Meet Fryda

...finally!  All done, dressed (!) and looking as quirkily beautiful as ever.

This is what I love about dolls, despite everything that's not gone quite as I expected or hoped it would, she has her own style and personality and has come into her own.  I would love to tell you how I made her clothes, certainly I started using the American Doll patterns (particularly for the jacket) but, in truth, I can't.  Like everything else with this doll, the best laid plans quickly fell apart and so I just sewed.  

Trying to make Fryda more "pretty doll like" didn't last long: the original blue or green dress idea quickly didn't suit, and in a rummage of the scrap box I found this pin-stripe dark grey wool.  Fryda and I embraced her Gothic inclinations!  The jacket is more-or-less as the pattern would suggest, except that Fryda's measurements were radically different.  So, using the tailoring skills I learnt on the Victorian jacket, I tailored it to fit, except for the sleeves, which I liked oversized and loose.  I also left the edges unfinished to gently fray.  The wool does not fray easily, so it won't damage the jacket, and I liked the contrast of shabby with such a structured jacket.  It would make a good pattern to scale up and make in my own size... and another project is born!  

The skirt was nothing more than a leftover strip of faux silk, which I cut into three and shaped onto her.  Long definitely didn't work, so we went for mid-length and a net underskirt with a little gathered detailing as suited.  The buttons I have had for years and were a good size, I also liked the splash of colour, which softens all the black.  And finally her hair is twisted with ribbons and a clear bead/ribbon concoction, which came off an overly fussy pair of slippers.

Now that she's all done, Fryda is not going anywhere; I may be far too old for such things, but she's mine :)  I have no idea where she is going to gently rest out her days, Megs has taken a great liking to her, so it will have to be out of reach, and I don't think sitting is the best way to display her: she's certainly not an elegant doll, sitting with her legs crossed at the ankles is the best she can manage.  For now, she can enjoy Christmas from the sideboard, in the New Year I will have to think of a good and suitable place to keep my quirky little Fryda.

American Girl Doll Dress Patterns

The boyf is going to be away again (a week in South Africa, not a bad gig!) and so I need a little something to do.  I have been pondering on clothing for Dolly for a while now; it's a back of the head thought, tucked way down under a pile of others, but there in the background nevertheless.  I find so many patterns for dolls clothing disappointing; a series of rectangles gathered together to create the illusion of shape and some basic detailing thrown in at the end.  I know that its just "dolls clothes" but I wanted more than that and was looking for vintage patterns.  Thanks to Barbs Craft Books I discovered a page of pdfs of American Doll patterns; mini wardrobes for particular dolls.  Now I am no AG fan, they are really not my thing, and I was going to click straight past but I am glad I didn't because the patterns are delightful.  There's a story about each doll, explaining why she would wear each item in the pattern, and the clothes are detailed pieces of craftsmanship: the jacket I am contemplating is lined and laced, and another pattern for a Regency dress included interchangeable stomachers.  I can imagine that many a happy girl has thoroughly enjoyed picking new outfits for her AG doll and many a happy mother has also enjoyed the small challenge of sewing them.  I have printed the Felicity pattern; it will require some adjusting to fit, but that will be part of the fun... I have tonight to Friday night to get Dolly dressed.

Good Lord! It's October already!

It's left me in a bit of a panic... our Halloween party is now only 20 odd days away.  We have so much to sort for the party; I have the 10yr old's costume to make; the Dinner Jacket has me sufficiently nervous that I keep putting it off, but I don't have enough time left to do that any more; and the LBD may not have made it to one party, but I have the Charity Ball on the 15th for which it would be good and it is now so firmly on my internal to do list, it will be a distraction till it's done.

So, tonight I got busy... randomly so, but I'm going with something being better than nothing! :o)

I have taken the skirt off of the LBD; it is now back to a bodice and I have more fabric to play with.

I then moved on to the Dinner Jacket.  Taking measurements from the mock-up I have placed an order for the boning and some white boning tape.  Hopefully this will be with me mid-week.

I amended, and trimmed, the necessary pieces from the Dinner Jacket, based on the pinned mock-up that the lovely Mrs B and I produced.

I then cut out the lining pieces, I've picked a cream cotton; the same colour as the twill skirt.

After the lining was all cut, I started to mark out the pieces on the interlining.  I am using the left-over canvas from the Corset project.  I am marking out the pieces as the top fabric will be basted to it before I start to construct the jacket and as the canvas will be the main structure of the jacket, I want this to be as accurate as possible. 

Finally, I decided on a name for Dolly - who sits by the sewing machine happily watching me fuss - she is called Fryda, from "fryd" the Norwegian for "joy".   

At 9.30pm I called it a day.  More tomorrow.

It's time to give Dolly a face

Its been a busy day, but in the middle of it all, I sat down for half an hour and Dolly "grew" a face.

I was inspired by the picture below (from fingtoys on Flickr), which I came across by accident.  

She looks a little like Princess Leia! But she is beautiful and I love the knitted jumper.  Most importantly, she has the prim/Gothic/simple/black stitched face that I have been thinking about for Dolly.  I particularly love her fabric cheeks, I had not thought of cheeks...

So I quickly Googled needle sculpting techniques and, with the foolishness of one who knows no better!, stitched a nose.  The 10 yr old has been telling me that I should give Dolly Coraline-style button eyes, but I find them a little uncomfortable to look at, so I compromised with a pair of round jet beads, which I sewed on with four stitches (N, S, E & W).  It's a pretty detail, gives the eyes more shape - pulling the needle through with pliers, when it got seriously stuck, was less amusing!

Finally, I free-styled an embroidered mouth.  It's set slightly to the side, almost as if she is smiling to herself -  it's feels appropriate.

******

We finished the day with dinner with the B's.  Once the boys had gone to the pub for a game, or three, of pool, the lovely Mrs B kindly agreed to help me fit my jacket for the Victorian Costume.  Once I was all kitted up, and Mrs B had stopped laughing at my bloomers and inability to move, she spent an age adjusting and pinning and adjusting again.  She is a good friend is Mrs B and she can fit clothes beautifully!  

Thank you Mrs B x

Meet Dilly

There truly is no rest for the wicked in my house!  

It's Saturday morning and I had booked my lie-in as the 10 yr old is at her father's and the dobe will sleep for hours, as long as she has a spot on the bed.  What I hadn't accounted for was Dolly, endless thoughts of whom kept me wide awake... and eventually pushed me out of bed.

It seems she wants a face, and we will be going Victorian Gothic black for her dress... with very narrow sleeves and miniature pearl buttons.

But first, meet Dilly, my first Kate Erbach doll.

She is, by far, my most favourite doll pattern.  I have made her twice, once at the suggested size (8" tall) for my mother and here at 2.5x for me.  She is long and narrow, her face is just over an 1.5" wide and her hands 0.5", but she was a dream to put together.

Like Dolly, her body is canvas.  Her hair is Ecru embroidery cotton mixed with a very fine mohair handmade wool.  Decorated with handmade silk roses, ribbons and sequins.  Her dress, in faded Sanderson rose curtains!, was nothing more than two squares sewn together and gathered at the top, with folds and pleats sewn in and beading detail.  Her bloomers and sleeves are in white muslin and the sleeves were handsewn onto the arms, to make them as close-fitting as possible (a detail I will use for Dolly).  The bodice of her dress was based on a historical (Regency) outfit I saw, with a hint of Obi belt at the back; made with a selection of ribbons and handstitched into place.

I adore her, she spends her days sat with Old Man Chan, an antique Indonesian marionette, but today I'm going to tear her away and use her as inspiration for Dolly. 

I've been a bad blogger...

so much has happened this past week, and I've found no time to write about it.  And it's been a heck of a week as well!

But, nearly at the end of it all, I have a rare night with the house to myself and finally had the time to focus on the important stuff - Dolly's hair!

Using a couple of pictures as reference points, I have sewn the strands of wool onto her head, twisting sections into roses and knots to give it texture and shape.  I love the process of shaping the hair and the final effect is transformative.  

This is the first stage, I will possibly add some more "hair", and then decorate it further.  

I usually like to flowers and ribbons but, in honour of her Gothic beginnings, I have decided to take a darker tack with Dolly.

Meanwhile, she sits (rather jauntily, I think) on the kitchen chimney.  It seems that Dolly met Megs earlier, so  a little distance is required.  It proves, however, that canvas bodies are definitely best; whilst her hair needed some cleaning and tidying, all the you could see on her body and face were a few toothy dents; no tears or damage at all.  Doberman 0 - Dolly 1!

Poor Dolly...

It seems that whatever I try to do, she is destined to go through a few more hard times before things get better!  I put her head on just before my holidays... sighed deeply and decided some serious holiday-time thinking was in order!

She looks, to put it politely, like a pumpkin-headed scarecrow...

Back from holidays and it was obvious that hair was needed.  I found a wool called Big Softie, which has a lovely textured and is vari-width.  It looked like it could really work to provide body as well as texture, and body will be important in a head this size!

I am sewing a centre parting, directly onto dolly's head.  I decided to build the hair by laying long loops across the head, varying the lengths as I did so.

So far, it's not pretty!

Poor Dolly... it's an improvement (dare I say it)

but there is still inspiration to find, and work to be done.

The good news is, the 10 yr old approves!

Dolly gets a body

Having been awake at 3am this morning thinking web-stuff, I decided that a change would do me good; Dolly would get a body.  I marked off the openings for the legs and arms and sewed the body together, turned it inside out and got a surprise... one of Dolly's arms would be hanging out of her neck!  A little unpicking later and we had some fun deciding how to place the arms.  

"Hallelujah! I have a body!"

Feeling a little down....

And a little Mexican wave!

I whip stitched each arm into place, stuffed the body and pinned the legs into place.  However, as I propped Dolly on the laptop, whilst I ate dinner, that I realised what was bugging me.  The joints were sewn vertically not horizontally... I give up on the instructions for this doll!

I unpicked the joints, resewed them in and Dolly's knees now bend down rather than outwards!  The arms are still not quite right, I am going to pull the elbow seams into a ball joint so that they bend more fully.  However, I had run out of my allotted time, so the joints and sewing in the legs will have to wait.

Meanwhile, Dolly may be headless but she's at least in (more or less) one piece, even if she suffers from wonky feet, arms and shoulders...!  She is giving off hints of a personality and getting a nickname "haphazard" :)  I wonder how I can turn that into a name?

I've not done much...

I've had a lovely weekend, thanks to the boyf and Mr & Mrs B, lunches in pubs, bbq's, rides on the motorbike and my first attempt at a lemon meringue pie!

In the interim, I made dolly some arms.  They were as frustrating as the legs I'm afraid!  I did, however, change the foot on the sewing machine to my zipper foot and found it much easier to sew (as close to the seam as I dared) around the trickier outline of the hands.

Stuffed, and with fingers sewn in, a pair of arms.

I also decided to do something with the feet and removed some stuffing from the larger foot.  It went much better than anticipated and whilst one is still bigger than the other, at least it's not quite so golf-club-like!

And finally, I got to start on the good stuff: a hand-sewn ribbon covering for the seams at both front and back, and black embroidery thread stitched to create boot laces.

Arms and legs... fingers crossed the body and head are easier!

But, there will be nothing done for a while.  The projects at work are going to take up every spare minute until I go on holiday.  It is a shame, I am anxious to see her progress... but unless I am truly sick of code and webpages, I will have to concentrate on that first.

Legs...

Should not be this difficult!  I worked from home today and started early so that I could take an early lunch, which was actually elevenses, with the wonderful Mr S.  As we drank tea and ate biscuits I decided to try the first of my doll's legs.  In theory, nothing more than a straight line of stitching, turning the leg inside out and stuffing it... instead I watched all 6ft-something of Mr S wrestle with a scrap of material and various implements before finally giving up when the leg won, hands (or is that feet?!) down: it was time for plan B.

I have to say I am disappointed with the instructions that come with Phang; they are almost indecipherable.  I wouldn't normally be bothered, but the limbs of this doll are very narrow and the feet are supposed to be lined with cardboard which you patently can not turn inside out in the usual way.  Any tips on their construction would have been useful.  I gave up trying to figure out the instructions and did my own thing.

 To make boots, I inserted two layers of black silk in between the legs, before stitching down each side - leaving the top and bottom open.

I trimmed the spare fabric and lined up the base of the boot (black felt, a little habit).  I then sewed most of the way around the seam, leaving a third or the circumference open so that I could turn the leg inside out.  Turning was a nightmare, particularly where the layer of black silk was... I think stuffed the foot, handstitched the back of the boot closed and stuffed the leg.  Two thirds of the way up the leg I sewed a seam for bend it and the finished stuffing.  

The first leg was more error than trial... the seam split near the top of the leg and had to be hand sewn.  The second went easier, but as following the given seam allowance wasn't working I must have been too cautious.  As the picture shows, I have very wonky legs!!  I am going to live with them for a day or so before deciding whether or not to try a fourth leg.  I am not a perfectionist about my dolls, they are usually better for having a little character; rather like those good self-portraits.  A little handsewing on the legs I don't mind... little and large legs?  With a lumpy ankle?? Hmmmm..... 

The round-head cloth doll

What a name!  She will need one eventually but not until she’s finished.

I have always had a soft spot for dolls; growing up in Oman and Hong Kong in the late 70s/early 80s dolls were not readily available.  My first doll, Clementine, came with us to Oman (and lives on the 10yr olds bed now) and was my only one there as far as I remember.   In HK I had others, most notably the Sindy doll who had lots of heads, which I could buy at a tiny hole-in-the-wall shop in Jordan Road!  As I got older, money was saved for the holidays in the UK where I would buy old porcelain dolls.  I have always preferred old dolls to new, they have more personality about them. 

I started making dolls in my early teens, but both the dolls and the interest in them disappeared during college etc.  When Indy was born I wanted her to have a Clemmie of her own, and my interest in sewing was returning, so Wednesday was created - sat with Clemmie:

There is something special about making dolls; they have the potential to be an extension of the self, a self-portrait in cloth.  I don’t make them often, I have only made another six since Wednesday, but I find them very satisfying when I do.  They are always my go-to project when I need something that will keep me engrossed, engaged and distracted for a few hours.  I never make the same one twice and couldn’t make them any more frequently than I do, I would hate to dilute the experience.

So, a new doll.  I had seen Ruby on mollychicken a few weeks ago and was taken by her, but a quick google image search brought up a couple of other dolls/ideas that I like the look of too:

Thank you to the fabled needle, sew faithful, blackeyedsuzie and the little house by the sea.

What I did want to do was make a round-head doll, with long legs and shaped hands/fingers.  I usually use free patterns and eventually settled on Kate Erbach’s Phang vampire doll pattern as a template for the body.  I also found a stash of shot silks that I was using on an experimental quilt piece that I was never completely sold on.  I would never have remembered them, but pulled it out of storage as a possible something to do when I was fussing at the weekend.  The project’s gone back into storage (can’t throw anything away…) minus its fabric and some beautiful shell buttons which are too pretty to stay hidden away. 

New doll = another thrift project = far too much stuff!      

       

           

I started cutting out the body last night but, as you may note in the photo, I didn’t have my usual scissors – I stupidly tried to sharpen them and ended up rendering them unusable!  I was able to get some bits cut, but eventually gave up and have just bought myself a new pair of Fiskars.