The second rag doll

I've made a second doll! She's as of yet unnamed, she goes by 'Dollie' or 'Puppe' so far. I really like her, she's so much better than the last. Here she is:

I meant to post as I go on making it, but my sister being over to visit meant that I didn't spend much time on the computer! I did however get time to do some stitching as we were sitting and chatting. I don't have photos of all the steps but I have some:

 This is my amended pattern (I used the one from before as a base): I added a neck and a dart to the head, rounded the shoulders and made the bottom narrower for the body. I made a different back body pattern by adding darts and increasing the width and length so that it would still match up. I added a foot shape to the leg and made it much wider,and  I added a hand shape (mitten style) to the arm and made it much wider, too. I got the idea for the hands and feet and the head dart. from the hop skip jump dolls, I just love her dolls! I know I could have bought the pattern, and be done with it, but I like the challenge of making my own, and changing it a little which each doll (I already have lots of amendments for the next doll planned!).

I cut all my body pieces from pale pink baby cord, and sewed the darts, neck and limbs with the machine. After turning and stuffing the limbs I basted them to the body pieces and handsewed them on. At this point I realised that I wouldn't just be able to tuck the limbs into the body while sewing all around it! Instead I turned the body, I thought I'd never manage it!

oh dear...very hard work!

Phew!

I hand sewed the body and what was left of the head, and stuffed with some more pillow fiber. This sounds like I was nearly done at this point... But then I attached a lot of wool hair, strand by strand, decided I hated it, removed it, tried to fix the angle of the arms (which looked nothing like the above once the body was stuffed), gave up on that and ripped the seams and handsewed the arms back on. All this over the course of a week or so! 

After the woolly hair disaster I decided to go for felt hair instead, and found a great instructions in this purl bee felt doll tutorial :

 as i wasn't happy with the head shape

 i stuffed the 'felt wig' with some more of the polyester filling

 and then tried it on and whip stitched it in place.

I embroidered the face and M played with the naked doll for the afternoon. 

Here the two dollies are having a rest on the window sill. 

Emm's main demand was a nappy for the doll, and 'anziehen' (getting dressed), so in the evening I made some quick white knickers, and in the morning a simple sleeveless dress, held together with elastic at the neckline. Which brings us back to the first photo of this post!

Once I'd decided to make another doll I did lots of image googling, scanning through the pictures and checking any websites with those that I liked, this especially worked when I was looking for hair inspiration and tutorials! There are lots of great doll making resources out there, and photos for inspiration! 

embroidered linen tablecloth

photographed in my mum's laundry room (it got covered in bits from the trees as she had it outside on the patio). my granny had it in her 'bottom drawer' so she most likely embroidered it herself, it would have been in the 30s or 40s as she got married in the late fourties

baby gifts

some rather late presents for two friends who had baby girls!
i used some of these thrifted napkins(?) to appliquee babygrows and to make bibs (pattern from bend the rules sewing). I especially like the babygrows, the embroidery looks great, something elaborate looking that only took 10 minutes to make! i also like the way the white thin cotton weave looks on the cotton knit.

The bibs gave me some trouble with the snap buttons, they are from a set from LIDL and i destroyed twice as many as i finally attached to the bibs... i wonder if i can get matching better quality snap buttons for the pliers or if i should just go back to using the sew on ones... also, i only had cream flannel for the back so they look a bit darker

more gifts

i finally bought some bondaweb and tried the appliqué, with westfalen fabric, it's really much easier. i handstitched around the edges as i didn't fancy getting sewing machine oil on this one (like i did on the apple babygrow). the bondaweb makes the appliquéd fabric quite stiff but i hope it'll get softer when it's being washed repeatedly. in the background you see my 'grannysquare' i stuck to making just the one and it's nearly big enough to be a baby blanket, i have nearly 250 of 'supersoft baby aran' crocheted into the one square. it's very relaxing work!


here a close up, aren't those ducks cute? this one's for noah, a friend of ours' new baby,


and tonight i embroidered this one, the design is ogham writing, in irish (gaelic). this one's for my colleague, who announced her news today. this baby is also due in october, like my friend b.'s who i haven't made a present for yet... i'm finding it hard to keep up with presents for all these babies, there must be something in the water!


and finally, i got this set of i don't know what it is in the charity shop, the square ones seem to be hankies, but the rectangular ones, no idea! they are all hand embroidered with these cute stars (flowers?) does anybody know if there are rectangular hankies? or if there is a tradition of table linen made from thin hankie type cotton?

time for bed now...

last minute gifts

yesterday afternoon i got a short notice invite to my neighbour's baby shower the same day! good job i had some babygrows that i bought to embellish for my friend bridget, so i could make some last minute gifts. i attempted some freehand mashine appliquee, and wasn't too happy with the result, so i also did two freehand running stitch embroidered ones. the appliquee also got some oil from the sewing mashine on it so i had to wash it and iron it dry! in the end i decided to hand over all three, two apples and a pear.

do you ever go into the garden just to have a look around

and end up with hands like this?

i find it very hard to stop once i'm out there pulling at this weed, deciding to move that little plant to a better spot... i ended up raking over all the bald patches in the lawn and spreading compost and organic fertiliser and grass seeds. then p raked it all in and watered the whole thing. it's lucky we have such a small garden!



cup of tea and some sunflower seed bread with mirabell jam, and the last bit of comte cheese



and this evening, while p was next door to play our neighbour's nephew's playstation 3 i made a glasses case for my workmate Ger, from a piece of her donated wooly jumper, that i felted a few weeks ago. the wool, a deep purpley navy, has orange specks, so i used orange stranded cotton to assemble the outer pieces and the lining (recycled T-shirt, nice and soft, won't scratch the glasses) with blanket stitch, then i added the orange
design on the front. i really should learn some basic embroidery stitches, this is just the normal sewing stitch.

a monkey for my nephew

This little monkey is made from those soft fluffy socks that you can get in Penneys, Dunnes, anywhere. I used children's socks, i prefer these monkeys in a smaller size. They are easily made in an evening, I handsew them because my sewing machine doesn't seem to like the thick stretchy fluffy material, and it also means i can watch TV with my fiance at the same time.

things i've made lately

This is my latest creation, a pincushion for an aspiring designer friend who was getting a lot of hassle - from a ginger person...


A soft and cuddly elephant, made from westphalian fabrics (Westfalenstoffe) that I bought in Germany. The traditional cotton fabrics from this area are mostly blue or navy with white printed patterns, or woven stripes and squares with white, red and green. In the seventies and eighties my sister and I had matching dresses made with their printed fabrics, white with red or blue, must dig up some photos! My granny's aprons were mostly made of their weaves. These days they do most of the traditional and many new prints and weaves, and I think they ship abroad as well.


These two are for P's niece, the clothes are made from 'recycled clothes'.


This 'grab ball' was a lot of fiddly work, 36 separate parts to make into 12 segments, and then those are stuffed, sewn closed and finally all sewn together (very very securely, because it's for a baby). The fabrics are 8 different Westfalen prints and some plain cotton.


This was my first patchwork project, it was supposed to be a cushion cover at first, but then i realised babies don't need cushions, and bought more fabric and made it into a small light blanket (a little on the small side), using flannel for batting and thrifted pillowcases in the softest 1000times washed checked cotton for the back.

october 05

this is one of the umbrella bags i made, which started me sewing again. when this umbrella broke i wanted to make something with the lovely red fabric, and a shopping bag was the obvious choice. Lightweight, foldable to fit into the tiniest handbag, and quite sturdy. My friends liked it and gave me the fabric of their broken umbrellas (it's windy and rainy over here) to make them bags too. It's really easy, you sew four triangles of the umbrella to a tube, sew one side shut and make a neat hem on the other. cut handles from a 5th triangle or use ribbon. you can fold and sew along the bottom edges to shape the bottom of the bag



and some small purses