Jointed dollies

I went looking for the pictures of all my old jointed dolls I made so I could put them on here.  When I decided I wanted to make a jointed doll I went on google looking for tutorials and I found plenty of them out there.  Here are several links that are very helpful :)

Fig and Me She makes gorgeous dolls and has a lot of very helpful information and tips.

Nestled Under Rainbows She's got a tutorial for making dolls and talks about how she created her own pattern, which made me realize I could give it a try as well :)

Doing Without She's got a tutorial and a free pattern.  I used this tutorial to learn how to make toes and fingers :) 

Pummbaeren This site has a great tutorial with pictures for making the head.

The Silver Penny This site has a good tutorial for the head and it also has a pattern.

Judi's Dolls She has a video showing how to do invisible jointing, which is what I wanted for my dolls.  I didn't want the buttons on the joints to show. 

Fretta This is another good head tutorial :)

Dolls Fever Another very good head tutorial with pictures.

Farmish Momma This is a link I shared in another post.  It's the tutorial I used when I started making my dolls :)  It's a good one. 

I got my jointed doll pattern from Sarahs-Dolls.  I made a few dolls with this pattern, but I decided to try and make my own pattern.  It was hard as I'd never done it before.  I measured plastic baby dolls.  I looked at how their arms and legs were shaped and went from there.  I'm still not happy with it and will continue to tweak it until I'm happy.  I want to make the legs longer and the feet as well.  I think the arms are a good length, but I want to make them thinner I think.  The body needs work as well.  I've not made one of these dolls in over a year.  When I tweak my pattern to my satisfaction I'll give it another go.  My favorite part of making the dolls is when I get to pick their eye and hair color.  My wifey helps me choose most of the time and she also chooses their names :)  I also love picking what I want to make them to wear.  I'd love to learn to knit so I could make them woolly hats and jumpers.  For now I just make them dresses, shorts, pants, underwear, nappies, socks, tights, shoes, jackets, hats, that kind of thing.  I thought I'd share some pictures of some of the dolls I made with my own pattern :) 

Honey the Bee :)  She was really fun to make.  I kept thinking of different dolls I could make and this little bee came to mind :)  I googled bee wings to get an idea of what to make her wings look like. I made her a black and yellow tutu and here is a very good tutorial on how to make your own no sew tutus sewmccool :) 

Honey

This is Noelle and Tilly.  All these dolls were put on my FB page and Etsy page, so when a lady saw Noelle she asked me to make her one with black hair. So I made Tilly for her.  They were made near the holidays so they have a Christmas angel outfit and Noelle also has a regular Christmas dress.  I love her little felt Mary Jane shoes.  If you google felt Mary Janes for dolls you'll find many tutorials and patterns.  Noelle is one of my favorite little dolls, her face to me was very pretty :)  Hopefully their owners are still happy with their dolls.

Noelle

Tilly 

One of the custom orders I had that made me the most nervous was an order made by a man for his wedding day.  He and I exchanged many messages about how he wanted the dolls to be.  In the end he was very happy and I was happy with my officer's cap! The gold buttons on his jacket were actually silver but I spray painted them gold. The groom's doll was the hardest to make but very fun :) I used these tutorials for an officer's hat to help me make mine Brass Goggles and Tracing Rainbows.

Very good tutorials with pictures.  

I didn't know if I would be able to do it but I liked how it all came together. The bride liked her surprise too :)

Officer's Hat :)

I'll share some more of my jointed dolls with you in my next post :)

   

Some other dollies

I wanted to share some other dolls that I've made.  After the first 2 dolls I made a few more using the same pattern that I found here sarahs-dolls.  I made a superboy, a schoolgirl, a pirate, some little boy and girl dolls and a little girl doll in a Christmas dress.

Here are some of them.

I think my favorite was the schoolgirl doll :)  I made some of these dolls about 3 years ago, some 2.  Most of these were sold on my FB page.  They were very fun to make, especially the pirate and the schoolgirl :) I loved making their outfits as well.  I used all kinds of fabrics and felt.  The hardest thing to make for me was the newspaper boy hat.  It came out ok though.  After I got the hang of making this type of doll I decided a jointed doll was my next project.  I'll share some of those in another post :)

Little Boy Doll

My favorite thing to create is dolls.  I love making them but I am my worst critic.  I'm never quite satisfied with what I do, but these latest dolls I think have come out ok :) I decided to try and make a boy doll with embroidered hair.  I saw this picture by lalinda on pinterest.  It's a doll with embroidered hair and I loved it, so I thought I'd give it a go.  I used a pattern I made by resizing and tweaking a little bit a doll pattern I bought on etsy.  The original pattern is by HobbyandDolls its called Dolce Dolly.
My little guy's head took me a long while to finish up.

I then finished his body and put him together and started making him an outfit :)

I made him some socks and then resized a baby vest I had and started making him some dungarees :)

Making his shoes was my favorite part :D  I decided to make him some red Converse type shoes.  I got my inspiration from pictures I saw on google images :)  This one is my favorite doll converse.  Just google felt Converse type doll shoes and you'll see quite a few.  I made my shoe pattern by measuring and tracing around his foot, then just used felt and a piece of very sturdy interfacing I got in my fabric shop.  Sorry, I don't know what it is called but you can also use some lightweight cardboard like that of a cereal box.  I used that as part of the sole.  I used my glue gun to put it all together :) 

I also made him a cap.  The cap was a bit of a nightmare for me but that's just me :D  It isn't that difficult to make really.  I used this pattern doll cap and used this tutorial how to doll cap.  It came out ok but a tiny bit too small.  I'll be making him a new one soon :)

Here he is! 

He needs a name now :)