More Jointed Dollies

I wanted to continue with my jointed dolls show and tell :D  In my Jointed dollies post I listed several Waldorf doll how to links for you.  I hope they are helpful :) In that post I showed you my wedding dolls, Honey the bee and some Christmas angels :) All those jointed dolls and the ones I'm going to show you were made with my own pattern.  A pattern that I'm still tweaking to make better :)

This little lady started off in a Christmas dress, then I changed her into a red outfit with hearts.

I made her dress and bloomers from an old simplicity pattern I already had.  I had gone to Hobby Lobby when my wife and I visited Texas and I found a treasure trove of printed felt squares :D  I bought myself several and used one of them to make these spotty felt shoes with velcro fasteners and a pink felt heart applique.  I also made her a small red felt purse with a ribbon for a strap and I made her red hair bows.  All the felt heart appliques were made with my trusty BIGkick machine :)

Bella

Bella's bows, purse and Mary Janes :)

These little ladies I made for some ladies who custom ordered them.  Evie was first and when I posted her on my FB page a second lady wanted one that looked like Evie doll as much as possible.  So I made Madison :) They have blue eyes and lovely blond hair with pink bows.  I love making hair bows. There is this awesome site where they have loads of tutorials for hair bows.  Here is the link for that site The Ribbon Retreat.  I  made these little girls felt shoes and tights and dungaree dresses :)  The tights were made from size 0-3 month baby tights. I just resized them.  For the dress I just made a pattern but here is a link for a good one The Silver Penny.  It's one for pants but you can just make a skirt instead.

Evie

Madison

This is Zoey and I loved her hair :) I made her tutu just as colorful. I used tulle in all the colors they sold at the fabric store :) Here is a link on how to make a no sew tutu again :) sewmccool.  She is a colorful ballerina and a couple years ago became someone's Christmas present.  

Zoey

A couple of years ago I made a Christmas fairy named Holly. She was fun to make.  I made her a Christmasy tutu in red, green and white with a Christmasy bow in front.  I googled holly leaves to make a template to cut holly leaves out of felt to put on her bows, shoes and outfit  hence her name being Holly :D  I loved her wings.  The felt they are made from was a good find in good old Banburys Store.  Her bows I made with the help of this tutorial I found here sisters suitcase blog.  They have a very good picture tutorial there and the template too :) 

Holly

 Holly's wings,Mary Janes and bows

Isabella was one of the first dolls I made with my own pattern.  I loved her hair. The yarn I chose for her hair was all crocheted into a long block. I don't even remember what I was trying to make with it. When I undid the block to make Isabella's hair it was all nice and curly.  It came out very lovely :)  I made a purple bow for the front of her tutu and I put purple gems on the tutu as well.  For this doll I chose to try and make fingers and toes.  I found a tutorial here Doing Without.  I don't have any pictures of her toes but you can see her fingers in the picture below.  I've not made fingers and toes on any of my other dolls. I don't really know why.  I might do that next time I make one of these dolls.

Isabella

I'll share some more dolls with yall in another post.  If you are making your own dolls I hope it is as fun for you as it is for me :)

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 :)