Penny Rug Santa
During the first class you will mark and sew the body pieces, cut them out and turn the individual pieces.
During the second class you will stuff the doll pieces.
Here you can see how the pieces are being stuffed.
The base skin paint is pained on the face and body.
The face is easy to do because it is stenciled on.
You use paint for the hair, but you use colored pencils for the face.
Now you make the cute clothing. These hats are small but easy to make.
This is Marie Noe's first doll. She said it was very easy to do and enjoyed making it very much.
Here you can see the small leather shoes Marie made for her doll.
You can see Marie Noe, who made the doll, standing in the background. She looks like she's very happy with Cora.
A couple of Julie's dolls
This is the doll with red shoes that the class is currently making.
These are the molds that will be used to make the various body parts - head, arms, legs.
In the first class, students will pour their own doll head and limbs using FLUMO (air dryable slip). The molds are made by Gail Wilson out of a special clay that draws the water out of the pourable slip. After about an hour, the extra slip is poured out of the head and the limbs are left to get solid. After another hour or so (depends on the humidity level), the parts are unmolded and left to continue drying. Once firm, a preliminary clean up of the parts is done. There is lots of waiting time for things to dry so there will be time to shop or work on other things like looking in books to figure out what kind of hairstyle you want
The second class is used to finish cleaning up the parts; removing mold lines, filling in bubble marks, etc. The parts are then drilled so that the doll parts can be sewn to the cloth body parts. Additional paper clay will be used to create a hairstyle, and students will use clay tools to add details like braids, combs, rolls, buns, or apollo knots. I will have some pictures of antique dolls that have hair styles students can use to get ideas.
The third class we will paint the doll with skin color and facial details and of course the hair. We will also sew the body parts and if the doll paints are dry enough, we can assemble the dolls. Here you can see the parts attached to the body.
There are various ways to make the hair. This shows you what it looks like after you use clay to mold the hair and paint it. You can use fibers for hair instead of the clay.
If the students do not wish to pour their own head and limbs, another option is to have me do it ahead of time and they get one ready to jump in at class two. Or they may do a Hitty doll instead (Kit cost is $84.00).
This is another doll that you can make. Julie says anyone can make any of the dolls and not just the one she is showing in class.
