Presents

Two years ago I spent my evenings working on a present for my youngest's birthday, a wee dolly.

I had intended to make a few items of clothing for dolly but time ran out on me and she had just this one outfit.  I made a few bits for Christmas that year, pyjamas, a cardigan and another dress, but I have made nothing since.  When I asked my daughter a while ago what she would like for her birthday one of things she mentioned was a few more clothes for her dolly.  So I found a few patterns and spent many evenings making some wee garments.

I started earlier this time (her birthday is next Sunday) and finished these early last week, I didn't want to feel rushed.  I knew that none of the patterns I found would fit exactly as this dolly is on the small size and most patterns are written for larger dolls, so any I found would need adapting!

This dress was made from a 'pattern' in the lovely book The Children's Year.  The book gives you a set of dimensions and a guide to sewing up.  I adapted the dimensions to fit, the neck is a little on the large size but I am not sure that matters?  It makes it easier to get it on and off.

This dress was a bit more fiddly to make.  I found the pattern here which helpfully had a pdf you could download and print.  It was far too big in its original form so I attempted to adapt it, not entirely successfully.  I didn't get the sleeves quite right but I cut off the extra bits when I came to sew it together and it turned out alright and fits perfectly.  The cardigan and hat were from here, the hat I knitted straight from the pattern although this doll has a small head she has big hair to keep the hat in place!  The cardigan I adapted and the first attempt was too tight I guess I didn't measure my gauge quite right, second attempt was good.  The arms look ridiculously long but they fit!  The wee shoes were knitted using this pattern using dk yarn rather than the suggested worsted and they came out the right size.

I designed the trousers and shirt myself.  The trousers are two rectangles cut to the right size sewn together at the sides, elastic sewn in across the top and then a cut made from the bottom up to the right place for the crotch and the two seams sewn up.  The shirt was four rectangles, two for the arms and two for the body.  Elastic is sewn in to the neck and the shirt has a slight flare to the waist.  The shoes are the same as before, they may need a wee strap to keep them on!  The vest is another adaptation from a pattern to be found here.

I didn't buy any materials to make these clothes.  The yarn was the end of balls in my stash.  The fabric was a mixture of small pieces left over from making clothes for my daughter and old grown out of clothes.  She is now the best dressed dolly in town, the village.

I still have a dress to sew up and a vest to finish, pausing to joining in with Nicole......

Gnome

Last week I shared a birthday present I made for a friend's son, his sibling has a birthday the day after so I needed to get a present made for him too.  Their birthdays are at the end of this month but they came to visit last week, I thought it would be better to have them made by then so I didn't have to post them.  When I am working towards a deadline I always think I have all the time in the world when in reality I never have, I am not the only one am I?  It was a few days before that I realised I had a lot of sewing still to do and not many hours to complete it in.  I did get it made, just, I finished at 3 on the day they were coming they arrived half an hour later!  I had decided on a waldorf doll, one which has the clothes sown on, some call these toddler dolls, I thought it would be a quick one to make.  In the end it was, quick that is, but there were moments when I thought I was running out of time.   The head was made in the traditional waldorf style, this doll has an extra long neck piece which is the main body.

You sew the arm and legs onto the 'sausage' of the body.  I sewed a ribbon round the middle to give it a waist and hide my gathering!

The hands and feet are square pieces of material stuffed and made into balls.  The arms and legs are gathered and sewn onto the hands and feet.

The arms are a rectangular piece of material with a hole cut in the top, it is gathered and sewn round the neck.  The legs and body are another rectangle with a slit cut part way to make the legs, all sewn up and gathered at the waist.

Initially I was going to make this into a little boy doll, complete with hair.  Hair takes a very long time to get right, time was not something I had, so I thought about a hat.

I added a ribbon to the hat too.

When I put it on he was very definitely a gnome and didn't need any hair at all...........

He was hard to wrap up and give away, I hope his recipient likes him.  There is something about him that suggests fun and perhaps a little bit of mischief...............?

I used several books for inspiration and guidance,  for making the head I referred to The Nature Corner this has the best tutorial and pictures, for inspiration Toymaking with Children and for guidance and sizes I used the Doll in a Jumpsuit tutorial from The Children's Year.

I am joining in with Nicole over at Frontier Dreams for Keep Calm Craft On, head on over to see what others have been making and creating.......

Mother

At the beginning of this year, when we were still in the depths of a grey wet winter, I shared our King Winter I made to stand on our seasonal table.  At the time my children requested I make a Mother Earth to join us for Spring.  A Mother Earth or Mother Goddess has been represented in cultures for thousands of years, as a deity, a protector and a provider amongst others.  She was worshiped to ensure good harvests, for fertility or to ensure protection from natural disasters this is but a small part of what she has represented.  I pondered all these images as I decided what form our Mother Earth would take.  I had used the book The Nature Corner as an inspiration for our King Winter, this book depicted Mother Earth as an old lady, as does the much older book The Story of the Root Children originally published in 1906.  We love this book and read it regularly so I decided that our Mother Earth would be similar.

She is made using the same process as King Winter, a waldorf doll style head mounted onto a base, with pipe cleaners wrapped in wool for the arms.  She has a 'petticoat' under her skirt to give it some fullness, a round piece of material which is gathered up round the base and post and sewn to the blouse.

Her hair is wool, I used the roving yarn that I made a fulled/felted bowl I shared a few weeks ago.  It reminds me of a great aunt I loved to visit as a child, it was a similar colour and she always wore it in a plaited bun, I never saw it down so had no idea how long it was.

She has a cloak...

....and a shawl, knitted in moss/seed stitch with decreases every other row to give a triangular shape.

All the materials I used were in my fabric or wool stash, either leftovers from other projects or old pieces of clothing I keep for repairing and patching, which was very satisfy and somehow in keeping with the character herself.

I am rather pleased with her, she now stands in pride of place on our seasonal table along with the daffodils I made last year, a felt sheep and lamb and some flower fairies we have been making which I will share with you another time.

Joining in with Nicole for the weekly sharing of crafting on her lovely blog, head on over to see what others have been making......

King

I was given a lovely book for Christmas the year before last (2012) as I really wanted to start a seasonal table with the children, we were also given a beautiful driftwood tree which has become the centrepiece of our table.  I decided that I would make a few pieces for each season and slowly build a collection of bits and pieces that could sit alongside items collected on walks.  Despite thinking about it I never got round to making anything for that first Winter and some of the pieces I started for Spring were not finished until Autumn!  So as Winter approached last year I thought once again about making something for our table, Christmas rather sapped my time as I was busy with present making so come January I seized the moment and got started.  I knew I didn't have all the bits and pieces the book suggest so I improvised with what I did have.

I started with the head which is made in the Waldorf doll style, I found this easier this time round having made one before.  The first layer is a stretchy jersey material stuffed with wool, the second layer is a stockinette, which is slightly stretchy, both of which were left over from making my first doll.  The book suggests mounting the head onto a wooden post with a round base which I did not have so I made a tube with some cotton material stuffed with wool and a piece of wood in the bottom to help it stand up.  The arms were a pipe cleaner wrapped round with some wool, the robe is cut out in one piece and sewn onto the neck and hands which were made from very small pieces of the stockinette.  The cloak was cut as a square and gathered together at the neck before sewing on.  The eyebrows, moustache, beard and hair are all wool and the crown is felt.  His staff is a pipe cleaner covered in silver foil.  The children love him.

King Winter now is in the land,

he reigns with cold and freezing hand.

He makes Jack Frost touch nose and toes,

and gives our cheeks a shining glow.

So King Winter sits on our seasonal table in all his splendour whilst outside, well, is it really winter?  It seems to be limping along this time in a wet, soggy, greyness not my favourite type of winter at all, give me cold, crisp and snow with a bit of sun and blue sky any day.

The children sat with me at the table whilst I made him, doing their own thing, watching what I was doing or reading the book I was making him from.  Once he was complete they requested I make a Mother Earth next and have been asking for the last week when I am going to make her, I hope that doesn't take me a year to make too! The book I used is The Nature Corner.

Joining in with Nicole for Keep Calm Craft On head on over to see what others have been making and creating.

Dolly

I made a Waldorf doll for my youngest for her birthday last month, at the time I said I would explain how I made her and post a picture so, finally here is that post.

I bought the materials from Myriad Natural Toys and Crafts, whilst making the doll I found another website, Little Oke Dolls that sells materials to make a doll, I have not compared prices etc. so don't know how they compare. I have enough material left over to make another doll if I wanted to.

I used the instructions from the book The Children's Year by Cooper, Fynes-Clinton and Rowling as a basis. I used this to work out what and how much of the various materials to buy and to draw out a pattern.

I started with the head, personally I needed more pictures than the book I was using had, if you are ok without pictures you will do fine with the book by itself. I found these pictures really useful whist making the head and the body. I had these open the whole time I was making. I also made use of these pictures to finish off the outer material of the head. I sewed most of the dolly by hand, with a small amount on a sewing machine.   I used this blog to sew the eyes and mouth.  You need to make sure you have a long needle to do this and it is easier to go through the face part of the head to the back and then tie off the thread than to do through from the back.

To do the hair, again I needed more pictures. I spoke to a couple of friends who I knew had made dolls, but they had no advice other than to say they were not happy with the way they had sewn the hair! So I looked for more pictures and eventually found a blog with great pictures and a tutorial which I used.   The hair has turned out wild and mad but I think it gives the doll a bit of character. My youngest loves it, which is the most important thing.

I made the clothes from old clothing of my youngest's. I had no patterns, I made one on paper then cut out some scraps of lining type material to get the shape right. These were entirely sewn by hand. I made use of original seams where I could on the t-shirt, for the cuffs and the bottom hem. I used very small poppers on the shoulders of both the items, the buttons on the pinafore are for show!

I will make more clothing for dolly as my youngest gets older and is a able to take the clothes on and off easily.

Here she is: