Peculiar Poppet Progress v.4

Bringing them to life!

With right sides together I pin and stitch around the body with arms and hair on the inside.  Pinning and stitching around the hairline is a bit tricky, the more hair the more patience.  I leave a small opening on one  side under the arm to turn and stuff and while stitching around I add my small red Oma patch around the hip area of the other side.   I stitch over the hair yarn a few times to make sure everything is secure.
I trim the hair yarn across the top and the fabric around the curved areas then turn the doll right side out.  They are a bit flat without their plush, but with hair and arms in place the personalities are really starting to come out.
Next is time to Stuff the doll, tack down the hands and add embellishments.

Peculiar Poppet Progress v.3

Time to start adding some personality to these happy little ones  =)

During this step of the process I add the hand-stitching to the faces, that starts with a quirky little smile.

I then choose buttons for their eyes, I love to use ones that are different sizes and don't match, makes them a bit more curious.  I choose a color of embroidery floss and stitch around one of the white area (inside, on, or around the edge) and add the smaller button for that eye, then I stitch the bigger button into the other white area.  I try to place the buttons in their eye area to look somewhat random, to add to the playful nature of their expression.

Their face is now complete so I move on to the hair selection.  I LOVE to use handspun and art yarns for this, it really makes them unique and draws your attention to the details within the yarn.  I look at the body fabric and facial expression and try to pair up a yarn then will bring out the next level of personality for them.

Next process includes adding the hair, and stitching together

Peculiar Poppet Progress

Work in Progress... The Process

I'm working on another batch of Peculiar Poppets, so I thought I would share part of my process with you.
I don't use a pattern for the doll, just my playful sketch with notes written around the image. I did create an arm pattern since I want those to be a bit more consistent. The rest is all a general shape.
I love tea dyed fabric for the flesh-tone, so after cooking up a batch, drying and ironing I am ready to go.
I cut the rectangles for the bodies and head sections and trace the arm pattern along a strip of the tea dyed fabric.
Now off to the sewing machine to stitch the arms, trim and turn.

Peculiar Poppet Mermaid Princess Perriana

I've been busy working on toys for an exhibit coming up at the University of Michigan Hospital. My peculiar poppets will be part of my Huggable Art collection.

Perriana has a handspun yarn (purchased at a fiber show) necklace and a horn that calls to one of her special friends.
Her hair is made from handspun/hand-dyed yarn from Carla at cjkojo designs along with a couple other handspun finds. She has a cute little crown of three pearl beads =)
You can find Carla's beautiful fibers on etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/cjkoho

The Knitting Circle

The weather is cooling down, time to start working on those knitting projects!

These lovely Poppets meet in the Peculiar place of the meadow to work on their scarves.

Do you knit too?

What project are you working on?

I am working on a pair of toe up socks. I found a cast on that I absolutely LOVE and I'm hooked! I used to do cuff down but found that I was so afraid of running out of yarn and the foot ended up being to short. One of the gals at the day job kept getting handmade socks because they wouldn't fit me =(

Ulla Won!!

Ulla Won Best in Category at the University of Michigan Health System Employee Art Exhibit!
Yay Ulla!!
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My day job is at the University of Michigan Medical School. We are linked to the University Hospital and share resources. It is a great honor to work for an institute that strives to better peoples lives through research and medicine.
This is the second year I have been in the Employee art exhibit and find it wonderful to see what the staff creates on their own time. We spend so much time with people at work and that environment that it may never occur to us that they are so creative when not in the office.
Congratulations to all the Artist for showing wonderful work!