Doll Hair Decisions

 I have an idea for my etsy shop of cloth nesting dolls.  Nesting dolls are those usually hollow wooden dolls where a smaller one ‘nests’ inside a little one.  Also known as Matryoshka dolls, they tend to be quite popular. I have already made some dolls similar which I called art dolls (a picture is below).

But I want to do some that look traditionally like the Russian nesting dolls.  Now these would be made of cloth not wood and they would not ‘nest’ inside each other. 

The one big difference in the face of the dolls pictured above and the one I want to make is that some hair will show on their face.  The big problem I have is how to quickly make the hair.  I would go to bed thinking of different ways to do the hair.

Do I applique some fabric to simulate hair, do I do some colored pencil or fabric market hair, or should I do a little embroidery for the hair?  There is a thought among quilts when deciding on fabric for borders, for example, which is to ‘audition‘ different border fabrics along your top.  Lay the top over the bolt of fabric and see which one looks the best.

So I decided to do that with different hair ideas.  I immediately eliminated the idea of appliqueing fabric for the hair.  The biggest face would be about 1 1/2 inches in diameter.  The idea of appliqueing something that small and then smaller for the medium and small dolls made me get a little panicky.  I am only average in my needle turn applique skills.

So for the other ideas of pencil, pen and embroidery, I drew out the biggest face on fabric, inked in the facial expression and then did the hair.  I did a different face for each pencil, pen and embroidery idea. 

The pencils were the first I tried.  I used two different browns.  (I also decided to do the faces in the same direction after I did the first one.).  I liked how it looked but am concerned about the textile medium I would use to make the pencil permanent.  If these dolls went to babies who might suck on them, the medium might be harmful. 

I then did the pigma pens.  I had a fine point pen and a “brush” pen.  My fine point was running out of ink so I couldn’t make it real dark.  When I showed it to a friend she said it looked like strains of hair and she liked that.  This wouldn’t need textile medium to make it permanent.  It just had to be heat set with an iron.

Then I tried the embroidery.  I did a long and short stitch which covered the whole area.  I liked how that look.  I then did pencil over the whole area and then did a stem stitch.  It gave it a good look but I liked the long and short stitch better (which is why I didn’t finish the entire hair area). 

So I am going with the embroidery.  I think I will use some of the pen underneath so if the dolls are played with a lot and the embroidery pulls out, it will still look like she has hair.

I am glad I auditioned the hair styles.  It gave me something to try and really see how it would look as opposed to imagining it in my head, or trying it on a completed doll.  So the next time you can’t make a decision, try auditioning your options.  It might make the decision easier for you.

©2021 Cheryl Fillion

I Make Dolls

I am in the mood to make dolls and when I read a blog I posted a couple of years ago, I became even more inspired.  I thought I would repost this for you to read.

I make dolls.  I have made dolls for over 30 years.  But I never really considered myself a doll maker until recently.  I usually made dolls to do other crafts. 

Since I am a fiber artist, most of the dolls I make are cloth dolls.  Cloth or rag dolls (often called that because they were made and stuffed with rags) have been around for thousands of years.  The earliest one knon is about 1700 years old.  It was found in a grave from Ancient Rome and was made of linen.  There are not many cloth dolls around because they were literally loved to pieces,

My doll making actually started with teddy bears.  I found a wonderful pattern and began making bears for gifts and for charity.  I gave dozens to homeless and abused women shelters for the children staying there

I then found a pattern for little felt bears.  Felt was wonderful to use because it doesn’t fray.  The fun part of these bears was you could dress them in various outfits.  I made a lot of these as gifts creating outfits to fit the recipients’ personality.

 

I think my first doll was from a fabric panel.  Panels often have all the parts of a doll or animal printed on the fabric including the instructions. You just cut them out and sew them up.  What I liked about this doll was more the embroidery than the doll.  At the time the doll was just to show off the embroidery I did.

 Even though I had made a doll, I still didn’t consider myself a doll maker.  Then one Christmas break while visiting my mother in Wisconsin, she found a class at a local quilt shop that we could take.  Taking a class together was something we always wanted to do but usually by the time I would get to her house for the holidays, there weren’t any classes available. The class was to make an Angel doll.  Mom collected angels so this was perfect for her.

 

Then around 2000 I was reading a book on creativity and there was an exercise called the Creativity doll.  The idea was to create a doll that represented something you wanted in your life: love, marriage, increased income, etc.  Think of it as putting a wish into a 3 dimensional form.  I wanted to be more of a free spirit so I made the doll following a pattern but her outfit was designed as I went along.

 

 I then began reading up on dolls: creativity dolls, healing dolls, dolls children could make and began to make more and more dolls  I finally called myself a doll maker  But still my dolls represent different types of fiber techniques.

I have made a doll using colored pencil on fabric.  

 

I have made woven dolls.  This was actually a challenge from my Fiber Artist group.  We had to create something using the bead and the fiber I used as the hair.  The sequins were actually part of the yarn.

 I have done dolls in punchneedle embroidery.

And my latest was the embellished doll I did during my birthday creativity retreat last year.

Dolls remind me of my childhood and all the play involved with dolls.  I still feel I am playing when I make dolls.  But doll making also inspires my creativity and imagination. It’s a challenge to see what type of artistic technique I can use with a doll and that then leads me to use that technique elsewhere.

You don’t have to consider yourself a doll maker to create a doll.  I didn’t for a long time. But some time when you are stuck for what to create or you just want to play try making a doll.  And, hey guys, no one says you can’t make dolls.

©2018, 2021- Cheryl E. Fillion

 

My Colored Pencil Doll

Lately I have wanted to do more work with colored pencils on fabric.  A couple of weeks ago I posted my blog on the Japanese Doll Festival and that sparked me to make a doll.  So I combined the two urges and made a little pocket doll with colored pencils.

 

A pocket doll is simply a doll small enough to fit in a pocket.  I decided to make my little doll based on a cookie cutter I received as a child.  It had the design for the ‘cookie’ on the top of it and that is what my doll would look like.  (You might notice it is a pretty thick cookie cutter.  There was actually soap shaped like the cutter in it when I received it as a child.).  The cutter is about 2 ½ inches wide and 4 ½ inches tall.

 

 

Supplies needed

 

-- white or cream or off white cotton fabric.  You will want it at least 2 inches bigger than the dolls shape

 

--a piece of freezer paper the same size as the cut fabric.  Freezer paper can be found in some groceries in the wax paper/aluminum foil aisle. This helps stabilize your fabric so it doesn’t stretch or move when coloring it.  You can use a light weight iron on fabric stabilizer if you want.  You will remove the freezer paper when you are done.

 

--colored pencils – any brand will work. The more expensive brands might have a darker pigment.   

 

-- textile medium A textile medium is a liquid put on a painting that makes the painting permanent so if you wash it, the pigment will not come off or fade.  Often times it was put on oil or acrylic paintings so they would not fade if exposed to sunlight.  It is a little thicker than water and you brush it on the coloring and let it dry. This is more likely found in an art supply store or a craft store near the paint supplies or glues.

 

-- brushes to apply the textile medium and small container to hold a small amount of textile medium

 

-- backing fabric for the doll.  It needs to be bigger than the doll design at least by 1/4 inch for a seam allowance.

 

-- fiber fill to stuff the doll

 

-- needle and thread.  You can if you want to use your machine but something this small I usually do it by hand.

 

 

 

I started with white cotton fabric.  I cut it to 4 by 6 inches for fit the cookie cutter design.  I cut a piece of freezer paper the same size and ironed it shiny side down onto the back of the white fabric.  As I mentioned above this stablizes the fabric so it doesn’t move around when I am coloring the fabric.

 

 

 With this next part I wanted to try something different.  I wanted the design to be free handed.  I didn’t want the entire design to be trace from some other source.  I just traced the shape around the cookie cutter.  Since I didn’t want any tracing lines, I used a flesh tone pencil.  Much of the outer edges were going to be arms and legs.  Where the hair and dress would be, I was going to use a dark pencil so it would cover the flesh colored pencil marks.

 

 

 

Now the fun part – coloring.   When I color I first go one direction with my pencil over the space I am coloring and then I go over that color, with the same pencil, in the opposite direction.  So with the hair, I used brown going right and left and once that area was totally brown, I then went up and down.  I think it gives it a more even coloring.  You still see the pencil marks but not as prominently.

 

Once I am done coloring, I leave the freezer paper on the fabric and cover the entire piece with the textile medium.  I start off with only a teaspoon of medium and if I need more I will add it as needed.  Don’t worry that the medium is white coming out of the bottle, once it is spread on the fabric, it turns clear.  Let it dry and then peel the freezer paper off. I should mention that the dried textie medium does make the fabric feel still but the advantage of the medium is the colored pencil will remain permanent on the fabric.

 

 

 

To make the doll, I usually measure about ¼ inch from the edge of the figure and cut away the excess.  This ¼ inch area is your seam allowance. I am going to sew right along the edge of the colored line.

 

 

 

 But when I went to sew on the wrong side, I had a hard time see the color on the back.  So I taped it to my light box and trace in pencil the edge of the coloring.  If you don’t have a light box, tape the doll to a brightly lit window, it works the same way.

 

Once you have the doll cut out, you now have to cut out the backing fabric.  You could trace the cookie cutter again and color the back of the doll.  I like with my little dolls to sometime have other fabric to back the doll.  I have this set of woven fabrics that had just the purple I needed to match the dress.

 

 

I pinned the doll to the backing fabric (right sides together) and then cut around the doll. 

 

 

 

 

 

What was left was to sew along the trace line.  Make sure you leave a little opening to turn the doll right side out and clip the seams so all the curved seams are smooth (Don’t clip the sewing or the doll will come apart.  Take it from someone who knows.).  Stuff the little doll, sew up the opening and you have yourself a doll.

 

 

© 2021 – Cheryl Fillion

Punchneedle Embroidery – What is it?

Punchneedle embroidery is an area of small loops ‘punched’ into tightly woven fabric with embroidery thread.  The difference between this and other embroidery is that there is only one stitch, a hollowed needle is used and the design is worked from the back of the fabric.

It has been around for a very long time. In fact samples of the needle were found in ancient Egypt and were made of hollow bird bones.  It has been very popular in Russia which is why it is sometimes known as Russian Punchneedle. When a Russian group known as the Old Believers migrated to the US, they brought along this form of embroidery.

It is actually very easy to do, as I mentioned there is only one stitch.  Projects tend to be small so they are finished quickly.  It is rather soothing to do because it is very repetitive.  And there are very few rules.

So how do you do it?  Once you have the needle threaded (that tends to be the most difficult thing to learn) you ‘punch’ the fabric from the wrong or back side of the fabric.  The needle is then just barely pulled out of the fabric to move it forward and another punch is made. This then means that the design is printed on the wrong side of the fabric but the loops show up on the front of the fabric and that is how the design is developed.

No knots are needed to keep the thread in the fabric. The loops stay in because of the friction of the thread and the fabric and when the fabric is released from the hoop, it goes back to an original state and tightens around the loops, which is why you need tightly woven fabric known as weaver’s cloth.

Here are some examples of punch needle embroidery.

Heartfully Cheryl logo

Rose

Ribbon piece on basket

Hearts - design drawn from cookie cutter

Punchneedle doll

The next couple of weeks we will look at the supplies and technique of punch needle.

©2018 Cheryl Fillion

I Make Dolls

I make dolls.  I have made dolls for over 30 years.  But I never really considered myself a doll maker until recently.  I usually made dolls to do other crafts. 


Since I am a fiber artist, most of the dolls I make are cloth dolls.  Cloth or rag dolls (often called that because they were made and stuffed with rags) have been around for thousands of years.  The earliest one know is about 1700 years old.  It was found in a grave from Ancient Rome and was made of linen.  There are not many cloth dolls around because they were literally loved to pieces,

My doll making actually started with teddy bears.  I found a wonderful pattern and began making bears for gifts and for charity.  I've given dozens to homeless and abused women shelters for the children staying there

A flowered bear


I then found a pattern for little felt bears.  Felt was wonderful to use because it doesn’t fray.  The fun part of these bears was you could dress them in various outfits.  I made a lot of these as gifts creating outfits to fit the recipients’ personality.


I think my first doll was from a fabric panel.  Panels often have all the parts of a doll or animal printed on the fabric including the instructions. You just cut them out and sew them up.  What I liked about this doll was more the embroidery than the doll.  At the time the doll was just to show off the embroidery I did.

Embroidered Fabric Panel Doll

Closeup of embroidery

Even though I had made a doll, I still didn’t consider myself a doll maker.  Then one Christmas break while visiting my mother in Wisconsin, she found a class at a local quilt shop that we could take.  Taking a class together was something we always wanted to do but usually by the time I would get to her house for the holidays, there weren’t any classes available. The class was to make an Angel doll.  Mom collected angels so this was perfect for her.

Angel Dolls - Mom's is on the right

Then around 2000 I was reading a book on creativity and there was an exercise called the Creativity doll.  The idea was to create a doll that represented something you wanted in your life: love, marriage, increased income, etc.  Think of it as putting a wish into a 3 dimensional form.  I wanted to be more of a free spirit so I made the doll following a pattern but her outfit was designed as I went along.

My Creativity Doll

 

I then began reading up on dolls: creativity dolls, healing dolls, dolls children could make and began to make more and more dolls  I finally called myself a doll maker  But still my dolls represent different types of fiber techniques.

I have made a doll using colored pencil on fabric.

Colored Pencil on Fabric Doll

I have made woven dolls.  This was actually a challenge from my Fiber Artist group.  We had to create something using the bead and the fiber I used as the hair.  The sequins were actually part of the yarn.

Woven Doll

 I have done dolls in punchneedle embroidery.

 

Punchneedle Embroidery Doll

And my latest was the embellished doll I did during my birthday creativity retreat last year.

Embellished Doll

Dolls remind me of my childhood and all the play involved with dolls.  I still feel I am playing when I make dolls.  But doll making also inspires my creativity and imagination. It’s a challenge to see what type of artistic technique I can use with a doll and that then leads me to use that technique elsewhere.

You don’t have to consider yourself a doll maker to create a doll.  I didn’t for a long time. But some time when you are stuff for what to create or you just want to play try making a doll.  And, hey guys, no one says you can’t make dolls.

 

©2018- Cheryl E. Fillion