My Totoro plush is done!

Almost three months ago, Rosie and Dash enjoyed watching Toy Story 3 on video. The one thing  in the movie that stuck with Dash more than all else was that little Bonnie had a Totoro doll in her toy collection. Having never seen Totoro in doll-form before, but immensely adoring him from the fantastic Hayao Miyazaki film, My Neighbor Totoro, Dash wanted one. Badly. He knew I was capable of making dolls, and started asking me to make him a Totoro doll—and continued asking persistently, for weeks. I finally sketched it out, bought fabric and started at the beginning of November. Here's the initial sketch:

I cut out the parts, got a little burnt-out on the hand-sewing/embroidery necessary for the boomerangs on the belly and the smile, and put it aside for a few weeks after getting a little more than this far:

At the beginning of December, I'd sewn on and stuffed the belly circle, stitched the arms up and painted the pupils (with black & white nail polish) onto the buttons. All that was left was making the claws, the ears, stitching it all together and stuffing, so this weekend, I decided to finish it. Here's the final result:

And this is the happiest boy ever.

Felt ballerina doll, how-to

Here's how I made this beautiful felt ballerina doll!

This is my very first time making a doll, although of course I know how to sew, embroider and string beads. It was really the working with felt and creating the right pattern with it that was a challenge.













For materials, I started out with 5 sheets of 8 inch by 10 inch felt, although I really only needed 4, since the two sides of the doll body used one sheet when rotated. More for the next doll! The colors are light pink (for a caucasian doll), dark pink (for the dance shoes), purple for the dress, and red for the hair.


I used some tracing paper to create a pattern for cutting out the doll's body. Here's where I made my first error—the seam didn't work with felt, so after I attempted to sew it together the first time, I had to cut it down 1/8 inch all around, back to my solid line on the pattern. No big deal!

For her face, I sewed green beads on for her irises (with green thread), then embroidered her eyeliner and lashes. I sewed on seven pink beads for her pretty mouth with medium pink thread, then embroidered circles on her cheeks in the medium pink for rouge. (This image is before I trimmed the pattern down.)

I sewed the head and arms then stopped to stuff her arms and head carefully. A chopstick was an essential tool to get the stuffing to fill properly through the long arms. Once they were filled, I sewed and stuffed the torso, then down to the knees, and so on.














Then it was time to make her ballet dress (not quite a tutu). I went back to the tracing paper pattern and drew a dress pattern to fit the body. After it was cut out, I sewed the shoulder straps, placed them on the doll and sewed the rest of the dress together in place.


After the dress was complete, I winged my way through on the pointe shoes and hairdo (with ballet bun!), alternately cutting and sewing while checking the fit. For the embroidery on the hair, I used embroidery floss in red-brown.

I think she turned out beautifully! Now I just need to try it again and streamline my efforts. Since I worked on her over a few weeks, fitting in 30 mins here, an hour there, I have no idea how long the doll took to make total. I'll come back and give a time estimate later on.

Let me know if you try it out & post your results!

XO, Ms. Nylonthread