Here are most of the dollies I have made over the last four years. They are made of material found at the op-shop or old clothes of mine or my daughters'. The only thing new on them are the occasional embroidery threads on the face, if I can't find the right colour at the op-shop, and paint for the whites of the eyes and black paint for the shoes. So 99% re-cycled. give or take. The first one was made for one of my best friends one year old daughter ( she is almost five now ) and since then they have gone through a few design changes but are basically the same, apart from hair, skin and eye colour, tattoos, and of course wardrobe. They have all been made as presents, except for one I made for a school fund-raising auction, I haven't asked how much she went for yet. They take me for-ever to make, as they are sewed in bits inbetween other more pressing jobs and there is a lot of hand sewing and detail involved. And I get stuck at certain tricky bits such as hair. But I do like making the clothes, and I am always inspired by the person I am making them for. They are approximately 20cm (7 inches) tall, give or take a few.
Jan 2012. For sophie age 9. Late birthday present.
This was for a friend for house-warming, birthday and Christmas, it's meant to be a mini-me of her, sometimes the design takes off on its own, somewhat out of my control. I had to add more upper lip as she looked a bit sad.
She has some nice clothes and a pretty bag to put them in, and my friend is a clever sewer so she can make her own dollie clothes too.
I have finally finished this first boy dolly. Started about five months ago for my younger child. I am bad mummy, but he is done now. Luckily we had a dodgy pair of brown cords I had made for a girl dolly, so just a t-shirt was required. My daughter made him a nice colourful tie, and without his t-shirt and just the tie he looked a bit like a male stripper.
Above, I made this dolly (left) for my daughter, who designed it herself. I have recently made the doll on the right for my Mums birthday present. I made the pink skirt for her but it has been stolen by my daughter as apparently I said I would make it for her doll ages ago (which I think I did, my memory is a bit wobbly).
(above) A little grey silk dress for my mum from an old scarf.
a little handkerchief top and newly made pink skirt
And she (lucky doll) has a groovey yellow scarf (this is partly to make her hair behave, I didn't want my mum to unwrap her and her hair to look like an 80's Bananarama/Duran Duran cross, not that my mum would know this as modern pop culture is not her thing) and a red and yellow striped skirt. I also made a rather lovely (If I do say so my self) little bag out of magazine pages and stitched together in a further attempt to recycle. and the colours were nice. It is sitting to the left of doll here in above picture
this is my dolly, she is called Dolly. The second one I made I think.
Here she is with my nephew
Vampire dolly, with red-riding-hood cape
Nice embroidery body ( nice old linen from the op-shop )
and a rather fetching blue disco top
here is my dolly again, and Cossette, my daughters dolly, admiring some fabric
another vampire dolly. I love her frock and hair flower accessory.
I made this for my BFF 40th birthday, she also has other outfits in her little bag.
This was made for a lovely friend, she has a nice table cloth bag which she is lying on and a red flamenco dress.
and I made her a butterfly tattoo
We went on a easter trip with other families and everyone brought their dolls, which made me happy and also meant that the dolls could have a swap around with outfits. The one eyed dolly in the middle is my oldest daughters, she designed the face and chose the hair colour which is green, it's a bit hard to tell from the photo.
An earlier doll, when I made the whites of the eyes by sewing on white felt. the problem with this was that it would move sometimes and then the eyes could look a bit squiffy, and would need to be removed and done again. All a bit time consuming. White fabric paint is a lot easier and much more accurate.
I love the little skateboarding T-shirt. I re-did the mouth about 3 times on this little face and it was still determined to stay with this rather saucy look.
Tattoo of course.
this one has a school uniform, which entailed having to cut a couple of inches off the bottom of my daughters school skirt.
I designed the tattoo from some henna tattoo designs and embroidered it free-hand on the sewing machine, which worked well I thought, and was a darn site quicker than sewing it by hand.
this was an Annie inspired dress
On the LEFT is auction dolly, Anastasia Jones, in a fabulous gold frock. Dolly on the RIGHT is Amelia Froutts who was made for some one and then kept 'cause I thought she was too nice to give away and she looked good in lots of material that I had in my stash. The yellow top and orange Liberty skirt belong to Anastasia.
And this sweet doll has a cute bunny dress and freckles, as the girl I made her for has pretty freckles.
and overalls and a power-puff girls t-shirt
she has a pink tutu dress
This was my first dolly, I caught up with her when I was in England. Interesting to see. The eyes were embroidered with wool, and the arms and legs are a bit longer these days, but she has a nice vintage linen and lace dress, plus some skirts and t-shirts.
