Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hey folks. My name is Lucy Ayet and I'm a doll maker at Barley
Hood Creations. I design cloth dolls
that can be made by hand or with a
sewing machine, but my specialty is creating doll patterns for the
embroidery machine, so the stitching is
done automatically. but for this class, we're going to start
at the very beginning, enhance stitch a sock gnome. These lessons will break down the simple steps for beginners, but if your skills are
already more advanced, you can learn some tips while creating this quick
and easy project. In this class, you'll learn five different sewing stitches done by hand that are most
commonly used in doll making. I'll show you why socks are great material for
learning to make dolls. We'll talk about
the special fabrics often used in doll making, like skin, or fur, and how to source
them on a budget. Different stuffing materials
are shown and you'll learn which ones to never use. All through these class lessons, I'll show you my
techniques for making a high-quality or
heirloom quality doll, but I'll also share shortcuts
if you want to speed up the process with glue
instead of stitches. These gnomes are super popular
for gift-giving and you can get creative and modify
it for any occasion. They make fun projects to create together with
family or friends, so make a party out of it. I'll show you variations and embellishment options at
the end of the class. Hopefully, that will spark your creativity for any
season, any reason. The materials for this class are pretty simple,
you'll need socks, some fur, and some
stretchy fabric plus stuffing materials
to make the gnome. You'll also want to have
some sharp scissors for cutting fabric as well
as a needle and thread. I'll give you detailed
information about all these supplies and
tools in the class, as well as a printed
supply list which you can find in the
class resource section. Grab a cozy beverage and
come on into the class. Let's get to stitching and
make something adorable.
2. Project Sock Gnome: Our class project
will be a sock gnome. I would love for you
to take a photo of your finished gnome
and post it to the class project gallery. Don't be shy. We all want to see
each other's gnomes. It's fascinating how
they'll all look different even though everyone is
learning from the same class. Post your gnomes project. You can even post multiple
projects if you want to. Show us all your bearded dudes. One of the trickier skills
in doll making is the face, but since these gnomes
only have a nose, it simplifies the process, makes it easier for beginners to make something super cute. You can do this craft alone
or with friends and family. Older children will be able
to make this if you feel they have the fine motor skills
for the needle and thread, or you could use fabric
really rather than stitching. Find yourself a comfortable
work surface where you can gather all
your supplies, get cozy, turn on some music, maybe some cookies,
it's all good. I'll be demonstrating everything with needle and thread and teaching you the hand stitches
used by cloth doll makers. This way your gnome will
be heirloom quality and machine washable
when finished. But I'll also explain
how you can substitute glue for a less permanent doll as we go through the lessons. Even though the class
project is a simple gnome, you'll be learning skills
that you can later apply to more
advanced cloth dolls. In the class resource section, you'll find two PDF documents. One is a detailed supply list that you can take
shopping with you, and the other has diagrams
for the hand stitches. Consider yourself warned,
making gnomes is addicting. It's hard to make
just one or two. This is the real reason
why you see them everywhere like craft fairs and all over because the makers, they just couldn't
stop till they had dozens of homeless gnomes. Don't ask me how I know this.
3. Materials: Let's jump right in and talk about what kinds
of cloth will be using, starting with the socks. When you're selecting socks, you can use all different
kinds of socks for your sock gnome and the reason that we
like to use socks is, there's a lot of
reasons actually. Socks are very stretchy, they come in a ton of
patterns and colors. They have what's called
the tubular knits. There's no seam all the
way around this sock, so that makes it
nice to work with, there's very little sewing. It's also a knit fabric
so that when you cut it, it won't unravel and that's
a great feature to have. You can mix and
match or coordinate. You can use whatever you want. You don't have to use
the same sock for the body and the hat. You can even use baby socks
for a little bitty gnome, these are great for a
baby shower or something. You could use plain old
spork socks, that works too. If you're using the ankle sock, you need two socks, one for the body and then
another one for the hat. If you're using a longer
knee-high sock like this, then you can just use
one sock per gnome. The bottom part of the foot part would
be the gnome's body, and then this top part, the knee-high part
would be the gnome hat. One knee-high sock or two ankle socks is what
you're going to need. You could use brand new
songs or older socks, I do prefer clean socks, but that's just me, you do you. Let's talk about the skin. I do like to use
a stretchy fabric but that's not mandatory, my favorite place to get
skin tone stretch fabrics, no lie, woman's tank top. Just go to the
discount store and buy the largest size
that you can get there and that way you
get a lot of fabric. You only need a
two-inch square of fabric for one nose, so
you don't need much, but it's very stretchy
and forgiving, makes a nice squishy nose. You could also use the
tubular knit for the skin, or you could even use
something that's not stretchy. The slip plane cotton muslin
works for the nose as well. Then if you wanted to add color, you could use a little blush or something to give
that little pink or makeup or something like
that, but you don't have to. That's the skin tone. Any kind of fabric stretchy is better but it's not mandatory. Of course, you could also use a sock for the nose as well, just cut a two-inch
square out of another sock to create the nose. Fur is one of the funnest
parts of the gnome and there are a lot
of different furs that you can choose from. From a shorter curly
pile to a long, this is called the Mongolian fur that has this curly
look, it's very long. You could also use a craft fur, but this is enough to do
several gnome beards, and you can usually get that a lot cheaper when it's on sale, comes in different colors. If you want, you can buy fur at the fabric store and you can buy as little as a quarter yard, usually, they'll cut for you. Even though fur may cost $20
or $30 or more, per yard, you don't need very much, so ask what the
smallest quantity is and they'll cut that for you. Another source for fur, if you like thrift stores, you could even find things like, this used to be a
vest and I've just been slowly cutting the
fur off of this vest, and for a couple of dollars, I got a lot of really good fur, haven't even gotten
to the backside yet. Same thing with fur
pillows, fur throws, you can find things like that instead of having to
buy it like this. Just keep your mind
open on sources of fur. You can even find people on online sites that sell just
the fur for a gnome beard. If you only want to spend
a couple of dollars, you could even search for
gnome beards and you'll find people selling
about that much fur. Let's talk about
filling our gnome. I'm going to use some
plastic pellets for the base of the gnome and there's different
brands of these, but they're just little
plastic pellets that go in the bottom for weight and it also helps with gnome sit flat. Then in the top part, we're going to use polyfill. You can use fabric scraps or something like that instead
for the soft stuffing. What I do not think
you should do is use rice or any kind of food material at the
base of your gnome. I know the internet
is filled with people making sock gnomes
filled with rice. Here's why I cringe
every time I see it. Because I used to
use rice in some of my dolls when I did craft
fairs a few years ago, and I know for a fact that rice attracts bugs and even rodents. It does not matter how
clean you keep your home, those critters will
find their way into that tasty food
sooner or later. Everyone I know who
used to use rice has learned the hard
way why it's gross. Learn from my mistakes, rice is for eating and
not for stuffing dolls. As far as weight for your gnome, you could even use something
like glass, beads, or aquarium gravel, or something like that
to put in the base of the gnome to keep it heavy
enough so it sits straight. All different options
we've talked about, there are even different
kinds of fiber fillers, sometimes I just cut up
scraps and use that. You've got a lot
of options there, but just don't use food because humans aren't the
only ones that eat it. In this lesson, we talked
about choosing socks to build our gnome as well as
fur for the beard, and fabric for the nose. You also got to see different
filler materials and why we don't want to fill
the gnomes' belly with food like rice or beans.
4. Tools: [MUSIC] We've got our materials, but we're also going
to need some tools which can be used
over and over again, as many gnomes as you
want to make with them. What do we need?
You're also going to need some good
scissors to cut fur. I prefer a small pair of
scissors for cutting fur so we can just cut the backing and do tiny little nips like that. But for larger things
like cutting the socks, a nice, sharp pair of fabric scissors
will be very handy. Whatever you do, make
sure you're using sharp scissors when
you're cutting fabric, even if it's socks of fur. Sharp scissors make it so much easier and less
likely to cut yourself. Throughout this class, I'm
going to show you how to hand stitch the gnome rather than
using glue all the time. I do recommend a very strong
thread for hand sewing. You could use a hand quilting, you could use something
called a heavy duty, sometimes it's called
a button and craft. There are different
brands that make a heavy duty thread and you can see how this
thread is just thicker. This is a regular sewing thread that you put in your
sewing machine and you can see how this is a
very thin thread compared to the heavy thread. It's so much thicker and
less likely to break. So we can really pull
on this when we're hand sewing and it won't break and it'll do exactly
like we want it to. Another option, if you're
going to be making dolls, is to get something
called the doll needle. There are different
sizes of these. Some of them are as
long as five inches. I don't use that very often, but this little two-inch needle, I use a lot as opposed to this is a regular
hand-sewing needle. They're usually an inch
to one and a half inches. You can see how this
needle is so much bigger, it's easier to handle. You can also get
through the body of your doll or stuffed animal or gnome much better
with a long needle. If you have a long
doll needle like this, I highly recommend getting
them for your hand sewing, as well as at least one
neutral color of thread. I'm going to be using this red thread through
the video class today because you can see it and it's going to show
up very well on camera. But normally, you would want
to choose a thread that blends in with your fabric
so you don't see it. Just so that you know, I'm just using red to
make it easier for you. You would want to choose
a thread color that blends in with either the
sock or the fur or both. For the last part
of this lesson, I want to go ahead and show you just in case you're
new to hand sewing, how to use the needle and
thread for sewing dolls. I'm going to go ahead
and thread the needle and if you have a
hard time doing this, I would recommend
getting a cheap pair of reading glasses that
can be very helpful. You just want to
pull off usually about 18 inches of thread is
good for most of what we do. If you make this too long, it'll be too hard to pull
the needle and thread. Just keep pulling that
thread and It'll last forever and it will
get knotted up. So you don't want that. We want a double-strand
of thread. You can see I've got two threads there going through
the needle on one end. I'm just going to tie
a knot on the end, once, and I like to go
ahead and do it twice. It doubles up on itself. If you wind up
getting two knots, go ahead and do a third one. Then just cut that short about a half inch, That's
all you need. Now we have our needle is
threaded and ready to use, and this is what we're
going to be using throughout as I show you
all the different stitches. Now here's a tip that
you don't need this, but if you have a hard
time with needle and thread and your thread
keeps getting all wound up, and twisty, and
caught on things, you can use something called
a thread conditioner. The way that this works, they're made of things like oils and bees wax and
things like that. You just put the
thread in there, run it through, and it coats that thread and
just makes it easier. It is less likely to
get unruly on you. This one's called Thread Magic, but there are a lot
of different brands of thread conditioner. It works really well
when you're doing a hand sewing. Just a tip. In the last lesson, we covered
fabric scissors as well as special needles and strong
thread for doll making. You saw how to
thread a needle and also thread conditioner
is optional, but it does make the hand
stitching process easier.
5. Fill the Body: Now that we've got all the preliminary
work out of the way, let's start making the gnome. This lesson will
show you how to cut the sock and stuff the body. We're going to start off
with our sock and we're going to cut right here to cut that ankle piece
off just straight across it because
I have a stripe that makes it even easier. See how see we have just
a straight sock there. I'm going to take my
pellets that I talked about earlier and I use about a
cup of pellets per gnome, one measuring cup and
then put them in a cup. I like to go ahead and
just put the sock over the top like that
and dump them in. No funnel or anything needed. It might look like, well,
it's pretty skinny, but just plump it down and it just really spreads out
and stretches that sock. Once we start filling
with stuffing, you may think this is way too much stuffing,
but it'll fit. It really packs down in there. See how I'm just pushing
the stuffing in, packing it in and the sock just keeps stretching and stretching
and stretching. You don't want to overstretch
to make it see-through. That's when you know
you've gone too far. We get a nice plump
body and if you get these big lumps
and bumps in here, you see how uneven that is? You can just roll it, stuffing back down in there. It's all filled up
with the pellets in the bottom and the
stuffing in the top, and he'll be able to
stand on his own. How easy was that?
Let's recap it. You saw how to cut the
sock and fill it with pellets as well as fiber fill. Can you believe all that
stuffing fit into that sock? Let's close it up before all the fiber burst
out of there.
6. Close the Body: In this lesson, we're going to close the
body using a running stitch. This is the simplest of
hand sewing stitches. When we pull the threads tight, that running stitch
can be used to either gather fabric
into a ruffle, or close up a circular opening
like the top of the sock. There are several
different ways you can tie off this body, top of the body here, some people use rubber bands. I don't recommend that because rubber bands will come off. You could use a rubber band
and then use a piece of twine and tie that in
a nice tight knot, and that's pretty
secure as well. I don't have a problem
with that method, but since we are wanting to do something very long-lasting, I do want to hand sew it, and you could just go back and forth and tack stitch places. But I'm going to show
you the gathering stitch or it's also called
a running stitch, and we're going to use it
to gather this top closed, so I'm going to start with
my long doll needle and my red thread that's double-stranded like I showed
you in the previous lesson, How to Thread Your Needle. I'm going to just go
from the inside out, and then I'm going to take about
half inch stitches just all the way around. Doesn't have to be
exactly half an inch. I like to do several at a time. See how that looks? This goes rather quickly. Back to where I started from, you can see my stitches there, so I'm just going to go
back inside and pull. Now it's all closed up. Just to make sure I've got
that nice and tight, I'm going to tie a knot first
and I'm going to show you the special knot that you
can do on the surface. Go into your fabric, just take a small stitch, and then hold the loop
in your right hand, and then take the needle
and dive into that loop. Now you've got
another loop that you just made in your left hand, so I have the needle dive
into that other loop, the left loop as well. Now when we pull up and
you may need to use your needle to hold this
little loop in place. As you pull the thread, you'll get a knot right
there on the surface. That's a good way to
get a surface knot. I'm just going to take a
few more what I call tack stitches across, go
all the way across. This is where having
that long needle comes in very handy. Just about a half inch away, coming out again you might even consider going in
a star pattern, and this is going to close
it up nice and tight. However, if I ever need
to come and undo this, just a few little
snips of the thread and I will be able to undo it, if I need to refill it or
whatever I want to do. Three or four
stitches all the way across and then another knot; surface knot. I'm
show you that again. Make a stitch and hold that loop in your right-hand,
dive through. Now that loop that you
have in your left hand, you can dive through again. Doesn't matter if the needle is forward or backward,
that doesn't matter. Then when you pull up on it, it creates a knot
down at the surface. To bury the thread, we just insert the needle back into the body and come
out a few inches away. See, I'm all the way down here. Hold that tight, and then when you clip
it right at the surface, the thread disappears into
the body so we won't see it. That's how you bury the thread and you don't have
any thread tail. Now that the body is closed up, we can go ahead and roll it, get a nice shape for us. Still got the pellets
in the bottom, and the stuffing on top, and now he's not lumpy anymore. He's just perfect. Let's recap. You saw how to sew
a running stitch by hand and then we pulled our thread tight to close up the top opening of the gnome. You also saw how to
make a surface knot and bury the thread
inside the doll. Those skills are used over and
over in cloth doll-making. Even when you sew a doll
with a sewing machine, you still need to hand stitch it closed after it's stuffed. I should also mention, that running stitch you
just learned can also be used to sew two pieces
of fabric together. If you don't pull
the threads tight, leave them loose and
it's a regular seam. So what's next? The beard.
7. Give Him a Beard: [MUSIC] The furry beard is the cornerstone of
this style of known doll, and the full fur
is often used in other styles of dolls
and softies as well. It's good to know how to work
with this type of material. I'll show you how
to cut, position, and sow the full fur onto the
stuff sock in this lesson. I'm going to show you the
skill of how to figure out how much fur you need considering the
size of your body, because you may have
a different body size depending on how you
stuffed your sock. What we want to do
is when this is sitting down and the bottom
is going to be flat, so he's going to be that size. We want the bottom of the fur to come down
here to the bottom. If we have it too far down
and when he's sitting on a shelf the fur is going
to be all over the place, so I like to have
it where the fur is just at the
bottom and you see a little bit of the sock
which is like a sweater. We want it to go all the way to the top up here where it bends. Right there is
where I need to cut my fur for the top [NOISE], and with this long curly fur you really don't need as much as you might think because
it's got so much length to it. When I'm cutting
fur what I like to do is use the small scissors. I'm just using tiny
little snips to cut the backing [NOISE]
because you see the fur has a backing here and it has what's called the
pile or the actual fur. We don't want to cut
the fur piece of it, we just want to cut the backing. [MUSIC] Some people like to
use a razor or a box cutter. I don't like that
because I don't have as much control with a razor as I do with these
little tiny scissors and I can make very intricate
cuts if I need to. I'm just cutting the
backing all the way across. Now when I pull them apart, it shouldn't have too many
stray furs that got cut. There will always be some. Just go ahead and wipe those
out and get rid of that. This stuff will be flying
all over the place, so try to get it in the trash and make sure it doesn't
come flying out. Here's the piece of the
beard I want to keep, that's the piece
that I don't need. When I put it up here at
the top where I want it, this is a nice length now. Cut a little bit towards the bottom that's going to be on the table, but that's okay. Then I want the width to
be from here to here, so halfway. Just like that. That's the beard. If you want to and I
actually do want to, I want to cut a little
triangle for this. Another thing to mention is
you want to make sure that the fur is going downwards
most of the time. There may be occasions
where you want the beard to be going upwards,
but that's funky. Typically you want the
fur to be pointing down and make sure you
cut your beard that way. I need to have this way as down. It's more of a nibble, nibble, nibble instead of
a nom, nom, nom. [MUSIC] That's the way I think of it. Hold on to your scraps
because you can do other tiny gnomes with these little pieces or
turn them into beards, eyebrows, all kinds of things. This is the beard, line it up where I want it. You could glue the beer. You could use either a hot
glue or a fabric glue. Typically, we'd
use something like fabric fixed or Fabri-Tac; are good glues to use on fabric, but in this class I'm
going to hand saw everything because we want
this to be heirloom quality. I've got my double-strand
kneaded again on my big needle and I'm going to do a whip stitch this time. Just finding the place to
start is going to be a hassle because the fur going to be
in the way, but that's okay. For the whip stitch,
I'm going to start underneath the beard. Take a little knot and go through my double strand and
that will really secure it. I do use three conditioners, it's hard to get in there. The way the whip stitch
works is we just go at it diagonal and come up
through the beard, and each stitch
goes at a diagonal. It's a good idea to
have a little pin. Here we go [NOISE]. Remember, you would want
to use a thread that matches your fabric colors. I'm using this dark red
so that you can see it. When I pull that
thread it's just going to attach the beard, but don't expect
this to show when I'm all finished because
that hair from the beard; from the fur, is going
to cover up my thread. You will find that fur will get into your needle and thread. Yes, it is a pain. Just be patient, keep
pulling it out of the way. You see I'm going
about 1/2-inch away, going into the sock
and then coming up about 1/2-inch
away into the fur. Now my beard is on
there nice and tight, I'm going to tie it off
the way I did before. Just stitch through the
fabric into the right side, into the left side and
fold that loop and pull. Taraa, surface knot
and bury your thread. It doesn't matter
where you come out when you bury the thread,
anywhere is fine. Preferably in a place
that you won't see it. There is his beard. The beard is now attached and we used a whip stitch for that. You could use other
types of stitches like the running stitch you learned
in the previous lesson. By hand stitching the
beard rather than gluing, we're ensuring it stays
on through washing, playing, even being stored in a hot attic over the summer. But as with all the
steps in this class, you could substitute hot glue or a fabric glue
for the stitches.
8. Add a Nose: In this next lesson, I'll
show you how to make a soft, squishy fabric nose. I prefer this style, but you could also
substitute some other kind of ball or sphere-shaped object, a wooden ball, a pom-pom, and even Christmas ornaments
are sometimes used. But I feel like the soft
skin-colored fabric nose has the most charm, so that's the kind
I'll demonstrate. I'm going to use my
stretchy skin tone fabric and I need just about a two-inch square or circle,
doesn't really matter. I'll cut an extra
one there for later, you don't need it to
be very circular, cut the corners off
and that's enough. Now we're going to
do a running stitch which is going to gather this piece of fabric and
turn it into a nose. For the gathering stitch, we're going to be about 1/4
inch away from the edge, so we're going to go into the
fabric and just do about, again 1/2 inch stitches all
the way around the edge. You can do several
stitches before you pull the thread
through, that's fine. Just keep doing those 1/2
inch stitches all the way around until you get to back
where you started from, and then go ahead and
end on the inside again like we started. Don't pull it and close it up
yet because we have to put some stuffing in there and
then pull my thread tight, and we have a nose. It was that easy, super simple. I'm just going to do
a few tack stitches, so I'm just going to go through one side and out of the other
just to hold that closed. While I've still
got my needle and thread attached to the nose, I'm going to go ahead
and sew it on the gnome. Here are the two
edges of my beard. I want it right
here in the middle, and I want the top edge of the nose to be at the
top edge of the beard. I'm just going to take
a few tack stitches, and what that means is
I'm just going to make long stitches that go into the nose and also into
the body of the gnome. It's coming out
through the body. I'm going to go back
through the nose again. Now, usually, the beard is
fluffy enough that it'll cover up that little
bottom stem down there, and you don't need
to worry about it. If your fur gets
caught in your thread, be wary of that and make sure
that you get it all out. There we go, get out
of there. Just keep pulling your thread
really tight. That's why we're using
this really strong thread. I'm going to go all the
way across the nose again and out the other
side and again, make sure that my thread doesn't catch every single
piece of fur because it will, and then back into the body and I think
that's all he needs. I'm going to come
up through the top and put my knot up here, and I'll speed through this, knot because I've showed you
this knot several times. It's just the surface knot
and then bury the thread. Our nose is on there
nice and tight, but it's sticking away from the body just the
way we want it. Now you see why I love
the squishy noses. It's starting to come together. We use the running stitch to gather our nose fabric and then stitched it onto the beard
and body using a tack stitch. I like to think of
tack stitches as tacky stitches because
they're chaotic and random, but they get the job done
and that nose is not going anywhere now that it's
firmly attached to the body. Next up is the hat.
9. Top with Hat: [MUSIC] We're ready
to make the hat now. I'm going to use a
sock for this hat, but you should know
that you could use other materials as well. Think about the triangular
shape of a Santa Claus hat. You could easily create a hat with a simple running stitch or whip stitch and make a triangle
hat out of any fabric, but let's keep it
simple and stay with this sock theme for this class. For his hat, I'm going to
use a longer sock this time. If you wanted, you
could just use the foot of a regular sock, but since I have
this ankle sock, I'm going to go ahead
and take advantage. I'm going to cut it off right at the ankle right here
where the bend stops. Now, that I've cut it off, there are several
different options. I'm going to use this
as the brim of the hat. You could even turn it
up if you wanted to. Up here, rather than
leaving this open, turn the sock inside out. [MUSIC] We use our gathering
stitch to close this. Just a really quick one, same as what we did before. Every half-inch,
just take a stitch, so we'll speed through this. [MUSIC] Now, when we turn that
sock right side out, this little gathered
puckered top of his hat right there, and for the hat, we just want to stretch it over, pull that down pretty far in the back and we will
be stitching that in place so that it just covers
the top of the nose and then go ahead and
gather this sock down. We need to make sure we have more thread this time
because we have to go all the way around
with our thread. Rather than have a
two-foot-long length of thread, it may be better to
just do it twice. Get halfway around
and then stop. Go ahead and make
a knot and then finish with the second
piece of thread. Now, let's do something
called the ladder stitch. I'm going to start underneath
where it's hidden. Again, I'm going to go ahead
and go through my thread to make sure that we get a nice
knot that won't come out. That's because this sock
fabric you can see it's got big holes in the
weave of the knit. We just want to make
sure that that knot doesn't slip through. Now, that we've
got our needle and thread through the body, I'm going to start stitching. Let's see, make sure
that's tucked up in there. I'm going to pull this
just a little under and go right there on the
fold about a quarter-inch. Again we go straight down, pull that thread straight down. Let's zoom in on this pull
the thread straight down and go into the body another
about quarter to half-inch. It depends on how big
you want your stitches. Again, straight up and
through the fold of the hat. This is the ladder
stitch and this is an invisible stitch
when you pull it tight. You can't even see
my red thread in here because it really
gets invisible. Again, you're just
coming out of the hat, going straight down and into the body at that
spot right there, I'm going to make
my stitches bigger. Then to get to the hat
you go straight up. It'll look like a ladder or railroad tracks
when you're done. Once you pull that tight,
it really disappears. You can see a little bit
of my knot here because I'm using this dark red
contrasting thread, but this is a nice stitch
to hide when you have two openings like you have an opening that you
need to close up, this is the perfect
stitch for that. You want to make sure
that your thread doesn't go at an angle. You don't want it to
enter here or here. You want to make
sure it's straight down next to where
it's coming off the hat and that's
what gives you that nice clean
look when it goes right across where
it's coming out. Once we've got this
hat stitched on, it's not coming off unless you actually cut the thread
and want to remove it. Now, here I can see
a little bit of thread and this is a
good mistake to point out because my
thread got a little twisted there and
formed a little loop. I just pull that
out a little bit, straighten out my thread, and then when I pull it tight
and it disappears again. [MUSIC] See that? You can imagine if I was
using a gray thread, you really wouldn't see
anything here at all. Now, I'm up to the front and I'm going to go
ahead and go through the nose as well and stitch
the hat onto the nose. That way it'll always stay placed over the
nose where we want it. Then I'm going to
go ahead and do my surface knot and bury the thread again because we're done with this part of the hat. The hat is on there
and you learn the most important stitch for a doll maker, the ladder stitch. That ladder stitch
is great for joining two pieces of fabric where you don't want the
thread to show. Then you saw the surface
knot and bury the thread again because doll
makers use that a lot. At this point, we have finished now and you could stop here, but I'll give you one
more lesson about how to embellish it if you want to.
10. Add Some Spice: If you want to kick
it up a notch, you can spice up your
gnome or any doll by using your favorite trims
and embellishments. The possibilities
here are infinite, but I'll give you some ideas to get your imagination flowing. We can pretty much
call this gnome done. He is quite finished, he's got the body all stuffed
with the weighted filler, he's got the beard, his little squishy nose, and his slouching hat. He's complete but if you want to add a personal
touch to your gnome, there are so many options
to embellish with, I've got several
on my table here. You can use different kind of trims around the
brim of the hat. One of my favorites to use, this is a fur yarn, made for knitting but
you could go ahead and stitch or glue that around
the brim of the hat. If you're not happy
with your stitching, a trim around the hat is
a nice way to hide that if you wanted to.
That's one option. Then fur yarn it comes in
so many different colors, you could do lots
of things there. Another thing you could do, you can do with different trims. Let's say you're making a gnome for a wedding and you could use bridle trims around
the hat as well. You could use it around the
bottom however you want. All kinds of ribbons. Add a bow somewhere. I like to add things at the
tip of the hat like that. Maybe a flower. Maybe here a different flower. You see, you get the idea there. You can even add a ruffle, this is big for his head, but it looks cool around the base because it looks like
he's sitting in a flower. You could also do
a female gnome, instead of having a beard, you could have hair
coming out the side. Some people like two braids on the side for a female gnome. Let's see, you could
have a snowflake here, put that on the hat. You could also create
two little arms, get your socks and just
make a little tube and use the same
technique you made the nose, make little hands. Put the hands in
those little tubes and have those
come down in front and they can be holding
an object like this, all kinds of things like that. What I'm going to
do on this guy, I just like a little bell. You could also add a pom pom, really huge pom pom
there but I like to add a little bell with some black
and white stripe twine. It's one of my favorite things. Add this through the sock. Then once I've got
that through there, I'll go ahead and just thread
the twine through the bell. You can just develop
your own signature style of what you like to
embellish your gnomes with, the choice of sock, the beard that you choose, the fabric that you
use for the nose, the embellishments, that's
what makes it yours. One of my signatures is using a little black and
white striped things. I like bells, I
like the fur yarn, those are things
that I often use. But use what you like, use buttons, use
bells, use bows, use ribbons, whatever
it is that you really like to craft with,
put it on your gnome. He's so cute. I hope that last lesson sparked
some ideas for you to personalize your gnome and
make it uniquely yours. You can change colors and accessories to make a
gnome for any reason, any season, play
around with bells, bows, ribbons, charms, trinkets, flowers, arms, legs, feet, maybe give the gnome
something to hold. There are no limits to
what you can come up with. I have faith in
your creativity so don't forget to
post a picture of your gnome in the
project gallery. Your ideas might
inspire the next maker.
11. Wrap Up: [MUSIC] That's it,
we made a gnome. It's easier than it looks. Remember that you can download
a printable supply list and stitch diagram from the
class resource section. You can also rewatch
certain lessons as you work through your creation
at your own pace. If you have questions, you can post in the
class discussion tab and I can help you
through that forum. If you want to step up gnome, making with custom fabric and big puffy feet
like this guy, I have a sewing
pattern available at ballyhoocreations.com, I'd also like to
welcome you to follow me on YouTube, on Pinterest, on Instagram for our doll making and machine embroidery
inspiration. If you could take a minute
to leave a class review, I would really
appreciate that too. I am striving to be
the best teacher I can possibly be so any
class feedback, whether it's positive feedback or even constructive criticism, whatever, any review
is truly appreciated. Have fun exploring the
magical world of doll making. I hope I see you in future
classes. Bye, folks.
Luci Ayyat, machine embroidery, dolls, puppets
