Mimi Kirchner

The Dollmaker's Journey newsletter popped into my letterbox today. There's a link to Cloth Doll Connection. (So rag dolls are out, then? Victims of political correctness and gentrification?)

Aaaaand a link to Cloth Doll Blogs. (Still here? Good. It'll be worth it, I promise.)

And.

Mimi Kirchner's site. I haven't seen a fraction of it. And then there are all the other blogs listed above. But then again, I have got to get offline and go to sleep sometime soon. So take a look, and when you see a link to her Flickr photos.................... do yourself a favour and follow it. How else will you see her babies, ladies, and tattooed men?

Wonderful Dollmakers' Site

I haven't found a dollmaking magazine that I like, but I found the Dollmaker's Journey website for cloth doll patterns and supplies. (No-one makes mere ragdolls anymore!). Out of dozens of designers providing patterns at an average US$10 each, here are just five.



Breadline, by Mary Ann Hull

















La Femme, by Arley Berryhill













Grace, by Delys Brady















Angel in a Wreath, by Jane Coughlan


















PopTops, by Julie McCullough, one of my favourite designers.

















On my wish list, Susanna Oroyan's Anatomy of a Doll: the Fabric Sculptor's Handbook; and one day, when I've worked my way through that, Designing the Doll:from Concept to Construction. I shall look in the library for Patti Medaris Culea's Creative Cloth Doll Faces, which looks like great fun. Patti Culea's doll patterns, and mouthwatering 'stitchery tome' - a 3D sampler course - are also at Dollmaker's Journey.

Sarah

Visiting my eldest brother's family a couple of years ago, I told Princess Alice that I was going to make her a doll, and asked her what she should look like - and so we have Sarah, with curly brown hair, and dressed in pink. Now, I don't go for Barbie pink, which is what we're talking about here, but Alice just loves pink. And Barbie! Upshot? An assortment of clothes, including pink pyjamas!

This is also from Alicia Merrett's Book of Doll Making - quite possibly the only book on designing and making dolls that you will ever need. Such range, and so well written and illustrated that it makes learning as satisfying as seeing the end result.

However, I don't care for the expression on 'Beth's' face. And I like embroidered faces, for reasons both aesthetic (lively texture and colour) and pragmatic (A wrong stitch is easily unstitched, but once you've taken up your permanent pen, and inadvertently made your doll wall-eyed, cross-eyed or terrified, there's no way back to that promising blank face!)










So I followed the instructions for Joe, a toddler doll. Look at the sparkle in those eyes! Don't you love him!

So, this is Sarah. The head and body are made separately, and stuffed firmly. The arms and legs are cleverly designed to bend at knee and elbow. I confess to a mishap: I stitched the knees the wrong way, so that her legs bent sideways. Now Sarah is a traditional ragdoll, so there was no way I was going to get away with it; but I'd stitched them too strongly to unpick without ruining them. (I thought about it!) So Sarah has traditional legs, and I've got a pair of spares for something less..... traditional...





In dress, pinafore and felt shoes.





In a playsuit from a crazy patchwork experiment gone wrong. I knew it would come in handy eventually!


She'll be wearing pink pyjamas.... Even I have to admit, she does look pretty in pink!





The hat's from a different pattern again. This book will keep me going for years.


























And I still cannot quite believe that I made something as beautiful as this.

Sybil - just a pretty trifle

This pattern is from a terrific book, the imaginatively titled Book of Doll Making, by Alicia Merrett, which I bought at Book Corner in the Dune Centre, Al Diyafah Street. (Do look at her site, which is mostly mouth-watering patchwork.)


Hepzibah has button-jointed limbs and a needle-sculpted face - less challenging than it sounds! I love the reversible hat, and used it for Sarah, too.



















Here you can see how the doll is constructed. Because I used satin, I had to stuff her quite softly or risk shredding the seams. If you want your doll to sit up without support, you should go for a good quality cotton (dress weight for a decoration, sheet weight for playing with). A cotton will support the head, withstand firm stuffing, and keep its shape when you stitch your buttons through body and limbs.






Twenty one inches of classic Hollywood glamour!








I want a coat like this! But I'll try and get the collar right next time....











As with Sarah, I preferred an embroidered face to drawn-on features. Also, because I made her for myself, which means that safety isn't a factor, I used white seed beads to highlight her eyes - literally, since they reflect light in a way that white silk (floss) can't.


I always knew I wanted her to have green hair to match her eyes, but it took me a while to decide on the style. Meanwhile, Sybil sat on a shelf, green-eyed, pensive, and quite bald under that hat. She put me in mind of the sybils, the female seers of classical times, hence her name.

A bald doll is simply work in progress, but this one disturbed me. She was disconcertingly real, regardless of the particoloured body. I couldn't just leave her on a table, any old how: she had to be up, elegant, with her collar turned up and her hat turned down. If she hadn't got hair, she at least had her dignity.

On reflection, I realised that the other dolls were archetypes or children; their features sweetly neutral, their expressions uncomplicated; but Sybil has an extra, unmistakeably adult, dimension - a suggestion of wisdom gleaned from experience - which turned my pretty trifle into something else entirely. Maybe it's the glass beads in the eyes? The arch of her brow or eyelids? I expect that a psychologist could make some suggestions, but me, I don't know.

I have always understood that the human race responds very powerfully to its own human image, and that this is not simply a matter of aesthetics or vanity; we need to represent ourselves to ourselves. I know where my increasing fascination with dolls comes from, but I'll spare you that. Ah, tis a grand thing, the human psyche!

Anyway, this particular pretty trifle will always put me in mind of women who face down cancer and the wretchedness of chemotherapy with quiet courage and a show of stylish aplomb. I've known some. Bring on the green wig, the snazzy hat, the silk scarf and the huge brooch: someone's got a life to live.

Doodle

I believe I mentioned doodling faces as a useful exercise. It's also fun! I did these a couple of years back, and keep them for reference.

I cannot draw for toffee, as all my students can attest, so I copied most of them from somewhere else before cutting loose and experimenting. Certainly, if you want to make a doll with an identifiable race, age, character or personality, you're going to need more than two beads and a stitch of pink!

Good sources, depending on whether you're aiming for fantasy, cosy, satirical or portraiture, include newspaper cartoons such as Eb & Flo, Dilbert, Garfield, Andy Capp; - children's comics and the likes of Marvel comics; political cartoons; children's picture books; books for older children - especially if they have line drawings; and magazine adverts. That's just off the top of my head!

Incidentally, while the Perfect Little Angel and Calico Gals are presented as female, the faces and bodies are androgynous, so you can do what you like really. (I know I keep saying this, but it's true!)

Both patterns are intended for hanging, or sitting, but if you alter the leg pattern to give them feet and/or insert thick wire into the legs and body, you can pose them to strengthen the sense of age, character or situation. (Good grief! Who let the drama teacher in here?)

Going now!

Angel Variations

More challenging than the Calico Gals (9 pattern pieces instead of 5), the Perfect Little Angel is also a more stimulating and versatile pattern. Here are some of the things I've done, with the pattern at the bottom, in case inspiration strikes!














My eldest brother and his wife produced their own personal little princess - Alice, by name - so I made a medieval princess for them. They now have Princess Clara too, equally gorgeous, though completely different from her big sister.

As the eldest of seven, I know and rejoice in the individuality we're all born with. I may hardly ever see my fambly, but I love 'em, and next summer, we're moving back to Europe - Wheeeeeeee!

The medieval angel is the closest to the original pattern, although that specifies double fairy wings, and I prefer a single pair.

This one I kept!
I spotted a cheapo imported Chinese wreath in a bargain shop on Rolla Road in Bur Dubai; stripped off the decrepit robin and other tat, but kept the little sacks tied with red ribbon, and some of the artificial greenery; and repainted the lettering, added cones, star anise and the little bell.
Jo - let's call her that after Jo March, who knew how to do Christmas properly! - Jo is not wired, and cannot balance on this shallow, curved surface; but I didn't want to glue her in place, so I resorted to two carefully place safety pins, and that has worked a treat.



Here's her back view. Without the wings, you can see that the skirt is a gathered rectangle, and the bodice another rectangle, masking the skirt gathers, and stitched into place.









The bloomers are part of the doll: they are stuffed less fully than the torso and head, allowing the doll to sit. The dress sleeves are also 'built in'. If you use cotton rather than felt, and give her a secure hairstyle, such as braids stitched firmly in place, I think that this pattern gives you a doll sturdy enough to be played with, and survive washing. No bead eyes though!






Serafina is just for me, and has nothing to do with Christmas. She's wearing what was once a beautiful Indian brocade trouser suit from Splash, plus an earring I've had since my twenties - I hate the way I always lose one earring, but at least it gives me an interesting collection of odd ones for odd projects!




I've made other variations too, but I have no photos, unfortunately, because it was a while before I thought to record what I'd made, and who for.

One Christmas angel was for a seven year old who had admired another one I'd made. I was going to warn her mother, before Christmas morning, that it was less a toy than a pretty ornament - but they didn't wait til Christmas to open the wrappings. Oops. Next time I saw that doll, she was in need of a tailor, a hairdresser, and a week in intensive care! Be realistic about how children play with dolls.... sob!

Another was for a friend with considerable knowledge of Maori culture, who was returning to her beloved New Zealand. I had a dark green shalwa khameez that looked wonderful at my third brother's wedding, but was now faded in places, and put away just in case. ;P The gold block print on the hem and dupatta had always reminded me of traditional Maori patterns: perfect!
I used a mid-brown felt for the doll (any darker would have been too much with the dark dress, even with lots of gold blocking), mother-of-pearl buttons buttons (Satwa again), and peacock feathers for the wings, angled so that they swept up and out, taller than the doll herself.
Damn, I wish I had a photo of that one!

Ditto for another South African friend: I went for satin and gauze in cream and antique gold - fabulous against dark brown felt - and crowned her with orange and yellow flowers like the bouquet that Serafina is holding. Never mind having a photo, I wish I'd made her a little cousin!

Anyway, here's the pattern, if you'd like to have a go yourself.





Finally, another variation, for a Palestinian friend who absolutely loves colour, and is always a delight to the eye in vivid complementary and contrasting colours - and she has the vivacity, warmth and style to carry them off. This time I bought the wings and simply stitched them on: a spread of real feathers, shaped like a butterfly.

I've included Laila separately, because she does not follow the pattern exactly: the separate head, plus turban would have been huge - out of proportion to the rest of her - so I made the head all of a piece with the torso as for the Calico Gals.


Once you get started, there's no end to the flow of ideas, and what keeps it fresh and interesting for me is working with other people's colours: I don't know about you, but there are some colours, and combinations, that I really don't get on with, and the challenge is to come up with something that works for both of us.

If you can do that, then it becomes almost as much your friend's gift to you as yours to him or her, because you have all those days of pleasurable anticipation as the gift came together in your hands, in colours which from now on will always have a happy resonance for you - even if you still wouldn't be seen dead in them!

Enjoy. And post pictures!

Perfect Little Angel - the pattern I use most

Here she is, Her Angelic Loveliness, the best Christmas angel pattern of them all, in my opinion.

She appeared in Woman's Weekly, several years back. You can buy the kit online from the Christmas section of Candle House Crafts which has plenty more charming designs.

The post that should appear between Canadian Quirky and Calico Gals! (Don't ask.)

While Margi Hennen was the catalyst for tossing out convention, I took the pipe cleaner bods - obviously more sophisticated than those for the felt dolls, from Hannelore Wernhard's enchanting (and very practical) book, The Knitted Farmyard. (My farmyard consists of lots of separate knitted bits, none of which I have actually made up - I rather missed the boat with Habibibaba, but there are always the nieces and nephews to finish it for.

So, this is the basic structure for the Gin Fairy (Sorry Mother - I don't think she even likes gin..... so I guess I get that from my dad!), Harriet, and TFFKAP (The Fairy Formerly Known As Psycho).

And if you can get a copy of Hannelore's book, you can make these:


or...this!

What greater incentive could you ask for?

Calico Gals

I think these came from Prima magazine - but I'm not sure! It's a practical magazine full of gardening, cooking and making ideas, and features well-designed pull-out garment and craft patterns, which I think anyone can follow successfully.

This is a sleeve from the binder where I keep my patterns. Tracing paper can be hard to find, but I use airmail paper to trace doll patterns, and paste it onto cardboard for strength. They stay in the file from year to year, and if I tear something, I can retrace it.

Here's my Calico Gal. My youngest brother's twin boys were six when I made her: I thought they'd rather have a funky angel than an airy fairy.

She's a traditional soft-bodied doll with no awkward corners, darts or gussets to contend with; her face is done with felt tip; and that's the easiest head of hair I've ever done! If you'd like to do something similar, look out for a pattern with a keyhole-shaped head and body section, and long slim arms and legs. Or be brave, and make your own paper cut-outs, trimming them until the arm and leg sausage shapes are in proportion to the head and body shape. This naive style has spread into shaped and painted tin (Magrudy's have stocked them for a couple of years now.) so a little window shopping will help you to clarify the style you're looking for.

There are only two potentially tricky areas:

1. When you've sewn the arm and leg seams, you'll need to take the wrong end of a pencil or knitting needle, and first poke them inside-out (actually inside-in! - so that the seams are turned inside), and then poke stuffing in, and tease it out til it's evenly spread. This may sound silly, but don't make the legs too thin, or you'll never turn them or stuff them!

2. With the keyhole shape, the narrowest point is the neck, and tight curves are quite challenging: make it easy on yourself: keep the curve shallow, and snip little 'v's out of the finished seam allowance after sewing; that way, when you turn the head and body inside out, the side seams will be smooth.

If you look at the photo - and at the pattern piece in my file, you can see the shallow curve from shoulder to head. Mind you, if you get it wrong, you can always tell your children that you've made them the Hunchback of Notre Dame. If they're so impressed that they beg for an Esmeralda, remember that she has long hair which can hide any little neck problems - though of course, you'll know exactly what you're doing by then!
As I said, practice makes perfect - or confident, at least!

Canadian Quirky

This feature on Canadian maker Margi Hennen dolls is from the same issue of DOLL as the little felt dolls.

I was inspired by the alliance of wit, warmth, and modern artistic opportunity, with an old-fashioned ingenuity that recalls pioneer women reworking old sheets and clothing into wonderful quilts to soften the rough edges of pioneer life. (We had all of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books at home when I was a child. Caroline Ingalls was a remarkable woman. Whatever you made of the (syrupy!) Little House on the Prairie TV series, I would strongly recommend the first book, Little House in the Big Woods....and then there's On the Banks of Plum Creek, Little House on the Prairie, By the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter..... you get the picture?!)

Anyway - Here's a Christmas angel I made years ago, from samples of furnishing fabric. Basically, as you can see, I just stitched some squares together, made a head (drawing round something circular to get it right) wrapped it up, stitched and stuffed and stitched again. I don't recommend velvet for small work - too bulky on corners - but I'm fond of this Miss.

The pearl bead halo is wired on, and has to be straightened every year when it comes out of the the Christmas deckie box. Ahhh!



















Do you see the influence of Margi Hennen in this wild vision in silver? I made her for my mother's Christmas tree: a fairy (definitely no angel!) for the more mature woman!

She has a pipe-cleaner body, with legs encased in woven ribbon.
Instead of felt, I used soft cream cotton for body and hands - which means a seam allowance to allow them to be turned inside out - otherwise she'll fray!
I cut two keyhole shapes for her head and torso, seamed, turned and stuffed them, and stitched them to the pipe cleaner armature. Getting technical now! See next entry ;P

The silver dress is one big rectangle with gathers around the neck slit; seamed down the sides, and sewn around the hands (on their pipe cleaner ends). It's a kaftan really, tied at the waist, with the upper part pulled up to create a bosom, and the bottom edge deeply frayed.

I may have drawn her face before making up the body: there are two advantages to this approach: 1 - you're drawing on a flat surface, and 2 - if you make a mistake, you can just turn over and start again! However, you need to pick pens that will not bleed ink, to remember that the stuffed face will curve, and to think about where her hairline will be. Practice makes perfect, but mistakes can be hilarious, or result in unexpected depths; bottom line - Do it your way!
P.S. The wand is a cocktail stirrer, just to complete the Gin Fairy image!


Next up, the formerly stoned/psychotic angel I mentioned before. She's actually a variation on the felt dolls.

I reset her eyes (felt tip, though you can buy fabric crayons and school-tag permanent pens) but the smudges indicate where I first stitched the beads - so far apart that she was more wasp than fairy.


The head is a gathered circle of felt, as for the felt dolls, with lengths of gold braid stitched on.
The body is a rectangle of felt, wrapped and stitched around padded pipe cleaners. (Again, see next entry.) As you can see, the head is attached at a right angle to the torso.
Her legs are pipe cleaners in the same woven ribbon as Mother's 'Angel'.
The arms are different. I threaded wire through this really thick multi-coloured braid, turned back the ends with pliers because vicious scratches have no place in my Christmas experience, and frayed the ends to suggest fingers.
The dress is a rectangle, not a cone; hemmed at the bottom and gathered at the neck on the doll herself, with a ribbon sash to add fulness and keep it in place.


And this is Harriet. I love Harriet: she's so optimistic, and nothing surprises her. She was my first Margi Hennen-inspired doll.

Keyhole face and torso on a pipe cleaner armature, just as for the Gin Fairy, and as you can see, the pipe cleaners mean that you can pose her.
The terracotta tabard is all that remains of a once splendid silk suit that Habibi had years ago. The under-tunic is a longer piece of fabric, hemmed and doubled over, with a neck slit. Those are beads of semi-precious stone at her wrists and collar, bought in a tiny packet from a haberdasher.

I don't usually buy variegated yarn because I don't like the effect when it's knitted up, but it's perfect for suggesting the various hints and tones of a head of hair. Here, though, I used yarn in two different colours, to get the balance I wanted. I cut a piece of card for length, and wound the yarn round and round until I had the fulness I was aiming for, then stitched the hair in place, without cutting the ends, and used contrasting thread to prevent tangles.





And the moral of the story is, whether you go for nursery felts, pink fur, black leather, purple satin, foil, crepe paper or - whatever! - from a basic model, you can do pretty well anything you like, and if your angel doesn't turn out quite as you expected, you can always sit her amongst the foliage of your Christmas tree, positioned to show her best feature!

Christmas angels from the felt doll pattern

I think these are gorgeous. They make me happy every time I unpack them. I followed the felt doll pattern, but only used felt for the faces and hands: the dresses and wings are made of fabric scraps, sewn together with a running stitch. Since these are decorative and naive, no hemming or finishing is required.

I started off with the idea of making a trio to hang outside the front door of our apartment, largely to appeal to the children on our floor. I placed various felts, fabrics and embroidery silks together until I liked what I saw, and then worked each one out as I went along. Common sense meets happy afternoon in!


I used cheap white pipe cleaners for the arms and legs, colouring the legs with felt-tip pen.




These angels are airborne, so no big boots!

Before drawing or stitching the face, I suggest you try out different faces on paper, to balance the features, and find the expression you like. I spaced the eyes of my first Christmas angel too far apart, making her look either stoned or psychotic, depending on which angle you saw her from - most disconcerting on top of the tree!

I wanted more delicate features than in the original, so I used coloured sead beads instead of large black beads, and left out the nose stitch. You can buy small packets of seed beads from FIDA, or most other haberdashers in Satwa, though if you are planning a project that requires lots and lots of beads, crystals or artificial flowers, the little shops around Naif Square in Shindagha sell larger quantities more cheaply.

For me, the most challenging aspect is often the hair. I fold hanks of six-strand embroidery silk (called floss in the States, I believe) and wrap and pin them around the head until I'm happy, before stitching them down with matching sewing thread. These dolls are so small that you can afford to be generous. Since the stitches for mouth and eyes start from the back of the head, the hair will cover the start and finish knots, and the gather in the back of the head.

If you are making a dark-skinned doll, the eyes tend to disappear into the face; so however you make the eyes - French Knot, bead or marker pen - if you start with a dot of white-out, it really brings the face to life. I learnt this after I'd finished the angel on the left!

The banners are rectangles folded over to hide the backs of the large straight-stitched letters - I imagine that Stem Stitch or Chain Stitch plus French Knots would be better for the curves of Arabic.
The pipe-cleaner arms are stiff enough to hold the banners taut.
The wings are two circles of metallic cloth folded over to give a little stiffness, overlapped and stitched to the dresses, and frayed a little to suggest feathers.
The three angels are tied together with gold thread, with a hanging loop at the top.
Definitely not rocket science!

OK. Can't persuade Blogger.Photo to upload the other front and back views, but you can probably enlarge the trio photo with a click of your mouse. Have fun! I did!

60-something days

The other day I wandered onto a blog with a big banner announcing

'65 days to Christmas!'

Now, before you groan because you really didn't want to know that, I'll tell you that

1. I just love Christmas, and we really go for it at our house.................. but................
2. I absolutely hate the September-October-November 'festive' frenzy that sets cash tills playing Jingle Bells and perky elves popping up being teeth-gnashingly jolly when all I want is to buy a newspaper.
3. I have always loved Christmas here because you can do it in your own time (December's good for me.) and your own way, be that a video and a packet of turkey flavoured crisps or the whole carolsingingmassattendingpantomimecheering-roastgoosestuffingtreedecoratngfairylightpopping-stockingfillingcrackerpullingQueenupstanding-JamesBondwatchingDelboychortling- thing.

Buuuuut I love a home-made Christmas, and that's something you can't pull off at 11pm on Christmas Eve. (And that's the voice of experience: deadlines are not my strong point!)

I love to bake, but I only do it at Christmas, so one of our family traditions is mis-shapen and interestingly textured biscuits. They taste good, and they all get eaten, but I usually buy Spinney's mincepies when friends come round....

I love decorating with the accumulated treasures of years, such as the glitter-and-foil star that Habibibaba made at nursery school 16 years ago; the salt-dough mobile he made 15 years ago (Good stuff, salt-dough.!); the one special ornament we'd go out and choose together each year (preferably at THE One, so as to combine it with a cake-testing mission), the daintily plump pirouetting fairy that recalls our pantomime fairies of 2000-1; and the glorious glass and feather confection Mme Cyn gave us two years ago.

And I get endless pleasure from making Christmas angels for the tree - oh - and everywhere! I started making dolls four or five years ago, starting with simple patterns that lent themselves to adaptation, progressed to Christmas angels for my far-distant parents, brothers, sisters and nephews, and on to more complex patterns.

So if anyone else wants to play, (on the basis that if I can do it, anyone can!) here's what I've done from magazines and books. (Ahhh... so that's where she's going with this........)

The November issues of women's general interest and craft magazines frequently feature an angel pattern. If you want to make a doll that will survive being played with, you may find pattern books in the craft section of a Magrudy's branch; but in my experience the upper floor of Book Corner on Al Diyafah Street is the place to go: pull down a book, pull up a stool, and whether you're looking for recipes or craft guide, I defy you to leave empty-handed!

This is from DOLL magazine, Issue 44, June 2001. I bought it from the ground-floor bookshop in Jumeirah Centre, which probably has the broadest range of magazines anywhere. Another very good shop is Dar Al Hikmah on Al Diyafah Street, near Haagen-Dasz. (sp?) DOLL is for collectors as well as makers.

Definitely not intimidating. If you click on the images, they'll scale up so that you can print them.

I'll put my adaptations in the next entry, just in case Blogger falls over partway through uploading the photos!