Today I put skin on the head.

I think it was more interesting without skin.

But I’ll see where this is going.

Now I need to design some hair and a body.

I’ve been wanting to design a small, relatively inexpensive, simple doll in the category of dolls that I’m interested in making (“Waldorf” or “Waldorf-inspired”), as I think that’s a relatively untapped market. I’ve been pretty lazy, what with Iris having a sinus infection then me having something resembling a cold. But today was the day. I was going to do it.

To prepare for doll-making, I need to clean the entire house, as Iris likes to take out all the batts of luscious fluffy wool and wrap herself up and roll in them: if there are any loose threads or gobs of dust, they get stuck in the wool. Then, as Iris anxiously waited for me to untie the wool bag, I did a bunch of geometry and came up with a simple pattern. And as Iris rolled herself in batts of wool and flopped around the living room, I tied a little woolen head, just the right size for my pattern.

Then I glanced at my newly-acquired felting needle. “Just a few pokes,” I said to myself. “I don’t have the correct size stockinette for such a small head, so I’ll just a do few pokes to firm up the wool.” Um. Well. I took a break after one hour of felting (lunch, nap, learn to use yet another new sewing machine, go for a walk) and resumed felting some time after five. Martin came home around six or so while Iris was on the toilet. I was sitting near her, poking away at the wool. Luckily there was plenty of left-over lasagna for dinner.

After about two hours (or so) of felting, the doll no longer fits into the category of “relatively inexpensive, simple doll.” I really have no idea where I am going with this. Although it is so tempting to attempt felt the entire doll body, I won’t. Not with this doll. Not yet. For this doll, I will just put some skin on the head, embroider the features, then design an appropriate body to go with it.

Here is the doll’s inner head, my second attempt at sculptural felting:

I finished another dolly. I bought a rather expensive pattern because I wanted to learn how to felt-sculpt facial features. I had to alter the pattern a bit to make it work, and I’m still not quite happy with it, but I really loved felting the features. Sinead has soft cotton skin, fluffy wool stuffing, and a pebble-bag butt for weight.  Martin named her before the three-plus hours I spent crocheting her wig. Her wig is epic.

Way back in the early-mid 1990s, Cate went to Nepal and bought a yak-hair sweater. The average yak does not take weekly shampoo baths. The yak whose hair made said-sweater was no exception. The yak shearer also did not wash the yak’s hair. Nor did the yak-hair spinner. Nor did the yak-sweater-knitter. Nor did the knitted-yak-sweater-salesperson. Nor did said purchaser of said knitted-yak-sweater. The recipient of the sweater, however, was (an is) an exception to the rule. She washed the sweater.

Mom will have to come in here to comment and let us know how long it took her to clean, unravel, and wind that sweater into nice balls of yak-hair yarn. I’m thinking maybe twenty hours, minimum. Then she put it in a nice, transparent moth-proof bag and set it on a shelf to admire for 20 years. Before agreeing to give me the yarn, Mom made sure I was appreciative of her work. I am. The wool is absolutely perfect.

The yarn is a nice natural brown color, rather unevenly spun with occasional knots, and a bit curly toward the center of the ball. I used the outside of the ball to crochet a skull-cap for Sinead, then pulled from the inside to make her curls. It took at least three hours to make the wig. When she was finished, Martin said, “She looks like you.”

Sinead does not yet have clothes. However, she does have a fitted cloth diaper and a felted wool soaker complete with felted and embroidered kitty-cat applique on the butt. (To be updated with photo later.)

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Update: