sister dolls

Hello, friends!

 

Just popping in on this stormy Thursday to share a couple of little pretties with you.

 

These lovelies just went to the daughters of my cousin, Addysen and Aubrey.  They are two of THE CUTEST girls I've EVER seen, so I was tickled to get to make a couple of mini doll versions of them for Easter.

Blond hair with blue eyes and brown hair with brown eyes.  As different as can be, but if you could see them in person you'd know immediately that they're sisters.

Built-in BFFs.  :)

An attempt at dollmaking

A few weeks ago I got the itch to make something.  This happens to me a lot.  Sometimes I get the urge to make something specific, sometimes I want to use a certain material, sometimes I just want to make something for a certain person, and sometimes it's all of the above.

 

I wanted to make handmade Christmas gifts for my best friend's children, so I had to come up with what I could make for two boys (ages 8 and 6) and two girls (ages 4 and almost 2).  The idea for the boys ended up being easier than I thought- marshmallow shooters!  Seriously, if you have kids (boys or girls) aged 5 and up, they'll love 'em!  Check out Pinterest.  There are tutorials everywhere!

 

As for the girls, I knew I wanted to make something girly that both would like, and something I could do some hand sewing on.  That was the itch I needed to scratch.  I wanted to stitch by hand.

 

The thought of making a couple of dolls for them made me so happy!  I browsed the Internet until I decided on the look I liked, then made up some paper patterns.  This took a little trial and error, then I had fun choosing fabrics. 

 

This little gal was my first attempt.  And yes, I made her with red hair and blue eyes on purpose.  :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since this was my first doll, I hadn't gotten the assembly really figured out.  I stuffed the head and limbs, stuffed the dress, then pinned everything in place and hand stitched them closed.  I didn't mind that, but I didn't like how floppy this made her head. 

 

A friend of mine asked if I'd be willing to make her two little girls a pair of dollies, so when I started on those I changed my approach.  This time the assembly took more thought and there was far less hand stitching.  I struggled quite a bit on a few parts and realized that my pattern pieces weren't quite working this time (i.e. adding pig tails made it almost impossible to turn the head right side out through that skinny neck!)  Ugh.

 

They did turn out pretty cute, though. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These two gals are the ones I ended up sending to my best buddy's girlies (as a surprise).  Again, LOTS of struggles on these.  I think I made the redheaded doll twice and she still didn't turn out quite right.  Oh well.

 

 

 

Clearly I'm new to this.  The dolls are all a bit wonky, and I still haven't worked out the kinks in my pattern pieces, but the particular itch I had has been sufficiently scratched.  And now both of my sweet friends' sweet girls have little look-alike dollies made by me.  That sure makes me happy!