Sew me a friend

Last weekend, Matt and I took a solo-journey to Quincy to run some errands and have a little alone time. I was convinced that I was going to make a Poppet, so I was on a mission to find the specific suede fabric that is called for in the pattern. Wow... apparently, Jo-Ann Fabrics considers anything "suede" to be a fall/seasonal fabric. Finally, I was able to find some in the clearance aisle, and it was the perfect peachy-brown shade of skin...the only caveat was that it had a subtle animal-stripe pattern in it. Due to the price (cheap!) I went ahead and bought it. It could be a practice piece, if nothing else.

I am so glad that I did! I think that print gives it character and makes it look even more skin-like. Although the doll looks hard to make, it was actually very straight-forward...and dare I say... easy! I have been dealing with a nasty head cold and case of the "tireds" this last week. Didn't really feel like doing much. But I had the interest and the energy to work on this doll, and it was so fun!

This is the first time I have used freezer-paper to make an iron-on of a pattern. What a fantastic thing... much less cutting and pinning than usual.

I followed the lead of other Poppet-makers and glued fake lashes (found in the cosmetic area) onto the eyes, as well as a scrap of fabric for the eyelid. These little touches were so easy and gave so much character and personality to the doll!

Another technique, which I would NEVER have done in a million years, was to place a bit of Sculpey clay into the tiny "nose nook" of the unfinished/unstuffed head and baked it in the oven! You just follow the directions (which is 275 degrees for 15 minutes for Sculpey), and then allow to cool. You do this BEFORE adding the eyes, or they would melt, and before stuffing. It really helped poof out such a hard-to-stuff area and give it definition.

I made my Poppet a strapless dress with the dress pattern/tutorial, and I think it looks really good! I added some pearlized snaps in the back to help her get in/out better. The arms/legs are made with buttons inside, and then are jointed onto the body, so that they are fully movable. Luckily, I was able to track down the required doll-making needles to assist in the jointing, as well as the sculpting. The sculpting is what helped give the fingers and toes their definition.

So...while on the subject of sculpting, I decided to follow the directions in making my doll more anatomically correct. Being a nurse, this sort of stuff doesn't faze me, but I did feel a bit peculiar applying the principle's to doll-making ;-) Anyway, I thought I would forewarn you before showing you the following photos, which I originally took to better illustrate her jointedness:

I tried posing her a little, to show the movement of the joints, but it just looked too perverted... sorry! ☺

This is such a great project to become familarized with many different techniques, as I mentioned, that you might never have tried. If you would like to try your hand at one of these fun dolls, check out the Poppet thread on Craftster. Just send pattern-creator, "ghilie" a private message with your email address, and she will email the pattern to you! Also, on this thread there are many links to tutorials on making clothing, jointing, hair wefting, etc. that I found very useful. Next on my list is to make her a proper pair of shoes ☺