Doll making - Day 1

I've not been able to post as much as I'd like to, we've been knocked out here with that cold virus going around, it's nothing a little sunshine wouldn't fix I'm sure, but we are yet to see much of that in London so far...But thankfully I've still managed to fit in some making. I have been doing a Steiner Waldorf doll making workshop with the lovely talented ladies at Dalston Dolls.

I have been wanting to make Merlin a doll for a while and the two day workshop was so much fun. There was a whole lot more to it that I really imagined, the head shaping took the most part of day one. The head is built up of layers, first a ball of yarn around which layers of carded wool are wrapped until you have quite a large dense ball, then you stretch over a bandage tube, create an eyeline and shape the skull with tightly tied twine and then stretch over your skin coloured jersey fabric. It was a fascinating process.


At the end of the day we had a collection of body parts ready to assemble the following week. These days there are a whole lot of crafts one can pick up online through youtube and tutorials, but this is something I'm so glad I did with experienced makers. Not only was the company absolutely lovely but this turned out to be a really skillful process and I just don't think I would have had the kind of satisfying experience making my first doll without the support and guidance of two makers who have done it many times before.



Between classes I went off to Loop London to find some hair for him and found the most perfect doll hair from my favourite yarn company Habu Textiles. It is their mohair loop and although it is not cheap at 9 quid per 14gm skein,  I could probably get three short heads of hair out of one ball, so it's actually not bad. I'm just excited I've found another excuse for working with the most luxurious of fibre companies. Anyway, if you're going to spend over 20 hours making something you ought to use the best materials.