BEARDY AND PONYTAIL DOLLS
The Making Of
A photojournal of how we made our Beardy and Ponytail dolls.
Hours Spent:
DAY ONE: 11:00am until 1:22am the next morning
DAY TWO: 8:12am until 12:10pm
Coffee Consumed:
Mishki = 2 cups
Erin = 5 cups
Materials:
Two cushions worth of stuffing
Two sheets of 1.5m
Scraps various
Lots of normal sewing cotton
Charcoal Pencil
First up, we had to make some patterns. Drawn on one of Erin's old Graphic Design assignment sheets from a couple of years ago, Mishki skilfully drafted the bodies-to-be.
Erin cut the results out and the ngot down to the important business of drinking some coffee.
Our workspace was neat... For about five minutes. While Mishki was tracing the pattern onto her cloth, Erin searched her house for every scrap of stuffing and material present.
A charcoal pencil dug up from Erin's art supplies proved the perfect thing to trace the pattern onto the material.
The cutting was a lot of fun. Erin enjoyed simultaneously cutting, singing and dancing along to "Trjs Milljonai". She also avoided cutting her tie, and was very proud indeed.
Ah, there is nothing like watching Mishki thread a needle. Breathe deeply, Mishki - it'll work in the end.
We had to rely on the electric lighting, with closed curtains, even though it was daytime. It was over 36 degrees centigrade outside, and we didn't want any heat getting into the house.
As the material we had chosen for the skin was a type of satin, we had to take special measures to guard against fraying: we went around every single seam twice, once to hold it in place and again to stop any potential fray point. This made the cloth look slightly rumply, but resulted in a very cuddly and durable result. We used the age old trick of sewing things inside out, then turning them right way out. This means the seams are hidden from view. Here is an inside-out Beardy...
And here are the empty skins of Beardy and Ponytail once they've been turned right way out.
We were absorbed in our work for hours on end, but it was fantastic fun :D
Here is Beardy before he has any arms... Make your own jokes for this one.
Now he has one arm stuck on, you can say he's only slightly 'armless. Sorry, that pun just HAD to be made.
Whee! Beardy was the first to be fully stuffed, and have his limbs attached. Already, even at this early stage, he was very cuddly.
Meanwhile, Ponytail's head had developed an amusing crest not like unlike those seen on several native Australian species of birds.
Not one to let detail slide past, Erin doggedly found as many reference pictures of Beardy's right shoulder tattoo and began to embroider.
Alas, all of her references were unclear at best, so she did have to guess at quite a bit, but she was pretty proud of the final result.
Next up came... THE FACES! Hooray! Erin lightly drew with the charcoal pencil on both Beardy and Ponytail's faces, light guidelines that she and Mishki could embroider over.
I must say, stitching on Beardy's face was one of the more surreal things I've done in my life.
He looked rather creepy at this point... Is he smoking that needle!?
Ah, much better - Beardy's completed face, minus the beard.
A bald Ponytail waves for the camera.
The question of hair was very different for our dolls: Lucky Mishki had a ball of craft wool stuff at home that was absolutely perfect for Ponytail's hair. Erin was less lucky, and ended up having to sacrifice an old sewing project from her High School years to get anything vaguely similar to Beardy's hair colour. Alas, poor bear, I knew it well.
Of course, knowing Erin's luck, there was considerably less bear than hair, and she ran out after doing Beardy's beard, moustache, and hairline. Never one to be deterred, she used her wits (contrary to popular opinion, Erin does actually have wits) and used some light brown wool for the rest... And painted it to match the rest of Beardy's hair.
Legs are very handy clamps.
At the end of two days, we finally had our naked Beardy and Ponytail dolls. Considering our collective lack of advanced sewing skills and the difficulties posed by the satin material we were working with, Mishki and I are very proud of the result indeed.
