Finished Jess Brown style doll

Here is my finished doll that I just mailed off at the beginning of the week....

I did a series of tutorials on how I made the doll itself if you're interested you can see those at the various links below....

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

She's a little cutie and I love her dress.  I may have to make one for Mighty's doll.

It's nice to be able to give a handmade gift that has a little piece of you in it.

She's a long way off with a sweet new baby girl....I hope she gets lots of love!
I'm submitting my tutorials to  

 for the month of October...

Eastern Black Swallowtail

Meet Katy #2....earlier this summer my sweet little son found a caterpillar and then cried when he took it out and dropped it....

For his birthday he got one of the coolest gifts ever...

a caterpillar castle (a square netted cube) and 3 caterpillars.

A wonderful, giving couple we go to church with like to grow plants to attract the butterflies, and she hunts for the eggs and baby caterpillars to watch them grow and transform....

 She knew how much Seth loved this sort of thing and decided to share with him.  And we felt honored to have them.

 Thursday afternoon we found our first empty chrysalis and this little beauty below....

 Her wings were still damp I think.  So she decided to hang out and visit with us.  Doodlebug said "it was like she wanted to get to know me and be my friend!"

AMAZING...

 So many wonders in the world when you look...especially when you are 5!  One of the best parts of being a parent I think....seeing things through the eyes of your child.

 Just watching so close and getting to really see her and how different she looks from how she started....

I wonder if when God looks at the caterpillar He can see the butterfly the whole time?

 Wow --and they only live a few days this way...such a short time after they've come so far.

 Absolutely fascinating to see her in this much detail...

 And I will never forget my little son talking to her like she's a person telling her about his day in his innocent way...

 She stayed for about 10 or 15 minutes and watching her and watching my son with her was a little bit of magic on a plain, old Thursday afternoon....

Ottoman slipcover

I made this ottoman slipcover for a sweet friend I go to church with.  She and I did a sewing lesson awhile back which was a lot of fun.  And we stenciled on some pillow slips. 

 

 She wanted this to have a lot of numbers on it so she sent me some inspiration photos of coffee sacks and feed sacks used to cover furniture.  She decided to use dates that were important to their family....to make it more personal.

 I had several dates (birthdates, anniversary, etc) but I needed a few more....

So I decided to turn the letters of the alphabet into numbers instead....and then put names on it. 

Only in numbers....

This is made from drop cloth which will continue to fray and unravel as she washes and uses it, but 

 she also liked the raw edges on the outside so I double stitched all the seems and ran a bead of fray check inside.  

She's thrilled with it and I was happy with it too...

Jess Brown style doll tutorial part 4

Part 1 Here

Part 2 Here

Part 3 Here

I fold the tops of the arms down on each side and pin them.

 Because the fabric of her body is a looser weave I use these little pieces of wool coating to help keep the thread from pulling through.

 I sew both arms at the same time.  You could do them one at a time.

 And I used heavy carpet thread sewing back and forth several times.

 Here she is all together and ready for her finishing touches.

 For Mighty's doll I made the eyes blue so on this doll I decided on brown.  I just stick the needle in and sew.  You could use a disappearing ink pen to draw them so you had something to follow as you sew.

 A small piece of cotton, salmon colored fabric for her mouth...

 I sew through her head from the back for all her facial features.  This will get hidden by her hair later.

 This is a nice little hand sewn stitch to know for this sort of thing (eyes, center of flowers, etc).  I like to use it for attaching her mouth.

 With your needle pulled all the way through to the front, wrap the base of the thread (right up next to where it's coming out of the salmon fabric) around your needle 4-5 times....

 holding those so they stay tight around the needle, sew through to the back.  Try to get your needle close to where it came out on the front.  The idea is to make a little knot....

 Something like this.  This took some practice for me to get them looking nice and smooth.  It can be hard to get enough tension to make a nice tight knot but allow yourself enough thread to pull your needle through.... 

For her hair I used about 10-12 strips of yellow colored fabric.  They're about 1" wide x 14" long.  I pin them together to create the "part" in her hair and then sew that onto her head first.

I take the strip of fabric on the top and fold it back to cover and hide the stitches.

For the rest of her hair I just sew randomly through different pieces until I have it attached to her head and for this doll I chose to make some little pig tails with ribbon 

She would be fun to make hats or scarves for...or if you crochet, some little stockings...lots of possibilities!

Jess Brown style tutorial part 3

Part 1 Here

Part 2 Here

These are your doll parts and they're all turned right side out.

This is what I use to stuff the doll and I'm pretty happy with it.  There are even good tips on the back to help you with stuffing your projects.

I like to use a pencil eraser because it kind of "grabs" the stuffing and helps get it inside.

You want to do just a tiny bit at a time and push it all the way to the bottom.  If you try to do too much at once it won't go all the way down because the pieces are so narrow.

I leave enough to pinch at the tops --
 this is where the legs will be sewn into the body.  And for the arms I fold this part over so it doesn't need stuffing.

 
 Pin the legs in making sure that plenty of the top of the leg is inside the dolls body.

I use my zipper foot which helps sew up next to the stuffing.

 And I left the bottom edge raw...
In my next post I'll show sewing on the arms and giving her a face and hair.  The FUN part :)