She's coming along nicely

Following on from my last post...

The first thing I did was to make the hair. The previous hair had been sewn onto a knitted cap and it just wasn't working for me. I know many Waldorf dolls have completely wild hair, often in pinks, blues, greens and purples - but at this stage, that just isn't the style I want.

So I sewed the yarn directly onto the doll. Very time consuming, but with a neat finish. The plaits can be turned into bunches or left loose and they can be worn down the back or over the shoulder:

I quite liked this but felt something was missing. Aha...a fringe

When this had been attached and came down below her nose, I had to be careful about trimming it. So many times as a teacher, my kids would come in with teeny tiny fringes as their parents kept trimming them to try to tidy them up!  

Next was a knitted tunic. It uses my favourite moss stitch and is

made from Drops merino cotton.  This fastens with a PigglesBoo 

button on the back and is made from a Little Jenny Wren pattern:

                                      .   

Her skirt is a simple gathered pattern with ribbon threaded through it to match her hair ribbon. It is made with a French Seam at the back for durability and neatness, and with a hand stitched hem because I hate machine stitched ones. It finishes just above her little sculpted knees:

                (Her legs sit a lot better than they stand!)

You have already had a few naked bottom shots:

 

In the interests of decency and cuteness, she is wearing knickers, 

made from a Faedale pattern:

 :

I should point out that her clothes have not been blocked or pressed yet, but I wanted to get some photos of them out.

I am embarking on a lace shawl for her. So far I have had to rip it out 6 times, not managing to get beyond row 12. Needless to say, 

shawl knitting is not something on which I have embarked previously.  

More pictures when I am a bit further ahead. 

I have been thinking up names for the doll. I have gone through a few which seemed right and then no longer fit as the doll progressed.

I have picked the name Aprilfor 3 reasons:

i. My lovely friend Avril sent me materials to make the doll, and Avril is French for April

ii. Avril/April means to come forth, to blossom, which is what this doll making process has been

iii. April denotes Springtime and all her colours are very Spring-like.

Off to try the pesky shawl again!

You sew the left arm on, the left arm off...

I have been laid a bit low with bipolar problems, but am feeling a bit better today.

The first thing to say is that I LOVE the Swiss body fabric for Waldorf dolls. At about £15 per metre it isn't cheap, but it is so forgiving. Head, feet and arms have been sewn on, taken off, repositioned, sewn on again...and the fabric isn't damaged.

So, I started by removing the Jelly Baby's head. I then put the nice head in the body cavity and wondered how I could make it work.

Step 1:  Remove the hair

This immediately put things into better proportion, because there really was a LOT of hair.

Step 2:  Take extra wool stuffing out of Jelly Baby's head and be amazed that this little compacted pile

could be fluffed up to this great big tower of loveliness

I do not know how I can have lived this long without sheep wool in this state. It looks, feels and smells wonderful. 

I needed the extra stuffing to improve the body shape and also to give extra neck and shoulder shaping. After 4 - count them, 4 - lots of pinning, stuffing, top sewing and then unpicking, I was finally happy with the way things were looking, other than stunted legs.

Back to the internet. I saw how many doll makers do separate feet, so, voila:

It's hard to tell from this angle, but the feet make the legs a good length.

I found a free pattern for shoes from Little Jenny Wren (her last auction doll went for $1,600!

I also gave my doll little knees.

My next task is to knit a little pinafore which will go over the top of her sewn clothes. The wig will have to wait because I want to watch the episode of The Great British Sewing Bee that I have recorded, and I can do that whilst knitting, but not whilst wig making!

Oh look, a Jelly Baby...

... Or doll making part 4

I was all fired up this morning, clearing a space for my sewing machine. It is a good, solid, no bells and whistles machine, which does everything that I could want:

It is the very same machine used for a 5 part You Tube tutorial on Waldorf doll making. The person posting the tutorial explained that she was using this machine for demonstration because, basically, a trained chimp could use it!

I am inexperienced with the machine, but do want to get better.

All set up there, I pinned out my paper pieces, with some excellent feline help:

By the time I had finished drawing around the pieces, she had turned her back on me, but remained in an inconvenient place:

I sewed each piece 3 times for durability and then cut them out.

Problem... 

This intended head was much, much, much too big. Humph.

So I had to make a new head and sew on the skin.  Looks like something Mary Shelley would be delighted with!

Add on the embroidery threads for the eyes and mouth pulled through and tied at the back, and you have a well creepy object:

Once it was all finished, I had created a Jelly Baby!

Rather cute,totally un-Waldorf and marked exhibit 3 in the doll making process!

That's more like it...

Or...Doll making part 3

So, to continue.

I received a gift from a lovely Australian friend. I first met her through buying her pattern for knitted Waldorf dolls from her Etsy shop, Faedale. Check out her patterns - I think they are the nicest I have seen for knitted dolls, and the mermaid is just uber cute:
etsy.com/shop/faedale

In the package was a doll making DVD and some supplies. I settled back to watch the tutorial (70 minutes) and at the end was really fired up. So, 2 days later, I have made a head!

The actual head took a whole day, and then the hair took another day.

I am very happy with the way she turned out. The 'skin' is peachy soft and she has a lovely rounded face which was just the look for which I had been aiming.

The hair is alpaca and silk, so each thread is fine, but strong and fuzzy.

I am knitting some clothes today. Fin's half term holiday finishes tonight, so while she is at school tomorrow, I will clear off the table, get out fabric and the sewing machine, and see if more magic occurs with the body.

I have also completed 2 little knitted gnomes and might well do another of those:

Whoa...not a pretty sight

Well, I am experiencing a steep learning curve here. I finished the first prototype Waldorf doll and it was not a pretty sight!

Think Crash Dummies: The head was not all chubby and round and curvy, but rather rectangular -

I had made the head skin too tight so it was squishing up the stuffing too firmly. However, I do like the positioning of the features, but I will do slightly darker mouth next time.

The, doll sat very nicely in her own, so I had got the levels of stuffing right:

I had wanted a nice, rounded, huggable body, but the pattern left me with a doll body more suited to a male Olympic swimmer - all muscular shoulders and slim hips!

Strangely, though, I have not been obsessing about the mistakes. I have been doing lots more research and have felt confident enough to actually make my own pattern up.  However, that will have to wait until I can get more doll coloured thread.

In the meantime, 

I have started on these little knitted gnomes in the Waldorf style. They are made out of cotton and merino wool yarn, and they are stuffed with wool:

This is a very tactile little doll and knitted up quickly. I would have liked a collection of them in my class when I was teaching reception.

These are a couple more colours I will be knitting up. Although it doesn't show up in the photo, the red is a lovely mellow colour.

My concentration is not brilliant at the moment, so these little gnomes are ideal.

Waldorf dolls...a beginning

In 20 years of teaching Early Years (3 to 7), hands on learning, outdoor learning and storytelling have been key to my style. I did the same thing with my boys when they were growing up. 

I so miss going for walks in the woods. As the weather gets better, though, Fin will be able to push me around the paths in the 3 country parks we have local to us.

Thinking about all these things, plus desperately needing to get centred due to all the mental disturbances of late, I decided to start making a Waldorf doll.

On Friday, this gorgeous package arrived from Germany:

Just look at all that washed and carded sheep's wool. It is impossible to keep your hands off it!

The gauze fabric is to hold the head in shape and the interlock stockinette is as soft as skin:

From watching tutorials and reading books, I knew the hardest bit of a Waldorf doll is the head.

So first the forming out of wool:

Then the covering with gauze and shaping with string:

Then covering with stockinette. The eyes are simply pins denoting placement, but they do make it look a bit creepy!

This was all done yesterday, Saturday.

Today, so far I have sewn the body and limbs. They now need trimming and stuffing. More tomorrow...