Latest Project--Doll with a Recycled Head

I was heading to the garbage can with this big doll head, thinking even the Salvation Army would NOT want it. And then I had an idea. I'd read about Judi Ward covering heads like this with wool felt, to make a Lenci type doll.  I thought, "Why not cover this head with cotton knit and make another big Alabama Baby type doll.  Here are pics of steps one through four:

 I started without taking a proper "before" pic, so this is the best I could do. It looks even worse with the glue on the eyes, I know. I cut off the eyelashes before I put Elmer's glue on the eyes.

Then I coated the entire front of the head with Elmer's.

The next step is to cover the head, all around, with cotton knit fabric. I usually use an old tee shirt for this but someone had given me some new knit scraps, so this time I used that. You make sure the stretchiest direction of the fabric goes across the face, not down. I brush more glue on the underlying head, as I work my way around it. I stretch gently as I go, and have to cut darts to take up slack as I go. I try to keep the darts to a minimum, but you don't want wrinkles on your doll's head. You can see that when I finish with the face and back of head, there is a "bald spot" on the top.

Step three is to cover the top of the head with a piece of knit fabric. You must work carefully to minimize the gathers around the edge of the patch at the top of the head.  Adding more glue helps.

Here is the top of the head finished.  Alabama Babies can be identified by a round patch on the top of their heads.

Here is the covered head, drying. From the ruler, you can see that this doll will be large.

Tomorrow, when the glue has dried, I will coat the entire head with gesso. I may sand it and then add another layer of gesso, if necessary. After that, I can begin to paint the face/head. That is the part I enjoy most!! I will need to decide if he/she will have painted hair or a wig. Most Alabama Babies have painted hair, but not all of them.  Stay tuned for pictures of the progress on this doll.  

Largest Screamer I Have Ever Made.....

.....is in progress. He is very large; this time I used a styrofoam ball about as big as a round watermelon for his head. Screamer 1 has a gourd for a head and Screamer 2 (ie: Screamer's Cute Baby) has a hollow plastic ball (about the size of baseball) for a head (the ball was covered with PaperClay and cloth, after the hole for the mouth was cut out). Both of the first 2 Screamers have the plastic eyes that are used in porcelain dolls; this one has one of those clear plastic Christmas ornaments for eyes--the kind that pop apart--half for each eyeball. I painted them on the inside. That's fabric from an old cotton knit jacket I had for his skin, and PaperClay for his lips and parts of his nose; the center of his nose is styrofoam covered with cotton knit from an old garment.

New Doll in Progress

This one is also dressed in reprised fabrics. She is different that most dolls I make, but the same in that her body is very simple. Her jacket will have gold buttons, and I"m going to do more with her fett, which I am not satisfied with.

Taking apart knitted garment, making something new

Last night I cut apart a cotton (knitted) sweater, planning to make it into a bag. Previously when I did this, I unraveled the entire sweater, however this sweater had lovely diamonds knitted into it and I didn't want to destroy them. So, I cut the sweater at the arms, so I had a straight piece of knitted fabric. Then I sewed a seam at the side and unraveled one arm's worth of yarn. The ribbing end of the piece(formerly at the bottom of the sweater) will now become the top of my bag. I attached my yarn at the raw edge of my bag and picked up the free loops; I began to knit, to make my bag deeper. That is where I'm at now-see picture.

Next, I plan to begin decreases to make an oval bottom to the bag. After that I will knit an eyelet row above the ribbing, and knit a strap. Then the bag will be finished, and it will have cost me just a couple of dollars.

A word of warning about purchasing used sweaters to unravel: many sweaters these days are not knit per se. The pieces are cut from large pieces of knit fabric, much as you would cut the pieces for a shirt from cloth fabric. You DON'T want to use these sweaters for unraveling as all you will get is one yard long pieces of yarn! (Ask me how I know!) You want to buy a hand knit sweater; these sweaters will be sewn together with the yarn they were knitted from, and they will have very finished-looking seams, unlike the seams from the former sweaters which will have seams with little short pieces of yarn kind of poking out. You may get some of the wrong sweaters at first, but you can still use the yarn from them to crochet little amigurumi toys, etc. You don't need to waste it. Good luck and happy hunting and knitting!