New year...New hair

As much as I'm in a desperate need of a haircut, I would love to learn how to do some new hair styles for my dolls.
Over at bybido there is a tutorial for pigtail doll hair using wool. This is what it looks like...













Tantehilde makes gorgeous rag dolls and provides a tutorial for making doll hair for girls and boys. As I'd love to branch out into making boy dolls, this tutorial for the boy's hair would be ace to follow.

Meike over at the Crafty Sheep provides a tutorial for creating hair for Waldrof Dolls. I think this kind of hair would be adorable on my dolls too.

Some happy customers

My neighbours just sent me through this photo of Bethany and Sophie with their dolls. I think they're pretty happy don't you?

WOW!

So it took me a little over a couple of days to get this blog up to speed, but now I'm up to real time. Over Chrissy I received a little bit of cash and a Spotlight voucher from my brother in law, which will come in handy for new tulle and felt to attempt a fairy doll along the lines of the ballerina.

Which to choose and use?

Choosing a blog header and a picture for my swing tags to go on each doll was tricky. Here are the four pictures that I was tossing up. In the end I was happy with the close up & taken from above photo of 4 dolls and their legs.

My first order!

Just before Christmas I received my first order from my neighbours who wanted to give their nieces a doll each for Christmas. 

Bethany has strawberry blonde hair and loves everything red. She also wears lots of Ra-Ra skirts. This was my first attempt at making a Ra-Ra skirt and it turned out to be easier than I thought. Just 3 equal lengths of fabric sewn together & then pleated.

Sophie is younger than Bethany and has blonde hair. She likes all things pretty, so I decided to put pretty florals and pinks on her doll. I also blanket stitched a pink felt heart to the top of the skirt.

I was really pleased with how they turned out & my neighbours were also thrilled to bits! Will keep you posted about what the girls thought!!

To market, to market to sell a few dolls....

 So off to market we went. It was a market night at the school I teach at.I ended up selling my dolls at $20 and sold 9 of them!! I was wrapt! Back to the drawing board for more :)

On a roll....

Then I got on a roll!! I knew there was a market night coming up so I busted my gut to create as many dolls as possible. I got a little bit more creative and designed a ballerina and a mermaid pattern just based on the original doll pattern. My poor family suffered through it, I'd only really stop to feed Harry or myself and was back at the table cutting & sewing. Daniel was pleased that at the end of it we could claim the dining table back for eating at!

Breast Cancer Fundraiser

Back in October my sister and her bestie held a fundraiser for Breast Cancer Awareness. I created two pink dolls to be included in the raffle. I was pleased that they were one of the first few things to be snatched up off the raffle table :) I played around again with the hairstyles for the blonde doll, tweaking the pony tail to have two hair pieces rather than the one.

Aaaahh.....Boxing Day

God Bless the person that decided to give everyone a holiday after Christmas Day. It's the most relaxing day where you don't have to do anything!! While Daniel was gone by 7am to the cricket today, I spent the day with my little man Harry and added as much as I could to my blog to get it all up to speed, played with Harry, ate what I wanted, when I wanted and didn't move off the couch majority of the day!

Harry chillin' out on the couch watching the cricket

Something must have been funny!

Such a smiley little man

I must confess, I am a junk mail junkie. Because of the drenching rain yesterday, I had to lay out all my junk mail on the kitchen table to dry!! It is sale season after all!

Mel's Birthday

My friend Mel had her 30th and I wanted to make something nice for her. She had told me that she loves handmade dolls...I nearly fell off my chair in excitement!! I had really got back into making dolls after my Jester was a success, so I made the following two dolls for Mel. She loved them to bits.

This was the first time that I had attempted a new hairstyle and I decided to give this doll a ponytail. I love the new look it gives to my dolls.

I also decided to try a new outfit. One of my favourite patterns is Parsley and Beet by Jodi Carleton at Ric Rac. So I used the dress pattern as a basis to make a little dress to fit on my dolly. I loved how it changed the dolls even that little more.

Jingle Bell Jester

 Recently a friend came to me asking whether I could make a doll for her school project about Medieval times. We decided that she would like to make a Jester. So I used my basic doll pattern and added some extra bits and pieces. To create the hat I just visualised in shapes and drew it first, then made pattern pieces. I was really pleased with how it turned out & Georgia's teacher was also suitably impressed that he put it in the school's showcase cabinet in the school foyer!!

Branching out & giving dolls to others

 When my sister graduated from Uni after doing her nursing course, I decided to make a nurse doll for her.

 A Christmas Angel as a KK present a few years ago

 When my littlest sister graduated from primary school I made her a doll using her school uniform material as well.

So I made another one...

So after my first doll adventure, I made another one and learnt from my previous mistakes. Include seam allowances!! I decided on a blonde doll this time

My First ever dolly

I thought I'd post a few pictures of the first ever doll I made. Looking back now, my sewing skills have come a long, long way!! I even had to use the hot glue gun on her for a few things that came apart & my hand stitching was horrible!!

Better start somewhere...

Ah my first post! Welcome to Dolly Long Legs...Hence titled after the dollies that I make. Years ago I stumbled upon a basic doll pattern by The Black Apple and over time have made many tweaks to eventually create dolls that I was happy to sell. You can find the basic pattern here.