Exploring Dollmaking

Here's some attempts a making dolls. I started with Amelia & Corrie:

For these dolls I followed a great tutorial from Quaint and Quirky's blog (http://quaintandquirky.blogspot.com/). This is when I really knew I needed help - my machine-sewing skills are not great so both doll heads turned out resembling E.T. (my husband's observation)!

Then I worked on this one:

This is Eddie. He's from the book "Wee Wonderfuls: 24 Dolls to Sew and Love" by Hillary Lang (currently sold on Amazon.com). If you are into dolls, this is an AWESOME book! (I've also made the "Sleepover Pals" and a "Mermaiden", but I don't have pictures yet).

Then I got a bunch of random stuff at the thrift store and decided to make my own doll pattern, a bit bigger. The first one I worked on was made from a really fun patterned shirt, but as I was stuffing it I realized that stretchy material is not a good choice for dollmaking, so I put a hold on that one (so she's hanging around with Sunshine, still without hair).

(Sunshine loves dolls - hair or no hair!)

I jumped into making 2 more dolls, both for my big sister. I re-vamped my pattern and called it "Tommy". Unfortunately when I went to dye the first fabric, it came out looking "dirty" instead of off-white. So I pitched that one. The other one was made from a pair of thrift store pants. He ended up looking very "unique" (material is dark brown, hair is yellow fuzzy fleece).
At the moment, Sunshine is trying to put Tommy's pants on her own feet (not working too well - I had to alter the preemie outfit to make it smaller). It is pretty funny to watch, though!

(That's Tommy in the background, pants-less).

So there you go, a little glimpse into my very first attempts at making dolls. I've done a fair bit of embroidery (mostly facial features), and I am slowly getting better at that, but as for making dolls, I'm no expert!

(This was taken just after the tantrum Sunshine had because she couldn't get the pants on.)