TOPIC: [Craft] Rag Dolls

[Craft] Rag Dolls 04 Jun 2013 18:51 #1

  • Lirael
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THREAD TITLE CHANGED
This thread is for general rag doll discussion. =)

Well, my friend Charlie messaged me about this projects back in March, and I finally got it finished July 27th!
Her name is Charlie Turner, and she jokingly decided her fans should be called turnips. So many people took it on and were like 'I'm a Turnip!', that she had a dream that someone made her a doll that looked like it had a Turnip for a head and she named it Tina Turnip. Well. She commissioned me to make this dream come true.

I took several photos as I did this, and as much as I know I should probably post them properly here, I'm just going to direct you to my Facebook album because there are SO MANY.
I'll explain anything you want explained of course!

I'd already cut out the pattern and made the hair, so I'll explain those.

First, here's the album.
www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.451414918232012.102336.100000905223818&type=3&l=e71a129ab0

Pattern.
Simple really, mum found me a simple pattern on the net and I went with it. NOTE: The pattern didn't have the 'thumb' I added that in myself. =D

Hair.
Again, mum to the rescue! She bought a job lot of different shades of green yarn on eBay. She gave me this bag and said 'go have fun'. During the design stages, in which Charlie was involved, I sent her my sketches and she said what she liked about them and that sort of thing, we decided Tina should have curly hair. Charlie's hair is curly, so it really worked. How to make straight yarn look curly?
I tried my curler. It didn't work.
Another way to 'crinkle' your own hair, is to plait it, and then use a straightener to add heat. Worth a shot, I thought. So I spent a good hour and a half creating about two dozen plaits using about six strands of this yarn each, and then straightening them! Except, when I undid the plaits, the yarn was crimped! YES!
Then I did some more research. How on earth was I going to attach the hair to the dolls head!?
Well to begin with, I realised I wouldn't have enough with just the crinkled stuff and didn't have the time or patience to do a load more. So one layer of her hair is straight, the top layer is the crinkled layer.
Preparing it all to go on the doll was pretty simple really. You need tissue paper and tape.
Find the centre of the hair, and tape it to the tissue paper. Obviously keeping the centre as aligned as possible, and then machine sew straight down this line. I gave it about five or six passes to be sure. Then pull the tape and paper off, and voilĂ ! Hair you can attach to your doll!

EDIT: CORRECT LINK > www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.451414918232012.102336.100000905223818&type=3&l=e71a129ab0
Up there just me and my shadow, no bass, no guitar, no tambourine. Then I found you like a melody, you were singin' in the same key as me. <3
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[Craft] Rag Dolls 05 Jun 2013 07:11 #2

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She's adorable. I love her jeans skirt and the hair. ^^
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[Craft] Rag Dolls 05 Jun 2013 07:12 #3

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Since Lirael said she's okay with me abusing her thread for showing my rag doll too and even kindly changed the title already, well, here it is...
*takes a deep breath*

May I introduce to you... Miss Ugly, the ugliest rag doll ever. :P

Boy, I don't even know where to start. The beginning might be a good start, huh? Alright now. So, I had this crazy idea to make Seekers rag dolls so I devised a template of my own. I gathered some of the shape from peeking at my Monster High rag doll and at Lirael's doll and mostly followed Lirael's order of assembly. The doll was supposed to become Giselda.

When I sewed the first arm the sewing machine coughed up oil on the lower thread which then slightly stained her left hand from the inside. I pondered about remaking it but decided against it as surely this prototype would not become perfect anyway. Little did I know...
When I tried to tuck the arms and legs in like Lirael did it became a mess. The body was so small it didn't all fit right and after sewing one arm and one leg had very weird angles and the other arm was sewn in the wrong way around altogether! So I opened it up and from there on sewed it all by hand as my sewing machine just didn't work out for this. Sadly the needle stitches on her arm don't close anymore so the doll keeps that dotted line.
At that point I had long decided that she'd become a generic elf character instead of Giselda. Having an ugly prototype Giselda doll would have made me just as unhappy as having two Giselda dolls and preferring one of them. And I just can't throw anything away, especially not a doll or anything with eyes. If I do it haunts me for months or even years.

After fastening the arms and legs again I stuffed the body, then sewed the head on in a very... err... experimental way when I noticed that I should have done that before. After stuffing the head she had awful hamster cheeks - and I mean TRULY awful OVEREATEN hamster cheeks! So I removed the stuffing from the head, turned it, sewed the cheeks better and redid the stuffing after embroidering the face. Then I closed the head and added 3 layers of hair which I made like in Lirael's photos.
Well, next thing I did was to cut a hole into her head to stuff a piece of pipe cleaner down her throat because her head snapped backwards from the weight of her hair. *headdesk*

When that was fixed I went upstairs, made her a dress, threw it away because it was awful, then used golden fabric to sew on a dress. That's when I noticed how awfully low her arms sit! That's an anatomic nightmare! And the reason why she couldn't wear a decent dress. I sewed on some organza which I love because it's fluffy and which I utterly hate because it frays terribly and I can't seam it. Therefore I had to fold it to this toga-shape. At this point I truly hated this doll so I used the cheap plastic beads from a tinker set for little girls to adorn her clothes. She was supposed to become aquatic themed but it all just doesn't match. So the only thing aquatic is the little starfish in her hair.

Now she's done and sits in the back of my shelf where hopefully I won't have to see her often. ^^
She's terrible. Her face sits way too low high up, her mouth is sloped, the pencil lines for the right eye weren't correct and now don't go away, the skin fabric is so thin that pencil lines and the ends of the embroidery threads shine through, she had a lobotomy to add that pipe cleaner and her clothes are terrible.

Still, at least I learned a lot. I'm quite sure the next pattern will work much better and hopefully my first Seekers project will turn out better.
Some of the changes:
- The arms will either be part of the body or be sewn to the body first and to each other later when the body gets sewn - thus they won't need to be tucked in. Hey, in that case I could add a pipe cleaner for posability to them too.
- The head shape will be better.
- The lower part of the body will be rectangular, not a triangle. So the legs won't point in funny directions.
- The ears, thumbs and heels will be more accentuated.
- Instead of embroidery I'll try to use needle felting to make the face or use pastel pens like they do in "proper" cloth doll making.

My next project will be Cato. If it works out I'll start a new thread with a step-by-step tutorial for making her - if it doesn't you'll find a random medium-skinned rag doll here soonish. ^^;
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[Craft] Rag Dolls 05 Jun 2013 14:21 #4

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ephie! I GENUINELY think she's really darn cute!
Up there just me and my shadow, no bass, no guitar, no tambourine. Then I found you like a melody, you were singin' in the same key as me. <3
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[Craft] Rag Dolls 28 Jun 2013 21:47 #5

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I'll be adding to this thread during next week. :3 I'm proud of my new venture in this thing!
Up there just me and my shadow, no bass, no guitar, no tambourine. Then I found you like a melody, you were singin' in the same key as me. <3
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[Craft] Rag Dolls 29 Jun 2013 19:30 #6

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Meet my 'Plushie' Hawkeye. Hawkeye being from Avengers Assemble.
Born from a conversation with my friend Vicky at 1:30AM on Tuesday morning. (June 25th)
Me: I should so take henry to.lfcc and we can get a photo as Natasha curled up asleep cuddling him. XD
Vicky: Yes! XD
Me: XD what assassins do when.they're too tired ro function.
Vicky: Yup!
Me: Besides marketing typos.
Vicky: I think she would have a tiny Clint plushie though XD
Me: Marketing? Whut?
Vicky: Lol! Go back to sleep Natalie!
Me: Oh god yes.
I can't. I'm giggling too much.
You know I actually want to try and make a Hawkeye plushie now...

In my defence, I was using my phone and autocorrect is rubbish when you're half asleep.

The basic pattern for the body and head I found online, but I added the ears.
Hair is made of felt and was hot glued on one 'strand' at a time.
T-shirt and trousers made from some plain black and purple cotton type materials I bought. Bias Binding used for hems, except for the trousers which are actually turned up and hemmed without the binding.
Boots made from a piece of leather my mum had in a box of leather pieces.
Arm and leg bands made from folded over bias. Eyes are shanked buttons sewn on before stuffing, face is embroidered on by hand.


And then I got pendantic and decided to make the finger tab and arm guard he has in the movie (Being an archer and all). more Bias binding with some embroidery thread and pieces of leather.




And then I made sunglasses.



:3 For now I'm calling him done, although I AM thinking about making a tiny bow and quiver with arrows. Yup. I'm going there.

Now Vicky wants a Tony Stark one, and I'm planning to have the 'arc reactor' in his chest light up with an LED. =D
Up there just me and my shadow, no bass, no guitar, no tambourine. Then I found you like a melody, you were singin' in the same key as me. <3
Last Edit: 29 Jun 2013 19:32 by Lirael.
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[Craft] Rag Dolls 02 Jul 2013 11:10 #7

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This dollie turned out great, congrats on a job well done!
(Although I can't find Bias Binding in the dictionary and thus don't know what that is.)

My Cato ragdoll is still not finished, I hope I can work on it again soon. It's only half as tall as your plushie and I have to sew some things by hand. Biggest time eater is taking photos of the inidividual steps and making patterns for the clothes though.
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[Craft] Rag Dolls 02 Jul 2013 15:59 #8

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Bias Binding, also known as Bias tape. Basically it's a strip of material 'cut on the bias', which translates, in easy to understand terms to 'a strip of material cut diagonal to the 'grain' of the material.

I'm working on Tony now. He's being a pain though. XD I'll show some photos later. =) <3
Up there just me and my shadow, no bass, no guitar, no tambourine. Then I found you like a melody, you were singin' in the same key as me. <3
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[Craft] Rag Dolls 15 Jul 2013 18:27 #9

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I made a Tony! He's actually been nicknamed Tiny Stark because he's small. :3 He went home with Vicky after the convention.



And he has sunglasses too. =D



And of course, couldn't have Vicky taking home a Stark and Paul walking away with nothing. He got a wee Pepper!

She has earrings even. And her hair is in a 'ponytail' at the back, although that may have sort of died by the time he got her home. I dunno.

Vicky and her boyfriend have had to repair some damage done to Tiny since she got home. The wires connecting the light to the batteries both came unsoldered. But he's all fixed up now which is what matters. =)
Up there just me and my shadow, no bass, no guitar, no tambourine. Then I found you like a melody, you were singin' in the same key as me. <3
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[Craft] Rag Dolls 18 Jul 2013 19:25 #10

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Well, Vicky keeps teasing me about Paul and saying I should make a Paul plushie. Well that'd just be creepy so I went with the next best thing and started making myself my own Tiny Stark.
1st Problem, No arc reactor because, well, I only had the one LED array and battery set. Solution? He's a pre-arc Tony, no problem!
2nd problem, In this heat the hot glue used to stick the hair and facial hair basically didn't want to set. It'd sort of dry a little, but it'd still be slippery. Posted about this on facebook and Vicky came back with 'put it in the fridge!'.
Sounds bizarre, but I thought 'why not?' So finished gluing the hair and then put him in the fridge. Honestly has to be one of the most bizarre scenes my dad has ever witnessed. Me removing a plushie from the fridge. But it worked!
He still has no clothes, but here he is when I put him in the fridge, just chillin' with the alcohol. Like a Stark.

Up there just me and my shadow, no bass, no guitar, no tambourine. Then I found you like a melody, you were singin' in the same key as me. <3
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