffed the polyester fill. The clothes are cotton or cotton polyester blend.  I chose to use the cotton poly fabric.  There wasn't a wide range of solid cotton fabrics available at the time and I didn't like the look or feel of the muslin which was rough to the touch.  

Each of the dolls were created for someone special.  Most were made for the children in my life though two dolls were made for adults who fell in love with them and asked if they could have one.  

"Amy", the doll above is the second doll I made.  Her photo is dated 1975.  I have 2 photos of my first doll, but unfortunately those pictures have faded with time and didn't scan well.   "Amy" and my first doll are from the same pattern, though as my second doll, "Amy's" fabric hair has better styling!  Both these early dolls were made for children under 2 years old.  They are toddler-safe:  No fuzzy hair to chew and the doll's features are embroidered.  One of the faded photos of is a toddler and her doll together in a wagon.  Sweet!

As the children got a bit older, I made them larger dolls with yarn hair.  Here is "Annenina".  She was my first child doll and still my favorite. 

"Annenina"

These dolls were made with a separate head, torso, arms and legs.  The head was stuffed and then sewn onto the completed torso.  The doll's arms have joints at the shoulder, elbow and wrist. The legs have hips, knees and ankles. The arms and legs are sewn into the torso--no buttons.  I drew the pattern pieces for the doll on the paper used to pad packages for shipping. I still have the pattern!

The dolls are a bit floppy but the joints in the extremities do make the dolls delightfully posable.  I didn't know about Waldorf dolls when I was making these dolls. The construction of the Waldorf doll has the key to a doll with a separate head which isn't floppy. Waldorf dolls have a neck section which extends into the torso which gives it excellent stability.  

To make my dolls washable, I chose to use polyester yarn for their hair.  Only one of the dolls, "Annje" so is on the far right below, has wool hair. 

Here are some of the other dolls.  Left to right, "Molly", "Kaja" and "Annje."   Molly's freckles are French knots. I really like them!  Seeing them now, I wish I'd used them on more of the dolls!

I was making smocked dresses for the doll's owners at the time, so the dolls often got smocked dresses as well!   The checked gingham provides a perfect grid for the gathering needed for the smocking, no marking required!

I made one doll for a boy.  "Meriadoc" is based on one of the hobbits from J. R. R. Tolkein's book The Hobbitt.  He has yarn loop hair on his head and his feet!  This hair is created by sewing the yarn directly into the head.  One loose loop is followed by a tight loop to lock the first stitch in place. It's very secure and has a great effect. It takes a long time to make a head of hair this way, and it's a bit hard on the fingers.  But is really is worth it!

"Meriadoc"

"Meriadoc" has French knot freckles and embroidered rosy cheeks!  He's a cutie!

"Meriadoc" and "Molly" are both dressed in fabrics hand silkscreened by Marblehead Handprints from Marblehead, Massachusetts.  I was living near Marblehead at the time and frequently used their fabrics for both crafts and clothing construction. It fun to shop in their store and see the ladies doing the silkscreening.  The Marblehead Handprints shop closed years ago but you can see some of their other fabrics and products on Pinterest by clicking the link above.

Next Monday I'll show you a couple of my other dolls.  You'll be surprised!  

I'm the binding on the Economy Block bird quilt today.  Bonnie Hunter's "Grand Illusion" Mystery Quilt is next in the Finish it February quilt pile!

Fabric Dolls -- Episode One. Doll from the Blue Ridge Mountains.

I started making cloth dolls a couple of years after I learned to quilt.  They have a lot in common. 2 layers of fabric with batting or stuffing in the middle. A fabric doll is essentially a quilt with animation!  While I work on quilting my stack of Finish it February UFOs, I thought I'd share some of my adventures with cloth dolls and their construction. I hope you will enjoy this detour!

Dolls.  I was one of those little girls who always loved dolls.  But only baby dolls.  I was given a couple wonderful English and Italian baby dolls when we lived overseas.  But were both hard molded plastic.  I loved them all, but longed for a doll with a soft cuddly body.  I had stuffed animals but no fabric dolls in my "family."

Until our family came home for a break in the early 1960s and we took a road trip along the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Along the way we stopped at a craft store. There I found the most amazing cloth dolls. I had to have one.  I was probably 10 years old. I remember a discussion about my being a bit old for a new doll. Not so!  Somehow I was able to convince my folks that this doll was different and worth purchasing.  And so she was!

Many years later, showing evidence of years of love, here she is!  She is wearing all her original clothing. Only her hair ribbons have been replaced. 

She really is an amazing doll.  The sections of her head and body are made from continuous long curvy strips of fabric.  The center strip that makes up the middle of her face extends through the middle of her trunk.  She was stuffed through an opening on the right side of her abdomen.

She has articulated button arms and legs.  There is a nice curve in both her arms and legs. She sits well.

Legs are stuffed at the knee on the front of the leg!

Her hair is wool yarn.  I loved being able to braid it!

Hair detail

When I started making dolls, I considered trying to replicate her.  But making a pattern with those continuous head to trunk strips really stumped me.  I did design my own patterns for the cloth dolls I made. The patterns had a more conventional doll construction with separate head, trunk and extremities.  I'll share some of my own creations next week.

Back to the UFOs!