Assembly Line Heads

Saturday, April 4th, 2015

I’m working on making a score of dollies. All their homes have been accounted for in advance. Although I am supposed to be making one per week, I have opted to try the assembly-line method of production. It’s really helpful, because I can refine my technique immediately when I did something I realize I can do better. It’s sort-of like lettering drills that elementary school teachers give their students: practice one thing lots and lots, move on to the next, then string it all together.

 

 

“I’ve got all my heads in a row—”

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—I think that stems from a duck-hunting metaphor, which is rather morbid when one thinks about it.

 

 

“Don’t put all your heads in one basket—”

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— I don’t know if that one’s any better.

The Backwards, Forwards, Inside-Out Dress

Monday, March 23rd, 2015

Megan's Dress-8006

 

I made a dress for Megan! It’s a simple A-line dress that looks good backwards, forwards, & inside out. The shoulders fasten with hook & loop fasteners. I got the cute patterned fabrics from raiding Ari’s awesome fabric stash (Ari: anytime you want to go shopping for cute patterned fabrics because you have nothing better to do, I trust your taste entirely). Mom, purveyor of fine ric-racs and other sundries (happy birthday, Mom!), will be happy to know I finally found an appreciation for the notion. The ric-rac I used is rather large. Because of the way I attach it & do the bottom hem of the dress, I don’t think I could use ric-rac any smaller, which is a shame, as most of her ric-rac is quite a bit smaller. There’s some fine stitching detail on the green side that is not on the colorful side, which I’m proud of. The greatest difficulty in sewing the dress came in getting the correct tension on my Bernina, which is odd, because it was supposed to have been set by a professional. I just can’t seem to get the bobbin tension tight enough.

 

Megan's Dress-8009

Megan

Saturday, March 21st, 2015

I have been spending a lot of time working on dolls & very little time photographing my family. So here we are. I really like this doll. She’s all my own design. She sits & stands & holds a paintbrush. I’m working on designing a very simple upscale doll for the toddler set. This shouldn’t be too hard, as there are plenty out there, but I want it to look as good naked as it does dressed. I was having issues with shoulder design and issues getting a nice tight seamless neck & chin, both which I’ve solved here. Her body is a very thick cotton knit & she’s stuffed with organic wool & her hair is all sorts of wool. I have some tweaking to do with the pattern— I think I want to make her legs get wider toward the bottom— but I’m pretty happy.

 

Megan Doll-7947

 

I’m really horrid at clothing design. I designed this little reversible A-line dress for her. This one is just made out of an old sheet, for which reason she looks like she’s wearing an old sheet, but it turned out nicer than it looks in the photos. Although I’m tempted to make it slightly more form-fitting, I think it would make it too hard for little hands to dress her. The dress will attach at the shoulders with velcro and it will look good forwards, backwards, and inside out.

Skinning the Head

Saturday, February 21st, 2015

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.

 

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Poke-poke-poke-poke-poke…

Friday, February 20th, 2015

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:

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My New Sewing Machine!

Friday, February 13th, 2015

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Sinead

Monday, February 9th, 2015

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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.)

 

***

 

Update:

 

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Upcycled Wool Pants

Saturday, January 31st, 2015

I made Iris some more wool pants, but she found them itchy, even over leggings.

I found a group on-line where I could trade them for a small hand-made rainstick

with a wood-burned sunflower on it.

I will have to update later, when I receive my rainstick.

The recipient of the pants says she is happy.

 

 

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Minerva

Sunday, January 18th, 2015

I made a doll.

 

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How to Sew a Hoop-Greenhouse for a Raised Bed

Thursday, November 6th, 2014

I’ve been wanting to make a greenhouse.

“Why don’t you sew it?” said Martin.

“I’m not that good of a seamstress,” I said.

“I think you are,” he said.

 

I wasn’t about to argue with Martin about my sewing abilities, because the best thing anyone can say to me when I tell them I want to do something is that they think I can do it.

 

inside my new hoop-greenhouse

make your own greenhouse

 

 

Initially, I was going to make the cover out of vinyl. My plan involved covers for the hoop ends and bungee-cords holding vinyl tarps down over the top. I made a pattern, sewed the hoop end pieces, started cutting out the middle bits, then ran out of vinyl. After some research, I realized that it was a poor choice of material anyhow. Vinyl reacts with PVC in UV light, causing almost instant deterioration unless the pipes are primed. Then the vinyl lasts a bit longer, but only if one buys better quality vinyl than I had. I did more research and decided to use a translucent rip-stop nylon. I also realized my bungee idea wasn’t going to work well at all. I decided to use zippers for the closures.

 

I called Mom. “I’m going to sew a hoop-greenhouse. I’m going to put zippers on the curved ends and one zipper in the middle of the long side for access. Do you have any advice?”

She thought a few seconds. “I wouldn’t put a zipper on a curve,” she said.

It was good advice, seeing as I knew nothing about installing zippers. It was the only advice I had before beginning.

 

I did a bit of calculating, then I ordered six three-foot zippers and a piece of 12-foot by 15-foot translucent ripstop nylon. I used a #100 needle and UV resistant upholstery thread on my machine. The bobbin has to be loose and the top thread tension has to be as tight as possible in order for the stitch to work at all. The only stitch that works while sewing this fabric is a straight stitch: it is impossible to get the bobbin thread pulled tight enough to do a zig-zag because the nature of the fabric does not allow the bobbin thread to pass through it. Be sure to do lots of test stitching through various thickness of fabric.

 

Before I go on giving you my (rather vague) step-by-step instructions and measurements and calculations and photographs with lines and arrows and words on the back of each one, I will just let you know that 12-feet by 15-feet is significantly larger than our living room— the room where I sewed my House.

 

 

1) ASSESS YOUR RAISED BED & SKETCH SOME PLANS

The size of my beds was determined by the size of the available lumber. The size of my hoop structure was determined by standard pipe lengths. There is lots of advice for building beds available on-line. The only thing I will note is, if you have not yet built your beds, you will want to orient the long side in an east-west orientation for better insolation. We did not do this.

 

plans

hoop house plans

 

 

2) BUILD YOUR HOOP STRUCTURE

PVC Pipes come in 10-foot lengths. We used six of them. The ends of the pipes are attached to the beds with heavy-duty pipe straps. The width of the bed determines the height of the hoop. We re-inforced the hoops with a wood frame. The hoops go through the wood on top. We used 1x6s and 2x4s because that’s what we had on hand. There are two hoops close together in the center to support the center opening. There is a slot between these two hoops to allow fabric to pass through (step 6).

 

 hoop structure on the raised bed

the hoop structure

 

 

 center slot detail

sew a greenhouse

 

 

3) DESIGN YOUR PATTERN, CALCULATE THE AMOUNT OF FABRIC NEEDED, THEN ORDER SUPPLIES

I don’t have any photos for this: we went out with headlamps after dark to trace the contour of the end hoop. To do this, we clamped a large piece of vinyl to the pipe and traced around the outside with a marker. An old mattress bag would work well for pattern material, as would an old sheet or tarp. Trace or extrapolate to the end of the hoops, not just to the top of the raised bed. Add two inches to the bottom of the pattern for the hem.

 

Measure the circumference around the two center hoops then add seam allowance. My oval was 17 & ½” around. I added 1″ for seam allowance and cut the length to exactly 10 feet. The sleeve extends to the top of the bed, not to end of the pipes.

 

Measure the wood frame across the top of the hoop house. Add ½” seam allowance for sewing it to it to the hoop ends. I will call this Length A.

 

My pipes are ten feet. Unfortunately, I did not measure the length of the outside arc formed by the 10-foot pipe; I just assumed it was ten feet. This is the cause of the sloppy corner illustrated in step 11. If I was supposed to have assumed the length of the inside arc, I would have, without thinking, assumed that it was ten feet, too, even though they are obviously different lengths. So, measure the pipe from end to end, over the top of the arc. Add 2-inches on either side where it hangs down to the raised bed for the hem. I will call this Length B.

 

The size of the main body piece is Length A x Length B.

 

Sketch yourself some pattern-layouts. My hoop-ends can lie one next to the other on a 12-foot-wide piece of fabric, so I chose to order a 12-foot width. The place where I ordered my fabric, Grower’s Supply, sells the fabric any length in various widths from two feet up to twelve feet. I ordered quite a bit of extra fabric, it turns out, as I was afraid of not having enough.

 

pattern layout

pattern for hoop house

 

 

I ordered YKK #10 Molded Extra-Heavy Separating 36″ Zippers from zipperstop. They were the most economical.

 

The House has grommets around the bottom for attaching it to the raised bed. I used Dritz Grommets purchased at Jo-Ann Fabrics because it was convenient. Possibly I should have used something of better quality.

 

 

4) CUT OUT YOUR PATTERN PIECES.

Easier said than done. As I mentioned, the fabric was much larger than my living room. First I unrolled a few feet and cut the end caps. Then it was a process of unrolling one end and rolling up the other while marking measurements. I rolled and unrolled this fabric many, many times in different directions before the cover was complete.

 

cutting the end pieces

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5) SEW THE SLEEVE FOR THE CENTER HOOPS

This sleeve provides support for the structure when the center zipper is opened. It also allows the center zipper to be more than three feet up from the bottom of the cover, for better access, as the sleeve provides a barrier where air would otherwise get in below the zipper. The sleeve is not intimidating to sew, and thus a good place to start. To sew, first make a small hem on the bottoms. Sew the length with ÂĽ” seam, fold over, then sew another ÂĽ” seam. To install it, remove the two center pipes, put them through the sleeve, then slide the pipes back into the frame.

 

installing the sleeve over the center hoops

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 large boot stomping on seedlings

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Be aware that if your helper is a non-gardener, their foot will have excess gravitational attraction to the most delicate aspect of your garden. If your helper is a gardener, he or she will step on the mulch.

 

 

6) HEM THE BOTTOMS

Hem the bottom of the large, main body piece and of the hoop-ends. I folded up an inch, pinned, folded another inch, re-pinned, and had a hem sturdy enough through which to install grommets.

 

hem & grommet

grommet installation

 …the first hem was a bit more untidy than the others because I hadn’t perfected my process yet.

 

 

7) MEASURE & INSTALL THE ZIPPERS

If you are experienced at installing zippers, please forget everything you know before reading my instructions.

 

placement: Place a zipper 6″ from each end and one zipper in the center. Mark the placements with a marker. The end zippers abut the hem. The center zipper is located 10″ above the hem, for greater access.

 

reinforcement: Cut a strip of reinforcement plastic 2″ wider and about 6″ longer than the zippers, plus the extra 10″ length for the center zippers.

 

attachment: Starting with the easiest zipper on one of the ends, pin one zipper in place on the surface of the “right” side of the plastic. Fold the excess reinforcement plastic in half, then in half again to protect the top of the zipper and keep you from unzipping it all the way. Pin. Using the same sewing foot you’ve been using, begin towards the center of the fabric and sew a straight stitch to the hem. Sew a second row of stitching about ÂĽ” away from this row, at the very edge of the zipper’s fabric. Reinforce the hem. Sew the edges of the reinforcement plastic to the main body. Repeat on the other side of the sipper.

 

opening: Turn to the wrong side of the fabric, take your seam ripper, and rip up the length of the zipper. Remove all the plastic between the innermost two rows of stitching on your zipper. If you’ve used your machine’s zipper foot, the seam will be too close to the zipper for you to remove enough plastic, and the zipper pull will get caught, and you will have to use your seam ripper to remove all your stitches, and it will be annoying.

 

Repeat five times. Roll, unroll. Roll, unroll. Roll, unroll. Roll, unroll. Roll, unroll…

 

placing the center zipper

hoop house center zipper

 

 

detail at the top of the zipper

iinsert zipper on greenhouse

 

 

sewing the zipper; fabric uncut

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fabric needs to be cut to sew around the zipper pull

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the entire length of fabric rolled tightly to fit under my sewing machine

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8) SEW VENTS ON THE END CAPS

I put vents on the end caps because I hear they’re a good idea in hot weather and because I wanted to use some plastic snaps. I cut open a flap, cut a rectangle that was 1″ larger than the flap on all sides, and sewed the rectangle to the flap so that there was some overlap for snapping. I reinforced all the places where I wanted snaps and added a strap so that I can roll the vent up and snap it open. Which is the whole point of having a vent, other than using some snaps.

 

open vent

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…oops! It’s right over the frame!

 

 

19) INSTALL THE GROMMETS

Install the grommets through the hem. Place grommets on either side of the base of each zipper. Space them evenly throughout the rest of the hem. On store-bought tarps, the grommets are one every two feet, so I used that as my maximum spacing. Don’t place them too close to where you’ll be sewing your seams. You can easily add more grommets later if you want, tho. (see photo step 6)

 

 

10) SEW THE END CAPS TO THE MAIN BODY; TEST THE SIZE; TAKE IN

Easier said than done. If you haven’t used a fabric handler yet, you’ll need one here. This is a large curve on an unwieldy amount of fabric. Sew both ends using a ÂĽ” seam allowance, then go out side and try the cover on your hoops. Wow! That looks great! Figure how much fabric you can take in. I folded my seams over just another ÂĽ” and sewed a 2nd time. And it was done!

 

hey! that looks good!

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11) ATTACH THE COVER TO THE RAISED BED

After all that work, you don’t want it to blow away. We used screws to attach the ends and bungee cords looped around screws to tie down the center.

 

ends screwed on with wooden & metal washers

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bungees around center zipper

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detail of sloppy corner

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FUNCTIONAL!!!

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