Here she is!

My first Waldorf doll, and I love her! Meet Mandy. I gave Miss E a list of five names to choose from, and she wanted Mandy, like our former cat Mandy. She is madly in love with Mandy, too, and very glad that she is finally finished. So are my fingers and thumbs! Stitching on the hair was tedious and tough on the fingers and thumbs, but the doll needles are so amazingly cool for the task. I was using the 5-inch needle yesterday, but pulled out the 7-inch needle today and oh it was nice! I felt like some kind of strange surgeon sewing on her head like that, but the needles are fantastic and made it through.

I will say that I've learned a whole lot making my first, and now I can't wait to make more. I even ordered handspun, hand-dyed wool yarn today off Etsy and I'm so very excited to make doll hair with it! I also can't believe how much yarn you can use for hair! I used almost a full skein of 93 yards on Mandy!

I'm still waiting for the book I ordered more than a week and a half ago. I knew I should have just gotten it from Amazon and not from an Amazon seller who uses snails to deliver ... oh well. Live and learn. In the meantime, I used several tutorials to create the head, the hair, the body, the doll. Even found a great video tutorial from Leslie at Stitch Lab (via someone else's blog!) on how to properly do the ladder stitch so I could put the head on just right. That part alone has made me so happy. All these years of making dolls and bears, and I've never studied how a Waldorf doll was made. Now I see the light, and I've got a new favorite thing to make!

The supplies are expensive and the dolls are time-intensive, so now I see why they cost so much to buy. If I get good enough at it, I want to sell some, too. There are some amazing women out there making them and I can only hope to have something close to as beautiful as theirs.

Because I have a toddler screaming on my lap at the moment (the one who refuses to sleep. ever.), I'm cutting this short. I would like to publish my list of tutorials I used and the beautiful dolls I've found, but that isn't going to happen right now. I really did want to post photos of my doll, though!

Welcome, Mandy!

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The head, neck and arms sewn together.

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The body sewn up! It took until this evening before I removed the safety pins and stitched her feet and legs. She has since borrowed a dress from Bitty Baby -- the one that matches Miss E's dress, of course. I will make her a dress of her own, very soon, and some dark purple panties. I just want to hug her -- she's so sweet!

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The hair, the hair, the HAIR! It's a beautiful light brown with golden tones. Not an exact match to Miss E, but similar enough that she feels I "got it right". She has two layers of sewn-on hair. I used the "wig" method. I feel like I may need to open her shoulder and stuff more wool in to support her head more. The hair is kind of pulling her head back a bit!

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Here she is, as close to being done as possible! She still needed the stitching on her feet and along her leg bends, but she was close to done at this point. I'd photograph her now, but she is being happily snuggled in a bed and I won't disturb that.

My first and so adorable already!

Okay, so I am now officially obsessed with doll making. My Waldorf supplies got here on Thursday from Weir and I dug in last night and made my first doll head. Tonight, I finished it off and embroidered the face. I'm making her for Miss E, so she got special Miss E eyes -- a mix of gray and brown specs, plus a wide smile. I am in love already and I can't wait to put the rest of her together. I am constantly thinking about what to make next and how to do hair, dresses, toes, noses, eyes ... eek! But oh what fun!

I just had to share some photos of my first. Note, too, that my sewing table has been overtaken with doll supplies. (The white fleece bear is Miss E's latest project.)
Stay tuned for more!

p.s. There's no way I can keep this one until Christmas. I think I would burst! And Miss E would cry her beautiful eyes out!

Doll fun

I'm back to dolls again. I got hooked on Waldorf dolls last week and gave it a go to see if I could manage ... now I've got a bundle of supplies headed my way on a UPS truck and can't wait! (A book, too.) Here's a glimpse of my first, my little Chocolate Fairy. I haven't decided on a name for her, but she is beautiful. Her head is too skinny, I think, but I went with the materials I had at hand and have studied other tutorials now and see that I should have made it wider. So, I made up for it with ginormous amounts of crazy hair in a yarn I've been dying to use on a doll.

I started on a dress for her, but unfortunately ran out of olive felt ... and so did JoAnn. Yikes. So, that will happen at some point. I may instead try out another dress idea I have in mind.

In the meantime, I updated Jessie. She is all glammed out now with new layers of hair, and, at Miss E's insistence, a new face. I made her a dress, and though it looks really cute, the details on the straps and buttons are so incredibly lame that I look like a remedial sewist. Yikes. I haven't sewn a buttonhole for 25 years, and I need a lot of practice, it appears. Overall, though, Miss Jessie is very cute now!

Can't wait for those supplies to get here!!!