Betty Doll

Chloe has been to a lot of birthday parties lately. And by a lot I mean 6 in 4 weeks. Some were double whammies, two parties in one day. Exhausting.

When the first birthday party of the year came round, it was for a little girl. I asked Chloe what she wanted to give as a gift.
"Ummmmm.... I want you to make a doll Mummy."
So a doll it was.
I've tried a few doll patterns over the years.
The first one I tried was the black apple doll on the Martha Stewart website. I made a few as gifts for others as well as one for Chloe. It was a great pattern, but I wanted something a little bigger. So I decided to draft myself up a pattern. Very rough but thought I'd give it a go.
Well it was perfect! I even hand sewed on each individual strand of yarn hair!

Each doll I've done I've changed her hair. Now I use felt and just change the style depending on the child I'm giving it to. Her facial features have also developed. I am terrible at embroidery so now I draw the faces on with sharpies. I can get much more detail into them now.

I don't know where that name came from "Betty Doll". But for some reason it seems to suit her. I've made a few of these now... I think I'm up to number 6?
So I've scanned a copy of the pattern I made for you to use! It's very rough, and doesn't include seam allowance. You don't have to add a seam allowance, it just means that your doll will be a little smaller. The bigger the seam allowance, the bigger the doll!

I don't have any step by step pictures, but I'll try to explain best I can!

Cut out the pattern pieces. I used some calico, but you can use anything you want.

Get 2 pieces of felt and cut out a design for the hair using the head piece as a template, it can be a bob, pigtails, bun etc.

Cut out where the face will be on one piece of the felt. Have a look at some of the dolls I've made to get an idea of what I mean!

Attach the hair to the face, along the neckline on the back and around the fringe on the front. The cotton needs to be the same colour as the felt as you will be able to see this.

Attach the head pieces to the body pieces.

Take 2 arm pieces, sew together and turn right side out. Repeat with the other two arm pieces.

Do the same with the leg pieces.

Stuff the arms and legs with polyfill.

Pin the arms sandwiched between the body pieces.

Leaving a gap at the bottom, sew around the body pieces and hair making sure to not catch the arms in any side seams except where you are attaching them.

Turn right side out.

You should now have an empty doll with arms (stuffed) but no legs.

Stuff the hair and body.

Pin the legs to the bottom of the doll, turning the raw edge of the gap in as you pin.

Carefully sew up the hole in the bottom with the legs in place. I managed to squeeze it through my machine, but you can hand sew this gap if you prefer.

Draw or sew on a face.

Make your doll some clothes!

Done! Clear as mud?? Hope so! This is my first go, so if you have any questions (which I'm sure you will, what with the awesome instructions :/) please don't hesitate to ask!!

Zeeeebra! Contact Stencil Tee

I know this is old news, but I never got to try out freezer paper stenciling when it went a little viral in the blogging/crafty world. In Australia freezer paper is near impossible to find, and if you can find it, VERY expensive. I tried ironing glad-wrap between two sheets of baking paper a few years ago and that did NOT work very well.

Fast forward to now and I thought, why don't I just use contact paper?? duh. I'm sure there are many, many other people that came to this conclusion before me, but it was a new idea to me and I thought I was pretty clever!

So I put together a little tutorial for those of you that are a little bit behind like me :)

Contact Stenciling

Start by sketching up a picture of what you want to put on your tee.

I went for a zebra because it would only need two layers of stencilling and wasn't too detailed (plus my little one LOVES "africas" as she calls them!).

Trace your sketch onto a piece of contact. I did mine a little backwards and only drew the outline to start with. Cut out the main picture with a craft knife. On mine it was the outline of the zebras head.

Peel off the backing and stick the contact onto your tee.

Put some paper or cardboard in the tee to prevent the paint seeping through to the back. Paint in the first layer.

Go back to the piece of contact you cut out of your first stencil. This is when I drew in the stripes. Cut out all the details that you want on your next layer. On mine it was all the black stripes on the zebra.

Make sure you keep the bits you cut out that you want to stay white, like the nostrils on the zebra.

Once the first layer of paint is dry, stick down the next layer of your stencil, don't forget those little bits in the middle you want to keep the background colour, e.g the nostrils of the zebra (If you do forget to do this, you can always go back afterwards and paint the details back on individually. Then paint in the gaps between your contact.

Wait for the paint to dry completely.... (or not I peeled mine back when it was still slightly tacky because I couldn't wait!)

Peel off your stencil and voila! Contact stencil zebra!

This is when you can paint on any extra details that you either forgot or were just too small to cut out. I've painted in the white parts on the zebras eyes and added some pink detail in as well. Depending on the fabric paint you used, you may need to give it a quick iron to set it :)

I think I may have started something.....