Mother Earth and Child

This little doll started off as a design by Jennifer Carson, called Sybil, A Faerie Mother and her child.  As I went along, I kept changing things, and that’s seems to be happening more and more. That’s a good thing, it means you’re not boxing yourself into the same thing and relying on patterns by others.

I love the work others have done by the way, I wouldn’t have known where to start back in 2003 were it not for the efforts of those who started well before me. With that said, here she is. My version of Jennifer’s design.

She stands 11” tall. The original doll has 4 fingers, but I redrew the pattern to make it 5. I didn’t give her ears either. Maybe I should have just done it from scratch to begin with ;o)

The pattern includes directions for a different type of hat, but instead of that, I used my simple little hat pattern and this one. I have a FREE pattern in the links at the top of my blog posts, it also includes a scarf and ideas for changing up the stitch designs. You could easily whip up a set in less than an hour.

There isn’t a pattern for the undies either, but I always give them undies. A simple trick to making them is: take a piece of stretch fabric wide enough to go around the body and the length. Make sure to add a little for hemming and seam allowance. Fold the hems and waistband down, pull the side together and pin all in place. At the crotch area, just fold and tuck in the edges until it’s nice and flat. Then take a needle and matching thread, small stitches and sew them right to the body. Voila, undies. ;o)

I also gave her some socks. I didn’t knit these, I had them in my stash.

Her shoes are different from the pattern. I used a flannel to make them, so easy peasy. Just measured around the feet, added some height for the cuffs to turn over and covered the cardboard soles with flannel as well. The socks made her feet larger, so using the flannel kept them from becoming oversized. Poor thing, that would not be good.

After they were on her feet, I stitched them right to her feet in places, then used a product called “Stiffen Quik”, it’s an Aleene’s product. It needed 3 sprays to get the flannel nice and firm and the tops of the shoes, I’ve just rolled those down a little. No fuss.

And she’s finished and is off in the other room, visiting with The Artist from a previous post. Enjoy. Tuesday I start posting my February theme for the polymer challenge. Stay tuned.