Saturday, February 28, 2015

Rag Dolls

This April our handicraft group has suggested a project entitled "Rag Dolls".

There are lots of ideas for dolls on Pinterest and after looking at some of these I came up with my own design - Bella!

Melly and Me and Pickledokra had really good tips which gave me ideas on how I wanted to embroider her face.

For her head I made a small circular template and drew a circle onto some pink fabric and then sketched her features.   Without cutting the circle out I backed my fabric with cotton wadding and, using a hoop to keep the fabric taunt, embroidered the eyes, lashes, mouth and brows.   Pinning the face to another piece of the same pink fabric, right sides together, (before drawing a circle on the wrong side of the fabric with the circle template on the right side). So that the head could be joined to the body, I drew in a neck (close thing there, nearly didn't have one!)

With a few outlines onto more of the same pink fabric and some machine stitching I had a couple of arms, turned them right sides out and stuffed them, ready to go!   I found a really helpful tutorial on turning small things through at Melly and Me.  Mel also shows how to fill small things too.

Next I cut out a square for the body and smaller one for the pants (or knickers as some might call them in Good Ole Blighty as they say).

After a lot of unpicking and repinning and slow stitching I had her head, arms and body all joined together and turned through the right way.

*ADDITION - see below.


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I've progressed a little with my knitting and hope to be able to show some pictures in my next post, however I would appreciate if anyone is able to advise me on how to put photos onto my blog as I am still struggling with that at the moment.

Bye for now, 
Barbara. 

*11 June 2015 Amendment  - I have long since found out how to add photos and have decided there really should be one here and so am adding it today!

Wednesday, February 04, 2015


Good day to you!


Not much going on here I'm afraid, still not found out how to post photos so I thought I'd just mention that The Great British Sewing Bee is on BBC2 at 8 PM on Thursday 5 February!


I  don't wish to sound like an advert but last year I nearly missed the beginning of the series and only saw it because some kind person mentioned it on their blog which I luckily happened to see earlier that same evening, so I'm hoping I may help others avoid missing this amazingly absorbing show. Even my husband sat and watched it and he is not in the least bit interested in sewing and normally gets fed up with hearing about all my sewing projects.   Bless!


Thank you for popping by, I hope you enjoy the show and please call again soon!


Barbara.