Luca has been best friends with two girls since Kindergarten. They are so adorable together. Their friendship is very unique and I hope it is a lifetime friendship for the three girls. They call each other soul sisters.
This weekend is a special slumber birthday party for one of the girls and she has invited the other two to an exciting evening including dinner at Benihana and doing all kinds of girly activities. The real exciting part is the next morning they are all going to get mani/pedis. I'm jealous.
I made a little party favor gift for the girls. They each get their own Bit of whimsy doll that seemed like such a good idea before I actually sat down to make three of them at the same time! I've made one before and loved the way it turned out but forgot the actual process of making the doll was at times a little less than fun. I definitely forgot about the turning and the stuffing.
I morphed two patterns to make this design. I used the Jo head with the Jane body. I love the way they all turned out but they took me like a month to make. The stuffing! Oh the stuffing of a doll. You would think I'd learned my lesson a year ago but no, now I'm going to make a Maxwell plushy for Vinny. He felt a little left out of the doll party.
If you plan on making any of the Bit of Whimsy dolls I highly recommend the patterns. I have 6 of them! They really do turn out adorable. I use Kona cotton for the face and body parts that are "skin". For the face I use two layers of fabric so the embroidery doesn't get wonky and the face feels nice and firm after stuffing. I reduce my stitch length to 1.8 on all seams because the doll takes a beating during the stuffing process. I use wool felt for the hair. I also added bloomers for under the dresses to cover my wonky stitching. This is the one area of the doll that top stitching will show and I wasn't very precise with my stitching here. Oh, and when you are stitching the face seam line (around the head) make sure you keep as smooth of a stitch line as possible because your dolls face can easily get a little lopsided.
4 comments:
They are darling! I love them. You can tell all the work that went into them.
Here's a helpful post from Abby of While She Naps on long, skinny pieces: http://whileshenaps.typepad.com/whileshenaps/2011/01/elements-of-soft-toy-design-8-turning-a-long-and-skinny-piece.html
These are so cute! I can't believe you made three of them! Aren't dolls, um, quite a bit of work? Or do I have the wrong idea about this?
Lucky Luca, to have soul sisters! It's time to break out Anne of Green Gables and introduce her to the concept of "bosom friends." <3
Oh my God Sascha. These are all kinds of crazy insane awesome!!! The bloomers are such a rad touch and the story of these dolls and their friendship is so heartwarming. Your daughter and her friends are absolutely going to flip! Oh and thanks for the notes. :) AND...love the simplicity of the new header.
I don't know how I missed these adorable gals! I love them and the story too!
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