Transcripts
1. Introduction: Filmmaking is a magical
and timeless art. Creating a 3D dimensional figure out of cloth takes on
a life of its own. In many artists get hooked on this art form
because we can never truly predict what characters
we're going to create. It's almost as if the doll gets the final say
in how they look, in who they are, we're just the hands that
make them come to life. It's kind of creepy, but it's also oddly satisfying. Hey folks, my name is Lucy I at, and I'm a professional
filmmaker and designer at my home studio called
Valerie who creations. I've been making
dolls and stuff. He's for decades with
my sewing machine. But in more recent years, my tool of choice is the embroidery machine
because it can do all the heavy selling duties with very precise stitches. In my younger years, I was a science educator and engineer and a technical writer. But now I use all those skills to be a better
artist and teacher. Making funny figures
out of cloth has carried me through
some tough times. And now I try to inspire
anyone with an interest to try doll making and discover its potential to unlock
your creative spirit. In this intermediate
level class, you'll learn how to
use your song sheen or embroidering machine to so
the parts of an art Doll, you'll create moving
arms and legs and a head using
simple materials. I'll share tips for dealing
with stretchy fabrics. Learn to modify, trace, and stitch seam lines
for easier sewing. I'll teach you how to turn
and stuff small Doll Parts. If you're already familiar
with your sewing or embroider machine and you've made a simple stuffed
animal or dull before, you have all the skills
needed for this class. If you're more of a beginner, you can still make
the class project, but it will require
a little more time and patients on your part. But don't worry,
you've got this. Your class resources include
machine embroidery files, sewing patterns, and
face templates for this doll as well as
some other faces. Or you can create your own face. Get ready to learn some
new skills and techniques on your journey to
making a cloth art doll. I'll be here to help you along the way and guide you
through the process. Let's get started.
2. Art Doll Project: Our class project is an art
and all made from cloth. You can sell your doll with irregular sewing machine
or an embroidery machine. The class resources include
patterns for either one. I really hope you share your progress in the
class project section, you can share a photo of
your planning worksheet, your doll in progress, or a photo of your finished all. The class projects
section lets you upload multiple photos so you
can share your progress. It will be fun when you look back on it a few years from now, our dolls are made for adults or older kids like teenagers. They are meant to be
posed, not played with. The methods for
assembling this doll may be unsafe for young
children to play with these patterns and
brief instructions are in the class
resources section. The lesson on turning embroider designed into sewing
patterns will show you how to use these
machine embroidery designs as you're
sewing pattern. A few face templates are
included with the class, or you can create your own
face for a truly custom look. I'm going to be making this
blue doll in the class because this color fabric
shows up well on camera. And most of the time the threads
do not match the fabric. That's because I want
you to be able to see the thread on the fabric. But when you gather
your supplies, used threads that coordinate
with your fabrics. Okay. Here are the tools you'll
need for our project. Sharp scissors for
cutting fabric both large and small are useful. Hemostat or other tools for
turning and stuffing a doll. You'll need needle
and thread for hand stitching and closing up
the openings of the Dolls. Strong thread for
jointing the dolls and a really long doll needle
also for jointing. You can also use fabric glue
for closing those openings. Fabric fix or a hot glue gun with fabric glue
sticks all work well. You'll need fabric pens for
marking on your fabric. That's for tracing
your stitch lines. Some pins are clips for holding fabric
together while you, so if you're going to trace
your doll face onto fabric, a light pad might
be useful for that. You could also use a light
box or even a sunny window. But that's only if you
need to trace onto the fabric because
you're sewing your doll, the embroidery
machine will do that for you if you're
using that method. Here are the materials
you'll need for each doll you make stuffing. And it's best to use a stuffing
that packs hard rather than the fluffy bouncy stuff,
stabilizer or interfacing. I'll talk more about
that in a minute. Fabric markers can be
used to make the face. If you're not going
to do the stitching, you'll need four or five
small buttons for the joints. And of course you'll need fabric and we'll talk more
about that too. Let's talk for just a bit about stabilizers
and interfacing. They're the same thing,
although stabilizers, sometimes they have
a little bit of a lubricant for the
embroidery machine needle. But for this doll class, you can use a stabilizer or an interfacing
interchangeably. There are two different
kinds that I'll talk about. One is a thin tear away. You can see this terrors and I'm using the sulci tear easy, which I really like for
tracing Doll Parts. And you'll see this
in a future lesson. You can trace onto this because it's very thin
and easy to see through. And then layer this on top of your fabric and stitch
directly on it. And then after you've stitched, it easily tears away. So that's the tear away,
lightweight tear away, very good for
sewing small parts. And then also a mesh
no-show mesh stabilizer used for machine embroidery. This is a nice thin stabilizer. You can see how thin it is so that it doesn't add
too much bulk to the seams and it makes
it easier to turn things right-side out when we use
this lightweight mesh. So those are the two. If you're sewing, I would
only recommend getting some kind of lightweight
interfacing or stabilizer. It doesn't have to
be the tear away, but that is easier
for a lot of fabrics. If you're using a
stretch fabric though, don't use the tear away because your fabric will stretch too
much when you're stuffing. Use the lightweight no-show
mesh on both sides. Top and bottom fabrics. If you are using
a stretch fabric, very important for that
otherwise woven fabric. So you can just
use the tear away. Let's talk a bit about fabrics. Because this doll can use either a stretch fabric
or a woven fabric. Either one will work and then choose some
coordinating fabrics, different colors, textures, and we'll talk about that in the
planning worksheet next. You can also use quilting fabrics work just
fine for this doll to, you could do it for all parts. Use a solid for the face and then use
a print for the body. You could use the
prints for the arms. It really doesn't matter. Choose whatever you want to do. I did want to mention
if you're looking for cheap ways to get
stretch fabrics. These are just, I go
to the thrift store, buy t-shirts and tank tops and things like that
because you can find really stretchy fabrics That's
not a four-way stretch, but this one I believe
is a four-way stretch. And if you're doing like the jumper that comes
with the pattern, you do need something
really stretchy like a four-way stretch for that one so that it
fits over the body. But that just gives you an idea of check the Thrift
Stores go to your closet, gets some old clothes, wash them, and start
playing with them. In the class resources, you can download this
art doll planner, and this is just a sheet to kinda help you see how
things are going to look in coordinate
before you actually stitch things together
on this doll, I plan to use the purple
for all of the skin Fabric. I was going to use the
black and white stripe for his jumper and then some
purple silk ribbon. I added just a little
embellishment there and I had planned on using his hair
and picked out as buttons. And then when I finished it, he looks like this. This is similar to what you
have in the free patterns, but he does have
some extra fingers. The class project uses the
more basic arm like this. And then the hat was
just a free form, soda up a triangle and added
a little loopy on the end. That's, I mean, you can
do anything like that. It's very simple, especially when you're dealing
with stretch fabrics. It's even if they make
it too small like I did. You can just stretch
it over his head. To kick off your doll project. Go ahead and plan something
on your worksheet and then just take a
picture of that and upload it as your class project. There's a class project
section for this class. So post a photo of your design worksheet or you're finished all for
your class project, or show us the
in-progress photo. You can upload multiple
photos to your class project. So that's our class project in the tools and
materials you'll need, be sure to grab that doll
planning worksheet from the class resources and then create your own
doll plan to kick off your doll and upload a
photo of your worksheet to the class project section to launch your art doll project.
3. Making Doll Faces: Let's talk about a few options
for making doll faces. If you already know how to do hand embroidery or free
motion embroidery, or you have an
embroidery machine. You can stitch the face details. Other ways to transfer
face designs onto fabric or through screen
printing, sublimation, vinyl transfer,
iron on transfers, or even printing directly on fabric using your
home inkjet printer. Those are all options if you already know how to
do those things. If you're a face painter, you can do that to
transfer your paint artists tree onto
the cloth face. One of the easiest ways for beginners is to use
fabric markers, and I'll show you how to
do that in this lesson. Embroider machine
files are my favorite. They make it really easy. There's a free face file for embroidery machines included
in your class resources, and we'll cover that
in the next lesson. There are also several phases in your class resources you can
use with the other methods. And there's some blank
head shapes so you can create your own faces too. You can even leave
the face of blank. Lots of doll artists do that. It's a whole style
all on its own. Your class resources have some extra heads and faces that if you want to
use those you can, or there's even some blank heads that you can draw your own. This is not really a class
about how to draw faces, but this is your art. You can get it as cartoony, as simple, as
detailed as you want. Just go ahead and go crazy
with your own creative style. I'm going to do a quick
demo of how to actually use fabric markers on your
fabric to create a face. You could use the design that's
in your class downloads, or you can create your own face. I'm going to use this one here, and actually you
can draw your own. However, I do need to
darken these lines. And I'm also going to use
a light pad which you see underneath me here
to do my tracing. We'll just kinda speed
through this so you can see just the gist of how this is done as far as
which kind of markers to use. I've got a couple
of options here. I can show you. There are available
at the craft store. You can buy fabric
markers like these. These are a tulip brand, doesn't really
matter what you use. These are safe on fabric. Sharpie also makes
one called stained, and these are washable. Now we're not actually going
to be washing our art doll, but you want to make sure
that if it gets wet, that the ink doesn't run. So it is best to
use a fabric marker or teaser makes a good
marker that works on fabric. There's a bunch of
different ones out there. I'm going to use these
and I'm also going to use this pink pen here. And this is a tulip
fabric paint marker. I think I actually picked
these up at Walmart. And then of course, craft stores also carry these and this is good for the
whites of the eyes. Ms. Good to tape
this down if you can keep everything
from shifting. And I need to let the whites dry because that white
paint really does. So can you can do go over it a second
time if you need to. If your fabric is stretchy, then you can stretch
it over something to use your fabric
markers on first. And then when you
remove that thing, the fabric will
contract a little bit and make the line
a little bit bolder. It works great. But there's a little
painted on face. And then I'll show
you how to make a template so that we can go ahead and trace our seams
and get that stitched up. To get your seam lines
onto your head piece. It's easiest if you use
some kind of clear plastic, something thin that you can see through this as a report cover. You can also use the cutting mats from Dollar
Tree that are clear or even a clear like a food container with a clear
lid, anything like that. And then just use a marker
and trace the seam line. Just try some of the
facial features to get a rough idea
of where they are. It doesn't need to be exact. You just want to make
sure that when you transfer your seam
lines to your fabric, that your facial features
are in the proper place. That's good enough. And you can see how
that's going to line up. I'm going to use this plastic
piece as my template. So I'm just going to cut this
out. Speed through that. Now I have a nice
little plastic template that will be easy
to trace around. And that way when I have
my double layer fabric. So I've got my face
that I have done free motion embroidery
on this side or you can paint
it screen printed, whatever you want, and
then double your fabric. It could be two pieces or
one folded, doesn't matter. And here's what
we're trying to do. Just get the basic area doesn't have to
line up perfectly. You just want to make sure that the face isn't like way up in the forehead or down in the neck or
something like that. So that's what all this is four and then just trace
around this piece. And that will be
your stitch lines. Just take that over to your
sewing machine and go ahead and stitch those seams right
on that line you traced. In this lesson on making
faces, you learned. Now faces can be
done in many ways. Any method of fabric
surface design can be used to create an art doll face. You saw how to trace a face design onto fabric
using a light pad. How to use fabric markers to create quick facial features, as well as a tip on how to make a face on a stretchy fabric.
4. Embroidery Machine Doll Seams: You can skip this lesson if you don't have an embroidery machine or watch how cool it is to have your very
own selling robot. When we use an embroidery
machine to stitch the scenes using an
embroidery design or program, it's called in the hoop
machine embroidery. I think that term is confusing, so I prefer to call it a sewing
robot or robotic sewing, but it all means the same thing. The embroider machine does, the surface design pattern, but also the scenes. You can change the sizing on your machine but be
careful about the face. Because any more than about 20% size change will mess up the fill stitches around the eyes and the
whites of the eyes. You can't really
alter the shape of the Doll Parts on embroider
machine patterns. But in the next lesson
I'll talk a bit about changing the patterns to
so on your sewing machine. Also, you should choose
thread colors to coordinate with your
fabrics just because the document shows
the placement stitch in purple or the seams in red. That doesn't mean you
need those red colors. That's just a color
code to make sure your machine stops
at the right times. So you should choose
thread colors that coordinate with your fabric so your seams are less noticeable. When you're stitching on the embroidery machine
inside your resources, you'll not only find the
machine embroidery files that you can put on your machine and there's a bunch
of different formats. You'll also find a PDF document
called design details. And it has these sheets that
have your how these stitches out isn't your
little instructions or cheat sheets is what
I like to call these. And for the head, e.g. you've got different
stitches here. It starts with the placement
stitch that you do on your stabilizer,
then attack down, then it does the eye whites than the face details and
then the actual scene. And you can see on the diagram here this is a
full-size diagram, so you can also use it as
sewing pattern if you need to. And just pay attention
to the steps up here. On the legs. Let's see, arms, legs, torso, everything. Again, you'll have a
placement stitch first. You'll have attacked
down, which you can usually ignore the tech
down except on the face, you definitely wanna do that. But the tech down is
there just in case some people like to
put a little design, maybe a tattoo or a name or something
like that, whatever. That's why I include
the tack down. If you're not gonna do any
kind of design on here, then you can just skip that, put the two fabrics
right sides together, and then stitch you're seeing. So it's as simple as it can be. You don't need to
over-complicate things. The arms and legs are in there. You've got to bent legs, the arms or a combo. There's one kind of
straight and one curved. And this is what comes with the class and the
class resources. Here's the torso. There is a jumper and that actually requires
a six by ten hoop. Or you can just use
this sewing pattern. And then there's the face. I'll show you just a little
sample of how to do. We'll do the torso
for you real quick. And then we'll also
do the head and have a little bit of detail up here on how to stuff
the nose and chin. I do suggest for
the face that you use a cutaway stabilizer that's
kind of a medium weight, you don't want
anything too thin. That means if you use
that you'll get better stitch out on the eyes
and the face details. So I've already
done the placement stitch and you notice it's got a little arrow right here if
you're using stretch fabric. And I've got some stretch
fabric right here. This is actually a
four-way stretch, so it really doesn't matter
which direction I put this. I just want the stretchy
as direction to follow that arrow and
I want to make sure all the placements
stitches are covered, kinda smooth it out and then
I'll put that on my machine. It will stitch the face for me. There's also a step or you
could put a clear topper, either water-soluble
stabilizer or heat soluble, so that when it
stitches the face, we'll get a nice
clean stitch out. The embroidery machines stitches all of the facial features. That face has stitched out. I'm just going to gently
pull away my topper. And the reason that I want
to get all this off now is because I like to
do a little extra, but a little stuffing and
the nose and the chin. It really gives a face a lot more dimension when you do that, see how that knows, kinda see how that knows has dimension
and so does the chin. And the way we do that,
you do need to use stretch fabric for
this kind of thing. That really doesn't work well if you don't have
stretch fabric, I have a little lot of stuffing and I do mean
little like less than a p. And I'm going to use my
little pointy hemostat and just tuck that
right into the chin. And for the nose I'm going to leave it a little bit looser. And that's why the tacked down stitch has openings here for the chin and up on the top
to put that in the nose. Just wiggle it in. You could also use
tweezers for this. If you want. You could also put some
stuffing in the browse. Sometimes the looks
good on the cheeks, just whatever you wanna do. But for this one I like
the nose and the chin. I think he's good. And then you just in
this very simple, put the back fabric on, put it back on the machine
and run your scene. The embroidery
machine will stitch the scenes of the head for you. It is a strong
double stitched seem with a short stitch length. All of the other body parts are done in a very similar way. You hope some stabilizer, you stitch the first color
to get a placement seem, and then you place your fabric
to cover those placements. Stitches here I'm using two pieces of fabric with
right sides together. If you're using a
stretch fabric, make sure you cover the
backside with another piece of stabilizer that's to prevent distortion when you're
stuffing later on. Then of course you just
put it on the machine and it stitches the seems
perfectly for you. They're double
stitched. The arms, legs, and torso are
all done this way. In this lesson on stitching Doll Parts with an
embroidery machine, you learned how to read the design details document
to stitch up the doll, how to choose thread colors to coordinate with your fabrics. And you saw the in
the hoop steps like placement tacked down and seams. And we did a little
pho soft sculpture of the face to make
little nose and chin.
5. Sewing Machine Doll Seams: All of these cloth,
all parts can be sewn on your sewing
machine using the patterns available in
the design details PDF file. You can find that PDF in your class resources
as a free download. But don't cut out your
pattern pieces just yet. I'm going to show you an
easier way to so small parts. And let's also talk
about how you can make changes to the pattern
if you want to. Since this class is
intermediate level, I won't be talking about how
to use the sewing machine, but you'll see some video
clips of the sewing machine in progress to make you feel
more comfortable about it. Stabilizer is very much
like interfacing and you can use them interchangeably
for this project. If your fabric is stretchy, be sure to use a stabilizer
or interfacing that will stabilize the fabric
and prevent it from warping. When you stuff your doll. If your fabric doesn't stretch, you can use the tear away
stabilizer like I've shown, or not use any stabilizer at all with a woven or non
stretch fabric. If you want to modify your
pattern a little bit, you can do that. I'm gonna show you a few
ways of places where you can modify in places that you don't
want to mess with. The places you don't
want to mess with is when you have these
openings here. This is an opening between an arm on the back
and where you need to turn in stuff and you want
to make sure that this is at least an inch
between here to here. And this one is actually
an inch and a third 2 " is better if you can
ever get that much room, but on a small dot like this, at least an inch, because otherwise
it's gonna be too hard to turn in stuff. Same thing with the opening
right here at the bottom, that's at least an inch there. And then also on the neck. This guy is pretty thin here. I think we've got
just about an inch. So you always want to leave at least an inch
and more is better. The other thing to consider
on the body here we've got some flattened areas
here for the arms to attach. And also down here there's
a little straight run on both sides where
we're going to add the legs when we
join the legs on, when we join the arms up here. So you don't want to have too
much of a rounding on that. Because what will
happen is it's just going to get pushed
in when you add the arms and legs and it'll have a pucker or wrinkle
will show up there. So you want to try to keep that flat if you modify your pattern, some good places to
modify if you want to make it longer,
you can do that. Just trace the upper
part and then spread it, and then trace the lower
part and then just use a little curvy
line to connect. That would be fine. On the head. You can really change the
shape of the head quite a bit. Here's a few examples. So this is the round head here. Here's more of a vertical head. Here is a triangle shaped head. Here is a more
human shaped head, and I've actually added ears to the pattern on this one here. And that would just be, you want the ears to be right
around when the eyes are, and you would just add something
whatever shape you want. So that's an option for ears, head shapes, heads are
fun to play around with. And then finally on
the arms and legs, if you wanted to change the size or shape of
those, you could. You just don't want to get
the proportions too funky. If you wanted to have just two straight arms are too bent arms, you've got one of each
in your pattern here. So you can just trace
one of the arms and then flip this over
and trace the other one. And that way you'll
get a mirror image. So that just gives
you some ideas on if you wanted to play
around with the pattern, if you wanted to make the
knee more pronounced, you could do something
bigger like that. If you wanted to make the
foot longer or shorter or just remove the foot
altogether, you could do that. Of course, if you wanted to add hands onto the wrist here, because we do have I have a
pattern that has hands on it, like this little
guy, but you could do that on this pattern too. And just create your own. I like to use my own
hand as a pattern and then I shrink it on
my copy machine. So that's another
option that you have. You can just play around with different things here and
do whatever you want. These are design sheets that are intended for machine embroidery, but you can actually use
these as sewing patterns. And I'm going to show you how
to do that on these sheets. You can ignore the
directions up here. These are really the steps
for the embroidery machine, but just look at
the pattern piece here and you can see that there's an outer line and that is where you
would normally cut. And then the red line is a double red line in there
on each of the designs. Double red line, you can
barely see that it's double and that's the seams. And that's actually
what we're going to trace onto our stabilizer and stitch on top of the stabilizer that
I'm going to use. There are a couple
of different kinds. I really like this
sulci brand tear easy. It's a very lightweight. You can see how thin that is. It's very easy to
trace on top of this. That's what we're
gonna do. I'm gonna do the legs or the arms. And another option that
you could also try, this is a different one
called totally stable, and this is in your
sewing stores. It's an iron on tear away. So you actually iron this
onto your fabric first. And actually you can trace on it first and then iron it on and then stitch and then it'll tear away off the fabric
when you're done. But for today I'm not going
to use the eye or not. I'm going to use
the regular tear away, very lightweight
stabilizer. And I'm gonna do the arms
for this just as a sample. You would do all the
pieces this way. And obviously with
arms on the bottom. This is as simple as it can be. You want to use a marker or something that will not come
off on your fabric when, if you get it wet or something. So pencil can be a little risky. Sharpie marker. I definitely don't recommend. This is a friction pen that
comes off when you iron it or any kind of fabric
marker that's fabric safe. I'm just going to
stitch the same trace, the same lines will speed through this
because you don't need to watch me trace every second. Okay. I've traced both of the
arms onto this stabilizer. So now you can see this is my stitch lines here and I
went ahead and just made a line in the middle
to remind me that I'm going to have to cut
these arms apart here. These are the openings
where we're going to turn in stuff, the arms. And I just wanted to point this out because
people get confused. Sometimes I'm using a red
pink marker for this. It has nothing to do with
this being a red line. Just forget all about that. Whatever color you have is fine. Sometimes people like I
don't have a red marker, what do I do? Doesn't matter. And then I'm going to take that. You need double fabric. I've got plenty of fabric
there, right sides together. And just put that on top. And you do need to pin it in place before you take
it to your machine. And so it again, you would do this for the arms, the legs, the body, and eventually the head. And we'll get to that one later. But all of the scenes
you can stitch this way. And even if you're stitching
with a stretch fabric, stabilizer helps to keep the stretch fabric from stretching under your
presser foot while you so, so it's a really great
technique and you'll get exactly as good as
your sewing is. You know exactly where
the seam line is. This is much easier
than trying to cut out the parts
and then stitch, you just stitch it
all in one piece and we cut it out later. When you take that over to
your sewing machine and you go ahead and stitch the seams
just where you drew them. One tip I would give you is
to shorten the stitch length. We're just using a
straight stitch, but shorten this stitch
length down to around 1.5 mm. You could even go down to one, but 1.5 is usually a good place to have a nice tight
seam around this. It will also help slow down your machine so you can do
those curves more easily. One thing to be very careful
about what this method is, watch out for those
pins as you're sewing. Don't let them stick you. In this lesson on filling the doll parts on
the sewing machine, you learned how to read
the pattern sheets, tracing the seam lines on the
stabilizer or interfacing. We created a sandwich of
fabrics and stabilizer. And then you stitch
all the scenes on your sewing machine.
6. Cut & Turn the Doll: After all the doll parts
have been stitched, we're ready to cut them out
and turn them right side out. I'll be showing you
some tips on how to cut out these small parts for best results will also
be spending some time on how to turn these small
parts right-side out. This is one of the
trickiest steps when making an art doll, but don't freak out. Patients paired with
the proper tools and the right fabric choices can make this much easier than you think we've stitched
all of our parts. I've done some on the
embroidery machine and some on the sewing machine, and now we're ready to
cut out the pieces. This is a different
method where you stitch first and then cut. And for the embroidery
machine pieces, you'll probably notice
that there is a line, this is the same. Sorry, you can barely see it
because it's a light color. But the placement
stitches that you did on the stabilizer actually can
give you a guide for cutting. Now I'm using a woven
fabric in this case, so I need to leave a little
bit more seam allowance. I need to cut out
side of those lines. Now. I'm not gonna make you watch
me cut all of this out. You do want to leave that
turning tab on the arms, legs, and the torso and just go ahead and cut that out
just outside the line. If you're using a
woven fabric or you can even cut inside the line and cut
those stitches away. If you're using a
stretch fabric, it won't unravel on you so
you can cut it quite close. If you are doing the
sewing machine version, again, just cut about
a quarter inch away. Leave a quarter inch
seam allowance. You can use pink ensures
for this if you have them, but it's not really necessary. We used a very tight seam. So even if we do get some unraveling, it
won't be too much. And again, this is not
going to go through the washing machine
and things like that, so it should be fine. So I've got my head cut out. I'm gonna go ahead and
cut out my other parts because I don t think you
need a lesson on how to cut, but I also will tell
you that when you get into the little
parts like the legs, have a little divot
right in there. You want to be careful that
you don't cut the seams. And sometimes it's
easier to see it on the side where you can
actually see the stitches. But you want to cut into
that so that the leg will actually turn out
nice and cleanly. And I like to use small scissors when I'm doing
these little clips. You clip almost to the scene, but don't cut your scene. Here's another example
where I've got black red and it'll be
much easier to see. Let me cut these out and show
you for these turning tabs. You can cut right
close to the stitches. And again, we want to clip
the inside corners like that, kinda clip away
some excess there so that outside
corner will turn. And then for these turning tabs, I also like to clip right into the corners so that when
we turn these rights, I doubt there'll
be nice and clean. Shouldn't have to worry too
much on the outside curves here because we don't have
a big seam allowance. Here's what all those parts look like when they're cut out. If you need to pause the video and take a look at
that and you can see you make sure that you
get clipped in the like, in the knees there on the
little bend at the elbow. You see how that's clipped? If you have any that
terrorists stabilizer, you can go ahead and remove
that if you want to. And it should tear
weight very cleanly. I like to do a
little tip for you, remove it from the inside first, and then those little edges
come off pretty easily. And you can be super obsessive about it and make sure every
last bit is pulled off. But honestly, once you
turn these right-side out, it's not even going to show. So as long as there's not
a whole bunch of it that messes up your finished project. It doesn't matter. You can leave little bits,
it'll be fine, but I can't. Now we're ready to turn these all right-side out and I'll just give you some tips
on how to do that. I'm going to use my hemostat for this and I like
this pair that I picked up at a fishing in the
fishing section of Walmart. Honestly, they were $3-5 and
they have this nice grip, the handle, but it has
a nice wide jaw so it won't tear holes in your
fabric and I like that too. You could also use
something like the easy point in turn is another option when you're
turning small parts, but this cost about $25 or so
at sewing supplies stores, whereas these are
less than five. So these are also good for
stuffing as well as turning. So I like to multitask or that cost a lot less, that's just me. You can also use these to put your sewing machine needles
in there, just multipurpose. You can use them
for so many things. I would not craft without these. Okay. So I'm just going to turn
these right-side out and yeah, it's it's pretty simple now, if you have a lot of stabilizer, if you have thick fabric, you may have a harder time. Just be patient and go slow. I'll teach you a
little trick on how to make it work a
little bit easier. I also use my hemostat
to just push out those themes and get everything rounded
out. There's one arm. Now on this arm, I will
give you an actually, I'm going to use the
one on the leg that has stabilized her on it because the stabilizer and I
put it on both sides of this one as if it
were a stretch fabric. Even though it's not, make sure that when you're
turning, you get in-between, In-between your
fabric don't let go in-between the
stabilizer and fabric, that's the wrong place there. You want to make sure
you're in-between the two good pieces of fabric and twist
it all in there. And I just open up the jaws
and I like to just use my thumbnail to push it
in there, clamp it down. There's a clamp right here. So that is not going to open. You have to somebody asked me how you open hemostat so they
couldn't figure it out. You have to like
push them opposite. So I'm gonna push this way
and that way like that, and that's how you open them and then they just click closed. Okay, so I've got
the little tip in there and it's really
hard to pull through. So I'm gonna make sure I have it in there because
I was playing with it. It's firmly in there. And if you get your hand wet
and start at the very tip, that'll give you
just a little bit of extra grip to get
that pulled through. This one is tricky because
I've got woven fabric is harder to turn then
stretch fabric. And two layers or stabilizer
makes it a lot harder to. And what you don't want to
do is start from down here, see how much room there is. You don't want to start
from there and try to pull because you just kinda
get it all bunched up. That's not gonna do
anything for you. You need to get right at
the tip and just Cokes. Everything over. A little bit of twist
sometimes helps. And now I've got it started and then it's easy
to pull through. Just don't pull too hard
because you don't want to rip this tip of the toe off and sometimes
hemostat can do that. So be careful. And again, just keep your fingers a
little bit of pressure. Squeeze it where the
turning is happening, and that'll help it go through which your hand again
if you need to. So I'm gonna go ahead and
turn the other pieces right-side out of shown
you the harder parts, which are the arms and legs, the torso is easy. And so is the head
because they're bigger. If you see this puckering
here in the knee, if you clipped it well, you should be able to give
it just a little bit of a tug and that should
flatten out nicely. You don't need to press it because we're
going to stuff it. So pressing, I think is kind of a waste of time when you're
doing something, you stuff. Dr. Okay. We've got all of
our parts turned and I wanted to show one
problem that I ran into. So I will remind you again, if you're using a woven
fabric like this one is, you should not put your mesh stabilizer or you're interfacing on both
sides like I did here. I did this as an
example to show how you would do it if you
used a stretch fabric. Stretch fabric, you do need
to stabilize both sides. But on woven, you don't need to stabilize on the legs. I did. And I had a problem which
I'll show you on the arms. I didn't stabilize. I did these on the sewing
machine and tore away the stabilizer and
they turn just fine, but there was just too
much bulk in the feet. And these are not made for
thick fabrics for sure. And on this foot,
let me find it. It's not that obvious, I guess. On this foot here
you can see I've got a little bit of a snag in a hole in the fabric because the hemostat grabbed
it and tore it. It's very minor. It's still going to go ahead
and make the doll. It's not a mistake that
I can't recover from. But it is something worth noting because if you
have a woven fabric, you don't need to line it with any kind of interfacing
or stabilizer, but a stretch fabric you do. So don't think, Oh, be extra safe and
align my woven fabric. Don't do that because
it becomes too thick. And woven fabrics
are harder to turn. Stretch fabrics are
very malleable, they stretch with you and
they're easier to turn. So keep that in mind. In this lesson on
cutting and turning, you learned cutting out Doll
Parts after the seams are shown makes it easier
for small parts. You saw how much
seam allowance to use for different types
of fabric choices. You learn that tools for turning small parts make
all the difference. And a little moisture
on your hand makes gripping and
turning easier. I like to call this the lick
trick because it's gross, but you can actually just
lick your clean hand and get more traction on that fabric
when you turn things.
7. Stuffing an Art Doll: We're going to stuff the
doll in this lesson and that may seem like a
straightforward thing to do, but a bad stuffing job
can ruin the look of your doll and make it
look lumpy or caved in. So let's spend some time
talking about how to get a plump and sturdy finish. You may remember back in the lesson where we
talked about supplies, but using a fiber
that packs Well, usually works better
in ART dolls. Save this squishy bouncy
fibers for pillory soft stuffed animals in
blushes to stuff your doll. I'm going to recommend
something like the hemostat says what
I'm going to use again, some people like
using a chopstick or the eraser side of a pencil. I like the, the hemostatic
because I can get little wads of stuffing and I can put them
where I want them, whereas a chopstick just
keeps pushing stuff down. And this, you can
slide it in better. But it's personal preference. If you have a stuffing tool
that you already like, then go ahead and use what
you're comfortable with. The the feet and legs are a little difficult stuff
because there's those curves do you have going on in
hemostat sometimes have a little catch and then a
little sharp edges around here. So just be patient, Don't try to yank them there, pull them out too quickly. I'm using small bits. And the secret to a good stuffing job is that
if you have a large area, you can use large
bits of stuffing. But when you have a
small area like these, use small bits of stuffing. And you just keep doing that. Also make sure that you're
getting it in-between. If you have lining makes
sure it's in-between the stabilizer or interfacing
that you have lining. The exception to that is there are times when you can actually sculpt by using this stuffing
in-between your lining, in your stretch fabric. That's a nice effect to, but I'm not gonna do that in this one that's a
little more advanced. And Azure stuffing,
just check to make sure just
keep squeezing it. I can feel there's a
low point right there. Especially, you know, you can kind of bend it and
see where it breaks. There needs to be more in there. These dolls don't need to
be firm to firmly stuffed, but you do need to have some firmness to them
because when we join them, you don't want them
to be too soft and floppy or they won't
hold together, right? See how I just
grabbed the hemostat and it's like an
extension to my hand. I've been using
them for so long. It does take a little bit of
time to get used to them. Now, on all the pieces, they have a turning tab. And this is worth noting here. The turning tab is the
neck part on the head. Each of the arms
have a turning tab towards the upper arm. The bottom here is
actually a turning tab. Has the little straight
area that comes straight out and then the legs have
it up here in the thigh. And that's actually
going to get tucked in when we're finished. So don't stuff that part. Some people are not
familiar with turning tabs, so I feel like I always
need to point that out. It makes it much easier though, to get a nice clean scene
when you're finished. Still me more right there. This is just a
perpetual process. You just keep checking
and checking it. Add more stuffing
where you need it. This is something that you
can do while you're watching TV or listening to music or something like that to almost there. I want to make sure it's
really firmly stuffed at the top up here because of the joint is gonna go up there. And we don't want that
to dimple in too much, so we want to have
a lot of stuffing. In that upper part right
there above the turning tab. I think it's in
pretty good shape, just a little bit
more right there. And again, this is why I
like the hemostat so I can get that stuffing
right at the top. Slide it right up
along that fabric, and put it right
where I need it. And then we can tuck
in our turning tab that's ready to close up. All of these parts
have been stuffed. I just wanted to mention a
few more things on the torso. You want to make
sure that you get it very firmly stuffed. I want you to wish you could
feel How firm this is. You see it's not
soft and squishy, it's actually very hard. The next M needs
to be really hard. And standing straight up, you're probably going
to need to put twice as much stuffing in
here as you expect to. And then same thing here between the two arms and
between the legs here you want that to be very firmly stuffed because when we put
that button joined Don, we're gonna be
pulling the thread, tighten it, squeezes in. So make sure that those areas
are, are firmly stuffed. The torso should be pretty hard. The legs also arms and legs, Fairly hard but there's
still you can bend them, they're not super hard there. And then on the head, The one thing to mention on
this guy is make sure you go ahead and fill in all of these crevices as best you can. Now, stretch fabric is
going to look cleaner. A woven fabric is probably going to have some puckers
around the edge. That's just the nature of
the fabric and it's fine. When you tuck in
the turning tab, you want to make sure that
it's tucked in all the way. Let me undo bucket
and show you how this little area
comes off right here. You want to tuck it all
the way up to there. If you did the
machine embroidery one and it has a chin on it, you want to have it so that it's tucked all the
way up to that chin. Same thing in the back. By having all of that
turning tab inside there. And you might find that you need to come back
and stuff in here. I see this is a
little too loose. So I'm gonna add a little
bit more stuffing. And I'll show you a
good way of doing that. Maybe about this much more. And I'll show you how to
make a hole to turn that. Get that tab tucked in. Really nice. Just go ahead and
cram all that in there because it's
getting pretty filled up. Right there at the back. That's where we're
going to need it. And then a trick I'm using with my hemostat is to just poke it down in the center
and open the jaws up. I'm just doing this. Just opening those
jaws up inside there. And that creates a
little hole or a nest there that I can then
took my fabric into. And sometimes your
fabric gets turned under already and that's not where you want it turned under. It needs to be much
more than that. Just keep working at it until you get it all
the way up in there. Your finger is
actually a good size, similar to that next step. Like that. Then the next step is gonna go in inside there. And we'll get to that
step in another lesson. But that's what it
should look like. If you can see a lot of
fabric hanging down, then it's gonna
look kinda weird. You want to get
that tab tucked up into the head as
much as possible. In this lesson on stuffing, you learned using the
right stuffing helps. Hemostat can be your best
friend when stuffing. And the check for
lumps and voids as you stuff to get a nice
plump firm finish.
8. Closing Doll Seam Openings: Our Doll Parts
have been stuffed, but we still have the
openings to deal with. We can either hand stitch them closed or we can
use fabric glue. Stitching is
considered the better method because it's more sturdy. It's easily reversible if
we need to do it over. And it looks clean if you're
good at hand stitching. But gluing is
faster and can give a better finish if you're
careful with your glue. Glue is also preferred
if you hate hand sewing or tend to poke yourself with needles a lot, That would be me. I'm going to show you
both methods and you can decide which you prefer
for your own art doll. This is for the arms,
legs, and torso. We're going to save
the head for later. We'll be doing something
different with the head. All of our parts are shown and stuffed and we need
to go ahead and close up these openings where
we've stuffed these parts. Now we're not gonna
do the heads yet. That's in a different
lesson because there's a different way of attaching
the head to the body. So let's go ahead and
sew up these guys. I'm going to start
with a ladder stitch and I've got my
thread on a needle. You don't have to
use a long needle, but I prefer it. I'm more comfortable with it. It's a double-strand of thread and I have not
added at the end. And I'm gonna go ahead and use some thread conditioner
just to make my thread a little
more easier to handle. And this is just like some
wax and oils and stuff. There are different
brands of it. I think I'm using thread magic, but there's different ones. And that just makes the thread a little less unruly when
you're stitching with it. Because it will get
out of the It'll it'll kinda go crazy on
you and that's fine. So the way to do
the latter stitch, I'm going to start by
coming from the bottom, underside to the top. Let's run your needle up and let a little bit of a
thread tail stay behind. Pretty got fluff on my thread, put it back in on
the other side. Okay, and now both of the
threads are coming out these opening here and then
open up your thread tail. We're going to create
a loop like that. And then pass your
needle through. And that'll form a
loop up underneath. Okay, now we're ready
to start stitching. So now we can go up on one side. And you do have to kind of play around and feel where
your needle is, your hands stitching,
nothing new there. I'm gonna go ahead and
took that thread tail end. Again, I'm using a black thread
so it shows up on video, but you would
actually want to use a coordinating thread
to your fabric. For the latter stitch, we come up on one side
of the seam opening and we go back in on the
opposite side and come out. And because these
are small pieces, we want to come out about
an eighth of an inch away. On that same side, needs to be on the same side. Then we cross it over. Kinda like railroad tracks, go right back in and come out an eighth of an
inch on that side. There is a stitch diagram in your class resources
that you can download. Just to help you kinda
guide this stitch process. Then when you pull that tight, it pulls that fabric together. And if you're using a
thread that matches, you really shouldn't
see the stitch. To keep going a little bit. And we'll speak through this. Every now and then you
need to stop, push in. Just push like push that
fluff back down and then pull your thread tight
and you see how that closes up nice and
clean like that. And if you're using stretch
fabric with the stabilizer, you want to go ahead and
make sure your needle goes through the
stabilizer as well. If you don't if you're
just doing the ladders, ditch on stretch fabric alone, you'll get this kind
of zigzaggy look. Usually these things
are kinda hidden, so it's not a deal breaker,
at least not for me. Um, that's what happens if you're just going
to stretch fabric. So you want to have
something underneath like of mess mesh
stabilizer we talked about earlier or even a
non stretch fabric under your stretch fabric and
make sure your needle goes through both layers so
you don't get that look. Okay. I've got all the way to the end. Again, I'm going to push that
extra excess fabric into the opening and pull my thread
tight to knock this off, I like to take one more stitch
but don't pull it tight. Leave a loop and
make your needle go through the first loop, which means you just
create a second loop here. Go through that second loop. And you've got a knot
that if you are careful. Use your needle to
hold that loop up. It'll go right down
to the surface. That's a surface not. And now we can just
bury the thread inside the arm or whatever
piece you're doing. Hug to come out about 2 " away, one to 2 " at least
and pull that tight. Now when you pull on this thread and cut
right at the surface, disappears inside and
you won't see that. So that's the ladder stitch. You also have the
option of using glue to keep these
seams together. You will need some kinda clip to hold it together while the glue dries and any kind of
fabric glue is fine for this, you could either use like a fabric fix is a good
fabric glue to use. And you could also use a hot glue gun with a
fabric glue stick in it. And when you're doing this, you should make sure that you've got your fabric tucked in
right where you want it. So you can just lay
down a very thin beat of glue in there. Make sure that that
turning tab isn't sticking out and it's going to
be a nice clean edge. Might need to poke it in their pin is always
good if you need to just kinda pull that
fabric inside a little bit, a pin as good for that. Then you want to use a very
thin bead of glue, very thin. Here I'll show you
about that much. You don't want it to
goopy and gloppy. And then when we squeeze it
together, it should hold. Be careful you don't
burn yourself. And then just use clips. It's not gonna be the cleanest
seem when you glue it, it's gonna be kinda
sticking out like that. However, on this doll
with the sitting legs, it's gonna be sitting on
something and you're not going to see that seam at
the bottom anyway. So if you want to
save some time, this is a good place
you can do it. That was with the hot glue. And actually we don't even need the clips for the
hot glue that much, but we will need it for the fabric fix because it
takes a while to set up. One thing I would recommend
with fabric glue is keep either a piece of
paper towel or even better a scrap of fabric or
something and make sure you wipe off that nozzle
because if it's all goopy, you're going to have a hard
time doing this cleanly. If you don't have a thin nozzle like on this
bottle, It's very thin. You can pour some of this out on a piece of paper and then use a toothpick or a pen to
apply it in a thin bead. Instead of having a big nozzle, it's going to just
group all over the place and you'll never get a fine bead like a
need that right? Okay. Just a little bit. Is all you need. And I'm going to use my pen as a tool to get that in there. Clip. Just poking that
excess fabric down. I'm going to just
steal my clips from over here like that. And we do the same
thing down here on the turning tab at the
bottom of the torso. And I'll let her
stitch that because I want that to be really want that to be really strong
because we're going to put a button joint
for the legs here. So I'm going to stitch
this one as well. In this lesson on
closing scenes, you learned how to do an invisible ladder
stitch by hand sewing. How to secure your threads
at the beginning and end, and how to glue the
openings closed.
9. Button Joints: Parts is parts. We need to
pull our little dude together. This lesson will show you an easy and
inexpensive method of creating a joint doll with
moving arms and legs. You just need buttons, a long needle, and
strong thread. You could use other methods
to joint an art doll like plastic doll joints or cotter pin joints if you're already familiar
with those methods. But since buttons
are so easy to find, I'll be teaching
that method here. We're ready to join
the arms and legs to the body using a method
called a button joint, and you need some buttons. You need four buttons,
one for each of the limb. And they can be small
ones like these, or you can use larger ones
that are more decorative. It's up to you what
you want to use. The buttons will show on
the outside of the doll. And these are to add
strength so that the doll joint will be
strong and not come apart. You also are going to
need a long doll needle, needs to be something
long enough that can go all the way
through the doll, and you can still pull
it out the other side. I usually use this one here, but when I'm doing
button joints, I can get it all
the way through, but it's really hard to
pull just that edge. I'm going to use
the really long. I think this is a
five inch needle. I'm also going to
use a strong thread. I recommend that you
do the same when you're jointing because
you're going to have to pull on this thread
really hard tightly and you want a strong thread like an upholstery or heavy
duty thread for this. You need about 18 ", and again, it's double strand
and noted at the end. First, you need to figure out
where they're going to go. You want the bottom of the leg, to line up with the
bottom of the torso here. On the back, you want it to be about level with
the back as well. Let's go ahead and mark that
just to be on the safe side. I'm going to use a fabric safe. This is an ar race pen or
something where it won't show. Where I want the joint to be
is right here in the middle. I'll do that on both sides.
That should line up. Okay, needs to be a little
bit higher here and here, it should be right
in the middle of that leg right about there. If we do that, is that going to be in the right
spot, and remember, you got to push that hard because that's how
it's going to be when it's jointed, and
that works for me. I like that. Same
thing on this leg. Okay. That's just to
help you see where I'm going to add this joint. Okay. Okay. It doesn't really
matter where you start. What you need to do
though is you're going to have to go
through two times through all of these layers
including these buttons, and you can start on the
inside of a leg or arm, you could start on the torso. Where you start to me is
not really that important. I've done it all different ways, and I don't see any difference. Some people have very stickler
methods. I really don't. I do think it's better to start with the body
though because you have more to
hold that in place. We're going to do what we did
before with making a loop, make sure you get a little
bite of fabric there. And I've got a knot down here. Now, that's going
to be hidden by the leg once the
leg is attached, so you're not going
to see that tiny thread tail but snip that close. Go through the leg. Sorry, go through the body and come out where we wanted it. I'm going through
the body one time. I'm going to go straight through the leg and you want
to make sure that it comes out the other side as
straight through as possible. You're aiming for the center. One thing I also should
have mentioned before I started is make sure and
this is super important. Make sure that your needle can
pass through your buttons. Because I have had
it where the buttons had a hole that was too small and the needle was too
big and it would get stuck, and that which just won't do. Make sure that that you check and test that your needle fits through
your buttons. We're going to go
in one button in through one hole and back
down through another. Okay. Now that
button is on there. Slide that down, and we want to take our thread and
we don't want to go back in the same
hole we did before. We want to do it. That's good. Make sure you come back out. If I'm coming in
coming out here, going back in, and I want to make sure that I
do the same on this side. We don't want to cross those
threads inside that leg if we can avoid it
because that will keep our thread from getting all noted up inside there
and hard to pull tight. Okay. Okay, I'm going to
leave it loose for now. You don't need to tighten
that up just yet. Then go ahead and go
back through the body again and do the same
thing on the other side. Again, you don't need that
to be tight just yet. And make sure if you
did have something of these particular legs
are interchangeable, so it doesn't matter
you could swap them. But if you had one straight leg, one bent leg, or
something like that, maybe you did a design,
make sure that you have the right and left legs
where you want them. Okay. You see, when I
went in this way, I don't know if you can
tell, but it's crooked. I went in at an angle,
and I don't want that. I want to come out as
straight as possible. Just take it from a couple
of angles. That's good. Okay. And again, up through one side of the button and
back down to the other. And make sure that you don't
get ahead of yourself. I have sometimes forgotten
what I was doing, and I would go ahead
and go back through the leg and the button is just kind of hang in
there. Don't do that. Go through both holes
of that button. Just sharing all of my goop so that you don't
have to make them. Come back. Okay. And make sure
that this button, you see how that
twisted up like that. We do not want that to happen. Try to untwist that because
if you leave it that way, I don't even know
how this happens. If you leave it
that way when you try to pull this tight later, it's not going to pull tight. Okay. There we go. You got to figure out which
direction to flip the button. Sometimes if the
button flips around, it gets tight up,
make sure that you have a nice open loop like that. Now we can pull that slack out. Again, these things to keep
these threads straight, it's just so that when
you do pull tight, you won't have a knot or a kink that keeps it from
getting pulled together. Okay. We're almost to
the tricky part here. I'm going to go ahead
and have my needle go back through the torso again. Come out where I was before, but don't go through
the leg yet. Those knees are going to catch. Now, go ahead and pull. You see how I can
pull it really tight and those legs just
tighten right up on there. If you get it tight enough, you'll know because
when you move a leg, it stays where you want it, it won't flop around because the friction of the
fabric holds it in place. I think I need this
one a bit tighter. Sometimes what you
can do is pull on one to get that leg on real tight and then pull your
back onto the body again. Okay. At this point,
I'm going to be honest. You could be done at this point. Most people would
say, no, you have to go through twice
and it is better, but you don't actually have to. If you're using a
really strong thread and you're just going to have
this sitting on the shelf. I honestly don't think
there's anything wrong with just doing
it once like that. But just to be on the safe side, I'm going to show you
how to do it twice. You go back through
the leg again. You want to get as close
to where you were before. This is tricky because
you have to come back up through one of the holes of that button and I got lucky. Usually I have to try
a bunch of times. I'm sure you'll see that soon. Okay. And again, pull it, make sure that everything
is in there tight. All right. Now this
time, we're going to go back down through one hole
and come out another. Yes, watch this
daring feet here. Because you're going to
see me poking around for probably quite a bit and I may even speed up through this. I know I'm pushing the
button, so I'm close. Just keep poking
until you get it. Ah, there it is. Okay. This
might be the first time ever where something actually
went right on video. Now you can just go back down
through that button again. So each of these
buttons is s on twice. At this point, you
can either come out right here
between the leg and tie it off or you can go into
the body and tie it off. I think I'm going to do that just so that you can see that. Get her legs out of the way. Normally, I would come out from between the leg and
the body right there, but it doesn't matter. And this is the same
surface knot we did on the end of the ladder stitch
when we closed up the parts. And you can just bury
the thread inside. And it doesn't really
matter where you come out because it's not
going to show. Okay. That's how you do
a button joint. We did it with the legs here, and you do the arms
exactly the same way. Just go ahead and put those on, make sure that you're using the top of the arm
instead of the bottom, on these, they're
skinny at both ends. It's not really a big deal. You would position right here
where that shoulder comes, you want the arm
to be right there. If you have it a
little bit higher, it's not the end of the world, but it does look better
when this edge lines up. And now we have a
visible button joint on both the arms and the legs, and they can both move
all independently. These will loosen up over time. That's just part of how a button joint works,
but that's okay. That's all part of
making a handmade. In this lesson on
jointing the doll, you learned to place the joints, and sewing the button joints, and some tips to avoid
getting your tangled.
10. Moving Doll Head Joint: We still need to close the head and attach it to the body. You could use the latter stitch to attach the head to the neck. That works just fine
for a stationary head. But let's go a step further
and create a head that moves. You just need needle
and thread for this, but you could also use a
button if you want to. With these heads, you'll remember there's a
turning tab that's stitched in there and make sure that you just
took that inside. We talked about that
in the stuffing. And then once that's tucked
inside the way you like it, if there's a chin, makes sure that the
chin is poking out. These don't have
chins on these guys. I've got my needle
and thread and again, I'm about a 12 inch
length of thread. For this one, it
doesn't need to be as long as the button joints were. And just start on one side. We're gonna do a
running stitch all the way around the head. And on this one. Your downloads also have
the instructions or diagram stitch
diagram for how to do a running stitch if you're
not familiar with this one, but this one is the easiest. It's just the
back-and-forth in announce basic stitch that you
think of with hand sewing. Going to get my knot
up inside there. And coming from the
inside to the outside. Where's my needle? There it is. We're just gonna do the
basic running stitch all the way around, right where we want the head
to end or the neck to begin. That makes any sense? That's all gonna get
tucked up inside when we're pulling
this thread tight. This is just the running
stitch to create a gather. And wherever you put this
stitch is where you can get that head to end and get
rid of that next stem. So if you want a little
bit of neck showing, you could do it
lower down. Okay. And then put the needle and
thread back to the inside. I'm going to try
to avoid getting the turning tables stitched in. Okay, I've gone all
the way around. I'm going to tuck this
excess fabric backup inside the head again. It all tucked up in
there because we don't want that running
stitch to show. But again, you would use
a coordinating thread. Then when you pull that tight, you should be able to
stick your finger in there and make sure that it's not stuck in that the thread when
you pull on it, it should be pulling
everything in together. And we want that to be
right on that next time. Go ahead and get it as
far down as you want it. You could have it higher
up if you like that look, or you can get it really
far down, that's up to you. And then carefully now hold
the head in place and pull. And it'll tighten around that. Again, you need a
strong thread for this. You could go ahead and tie
a knot and leave it this way and then the head
will be able to come off. And you can change it out for different heads if you want to. That's an option that
I actually use in my studio quite a bit because I am taking photos and
I like to be able to interchange heads
with bodies a lot. But if you want it to be more
permanent and not come off, Here's one method that I like and go through the top
of that next stem. And then I'm going to go through my thread loop to make a
nice secure loop naught. If I can open up those threads
and get my needle through, sometimes it doesn't cooperate. Just be patient, and then I don't need
those thread tails. I'm going to clip those short. I'm gonna go up
through this opening. I don't need to go
through the fabric just up to the opening into either the top of the head or
you come out the back here. Just depends on where
you want to hide this, but it will be visible. So if you're not
going to put hair on, keep that in mind
because it will show. And then back down again. We can go ahead and
just pull that head on. Okay. Pull it tight so that it pushes and makes a little
divot right there. But don't push the
head down too far yet. We're gonna put a note up here and then we'll push the
head down to cover it. So I'm going to put my
surface not right up here at the top of the next him. And I've got my
thread, pull tight. The organ to relax it
in just a second here. After we get are not done. Okay. Here's our not go
down and bury that thread. I'm trying to make sure I'm
not going through somewhere. I don't want pull
that nice and tight. Okay. And now go ahead and push that next step back
up into the body. And you'll have see
how it's relaxing this loop up here. Okay? Now we can turn the head
different directions. And when you pull on
the head, it comes up. It might even the next
time may come out, but it's not going to fall on the floor or anything. Okay. And you can cut this if the
foot isn't catching onto it. We can go ahead and get
rid of that thread. Okay, so that's one
of the ways I like to do the heads after
it's on the next stem. And then that way you get
a lot of range of motion. You can look all
different directions. In this lesson on
attaching the head, you learned how to
use a running stitch to gather the head closed. We loosely attached
the head to the neck and that gave us a head
that moves back and forth.
11. Wrap-Up: Our LDL is finished, but
for some doll artists, the base doll is
just the beginning. You can embellish your
doll with clothes, hair, jewelry, props, whatever
you can imagine. Of course, I chose a
simple Bell design for this class that looks
great with the bald head, but you could also make this
stretchy turtleneck jumper that's included
with your patterns. You could add hair
by stitching or gluing on some yarn
or philosopher, or even locks of wool. There are other machine
and broader patterns for other art dolls at my
website value creations.com. As you learned in this class, you can turn these machine
embroidery patterns into sewing patterns and create faces using any surface
design technique you like. In this class, you also learned how you can stitch first and cut later to make the sowing
of small parts easier. I showed you how
thin stabilizer or interfacing makes tracing
and stitching parts easier. We went over how to turn in stuff and art doll and
you learned how to create moving joints using just a needle thread
and some buttons. I hope this class
has inspired you to create your
very own art doll. It thrills me to see what people are making in the
class project section. So don't forget to post a photo of your
planning worksheet, your doll in process, or your finished all. You can post any
or all stages of your work and ask questions if you get stuck or need help. One last thing before I go
off to make more dollies, it really helps me out when you leave a review of this class, I am continuously working
to improve my classes. So what advice can you give me? I would love to hear it, leave a review and let me know. Thanks for watching this class. It makes my heart
happy to know I was a part of your
doll making Czerny. And I look forward to seeing the characters that you make. Bye guys. Bye.
Luci Ayyat, machine embroidery, dolls, puppets
