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Finally, we found time and courage to work on this site! It was planned from the very beginning, but we somehow lacked the motivation to actually do it. But after we held our workshop at Bonenkai 2006, we know how to explain the single steps of making a doll. I'll do my very best to translate it into English - I hope I'll also succeed in this task. ^^; If there's something you don't understand (or that's simply wrong) or if you have a better translation, please feel free to write! It's such a very new part of the side, anyway, so if you have any problems with the description, please ask for help so that we can improve the page and make it easier to understand for everybody. Please mail to Kakeru@hotmail.de !
Furthermore, we'd like you to know that here are more pictures than it might appear. The links in [angled braces] lead you to even more pictues - photos, drawings and patterns, which should make the explanations a bit clearer. ^_^
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Patterns |
As you can see, we explain the single steps in the right order. You can read and follow them one by one, or you can use the links above to jump to a later step if one point seems useless to you.
We're still working on the instructions for the clothing, but they will be uploaded, too.
Since the size of patterns may change after you printed it, here we have a [square] with the side length of exactly one centimeter (0,4 inches), so you can see if and how the patterns have changed.
Please DO NOT sew the patterns for the arms, legs and body along the red line!
The pattern for the face is a rectangle with the size of 10 x 12 cm (3,9 x 4,7 inches)
This section was VERY hard to translate... if you have the proper translation for anything I had to describe, unable to find the right word, please give me some advices! If there's anything you don't understand, just write and you'll get a more detailed description or pictures...
All materials (except the tube from the pharmacy) should be found in any drapery or craft shop - just go there and ask. Most sellers are nice enough to help you. ^_^
Even if the cotton wool is more expensive, you need real wool to form the head. For the padding, you can also use the cotton wool.
If you want to make a doll with an unusual skin colour (like our Zelgadis), you'll have difficulties to find the skin in a craft shop. But don't worry - a normal T-Shirt is made from the same cloth. Okay, now you know it, Zel was once a blue T-Shirt. It's not easy to process this cloth with a sewing-machine, but fortunately you can easily make the whole doll by hand. ^^
The following instructions are for everyone who has never sewn before - or who doesn't know the backstitch yet (like us in the very beginning ^^;). Just take a piece of cloth that you don't need anymore and practice sewing on it with a yarn which has a different colour, so you can see your stitches easily.
If you already know the stitch, you can skip this step.
We prefer sewing with a double yarn. You can get the best length of thread easily if you hold the yarn between thumb and forefinger and lead the yarn around your elbow until you reach your hand again. This way, the yarn is not too short, so it doesn't runs out after just a few stitches, but it's not too long, either, and it doesn't knot all time.
Now place the needle in the middle of the yarn (so that the yarn has the same length to left and to the right of the needle) and make a knot at the end of the yarn. It's supposed to look [like that].
The advantage of the double yarn is that you have a safe knot at the beginning of the sewing, which should come loose, no matter what kind of cloth or what kind of yarn you use. To make the knot, stitch into the cloth at the very beginning of the sewing line and stitch out again a little further on the same line - but don't pull the whole yarn through the cloth, pull the needle through the loop which is formed by the double yarn between the knot at his end and its puncture in the cloth. (What's difficult to explain, is so often much easier to [draw]. ^^;)
Now pull the whole yarn through the cloth, tightening it. You can continue sewing without being afraid that seam will come loose again. ^_^
After some trial and error we found out that there's one stitch you can use on almost every part of the doll - the backstitch.
After the beginning knot, stitch the needle into cloth once again (approximately in the point where the stitch of the beginning knot ends) and pull it out again [a little further] on the sewing line (don't be irritated by the fixing pin on the photo - you can't see the true sewing needle, only the yarn ^^;). Then go [back] with the neelde to the point where the stitch of the beginning knot ends. Stitch it through the cloth and pull it out again, even further on the sewing line than before, just [like that].
Now keep on sewing - always stitch in with the needle exactly at the point where the last stitch has ended, then pull it out again a little further than you have sewn so far.
To finish with the sewing, stitch in and out of the cloth again (with a very little distance). Then pull the needle through the stitches, but don't tighten it yet. Pull the needle through the loop that you've just created with the yarn, then tighten it. It's a knot similar to the beginning knot, so you can be sure that the seam doesn't come loose at its end, either. ^^
Pay attention that the yarn is not to short to make such an ending knot! It's better to end and start again with new yarns in one sewing line a few times,
than to sew until the very end of the yarn, so that you are unable to finish the line with a knot.
If that happens anyway, don't panic! ^_^ Just cut the yarn, start again at this point and make some stitches back and forth with the new yarn, covering the end of the old yarn. It should be fixed like that, too. ^.~
The tricot cloth is often not saled as a simple rectangle, but... more like a cylinder - cloth that forms a circle, having only two ends, not three. ^^; Mainly, the right side of the cloth is outside, the beautiful side, which will be visible as the doll's skin. So don't forget to turn around the cloth to draw and sew on the left side.
Fold the cloth, so that you have two layers of the same size, with the left sides on the outside. Pin the layers together with some fixing pins. Now you only have to draw two legs, two arms and one body. Sew along the drawn lines with the backstich - thanks to the two layers of cloth, you will automatically get your feets and legs without having to draw them on both sides of the cloth. It's much easier like that. ^_^ Be careful! Do NOT sew along the straight line which is coloured red in our patterns!
By the way - although we sew on the left side here and you won't see that much of the yarn later on, you should use a yarn which has the same colour like the sink, because sometimes it will be visible, though.
Now just cut out the body parts with a small distance to the lines you've just sewn. Turn the to the left side through the hole where you didn't sew and fill the [legs and arms] with wool, cotton wool or another padding. Do not fill the [body] yet! It is said that stuffed animals should be filled until there's just no more space to press in more padding. We think that the doll looks a little too fat if you do so. Okay, it's perfect for SD dolls, but after all, that's a matter of personal taste. Just try out how many wool, cotton wool or whatever you want to press into your doll. ^_^
The body parts will be sewn together on the line that's still missing a little later, now we go on with the head and the face.
First of all, you have to cut about 30 cm (11,81 inches) off the tube. Stitch it up on one side - sew along the border in a circle, then pull on the yarn. Don't use the backstich here, just sew along, in and out again, don't sew back. This way, you can pull the yarn together more easily. The colour of the yarn doesn't matter here, you won't see it later on. We like to use a black colour here, because that makes a contrast to the white tube and you can easily see what you're doing. Now pull the tube inside out, so that the end where you've sewn is on the inside.
You should already prepare some thread right now (about 15 cm or 5,91 inches).
Congratulations! You've now reached the most annoying part of the whole doll making. Allright - first you take one or two stripes of the wool and lay them somewhere next to you.
Now take some more of the wool and press it together, forming a ball. It's somewhat like building a snowman - rolling the stuff together and always pressing hard. It's not easy to describe this work step, but we took some photos which might help you. Just click on them to see a bigger version:
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Our aim is to form a ball shaped head, which is pressed together as tight as possible. The circumference of the head is about 17 cm (6,69 inches). Look at the pictures of our finished dools or of those we're still working on, so that you can imagine the size it should get. ^^
When the ball - almost - has the right size, lay the one or two [stripes of wool] you've prepared around it (it's just one on the picture, if you have two, let the form a cross around the head). You need this wool stripes to have some wool below the throat line, too.
Press the head you've formed into the tube. Now [strangle] the doll... uhm, I mean, knot the thread below the doll's head as tight as possible, so that the doll gets a throat.
Now you can see why we're calling the almost untearable thread a "head thread". ^^; You have to take twice the optimal thread length (see above) - from your hand to the elbow and back to the hand, then once more to the elbow.
Now you've got to wind the head thread around the doll's head two times. By doing so, you will determine the eye's line. As a rule of thumb you can say: Wind the thread around the head a little bit below the middle of the head. Sounds strange, but you may not forget the hairs you will also have to sew to the head. If you set the eye's line a bit higher, the doll will look too old. If you want your doll to look especially childish (or, as you could say, SD-ish), set the eye's line even more below the middle, nearer to the doll's "chin".
After you found this line, pull the thread together tightly (there has to be a mark in the face - a real human being also has a clearly visible eye's line, right?) and make a thight knot. Keep in mind that the knot marks the spot where one of the doll's ear will be. Do NOT cut the thread yet!!
Now you can choose which side of the head will be the face - to the left or to the right of the knot. Then lead one end of the thread over the head to the ear on the other side, and lead the other end of the thread below the head on the side where you want to have the face, forming the doll's chin.
The two threads will meet on the the ear of the other side. Make a knot there. You can fix the ears by sewing the to head. Now you can cut off the rest of the thread.
This is how the whole thing's supposed to look like in the end (though the eye's line is set a bit too low on this example - you can see that there's still a lot of space between the line and the middle of the head): [Picture 1]; [Picture 2].
On this [drawing], you can see a better eye's line.
The doll's face is the only part of the doll that's sewn of tricot cloth, but that doesn't need two layers. Cut out a rectangle sized 10x12 cm (3,9 x 4,7 inches) and lay it over the doll's face. Take another piece of thread. [Fix] the rectangle with fixing pins and now strangle the doll again, so that a part of the rectangle is on the face and a part is below the throat and your thread. Be very careful, so that there are not too many wrinkles around the throat. Play around with the fixation pins and try to move the rectangle a little, or pull the cloth very tightly around the head, fixing it at its back. Don't worry - it is not impossible to get a doll without wrinkles, but it's awfully difficult. Yue has managed it once, but after ours of trying. Most of our dolls have some wrinkles above the throatline, but after sewing on the hairs and finishing the clothes, they don't bother that much. ^^ What's below the throatline doesn't matter at all, because it will be covered by a layer of skin later on.)
If it absolutely doesn't work, try if it's easier to make the next step, sewing on the rectangle. You can switch those two steps, but it might be an advantage if you can still move the rectangle, smoothing out some wrinkles.
Now sew on the face along its broder with the skin-coloured yarn. Don't worry if the skin doesn't cover the whole head - the doll will geht hairs which will cover the missing parts, anyway. ^_^
On [this photo], we have also sewn on the skin below the throatline, so that it doesn't bother later on. You can also cut off a little bit. By the way, the skin doesn't always look like that at the back of the head, so don't worry if there's more space between the skin parts. ^^
To stitch up the arms, sew around the border in a circle, just like you did with the tube. Don't use the backstich. When you're finished, tighten the skin-coloured yarn.
At the legs, you take the two layers of cloth and sew them together in a straight line - after all, the legs have to fit through the thin Seppuku lines at the belly. Be careful! It is very important that the legs have to be stitched up from left to right (or the other way), with the knees pointing forward. Just like you sew the legs now, they will ["come out of the belly"] later on.
Finally, it comes to the already mentioned Seppuku. If you've never heard that word before: Seppuku is the traditional honorable suicide of the Japanese Samurai, better known as Harakiri - but the latter is a very dishonorable term, so we prefer to use the not so familiar word. To commit Seppuku, a Samurai cuts his own belly open.
Okay, that's interesting, but what does it has to do with dolls?
To make a honorable doll, you even have to cut its belly twice. On the [pattern] for the doll's body, you can see the marks where the Seppuku has to be commited: 1,5 cm (0,59 inches) above the middle of the lower border, and then 1 cm (0,39 inches) to the left and to the right. The Seppuku lines are about 1,5 cm (0,59 inches). Of course, you only cut the belly, not the back - just one side of the body, which you want to choose as the front of the doll. By the way, you should draw the Seppuku lines on the [left side] of the cloth - the side, where you've also sewn together the body parts.
After you've drawn the lines and cut the (Once again: Only on the front, not in the back of the body!), you can turn the body to the right side. The put one leg through one of the slits, turn the body to left side again and sew on the leg on the inner side. Do the same thing with the second leg.
The [arms] are not sewn to the body instantly, but to the other part of the doll, below the throat line, where the shoulders will be created later. Keep in mind that the thumbs are pointing forward. It's a bit difficult to sew them on, but the whole thing doesn't have to be too tidy, as long as it's fixed.
Now we've come to the most beautiful part of the sewing. It might be a bit annoying while doing it, but the result is your deserved reward for all the efforts you had so far - you can finally put together the single pieces to a complete doll, so that's why the title of this part is "Birth of a doll". ^_^
Now [pull] the body of the doll over the thing that's below the doll's throat. If you want, you can fill more of the padding into the body, since the wool below the throat most likely won't be enough. Now [sew] the two layers of the body together along the soulders with a skin-coloured yarn. Sew around the arms, along the shoulders, the throat, until you've returned to where you've started.
The whole thing is much easier if you fix the cloth with fixing pins [like that].
[Happy Birthday!] ^__^
You can paint the face with T-Shirt marker... or simply with Copics. ^_^ It's best to draw the face with a pencil. The most important thing is that the eyes actually are drawn on the eye's line. Everything else is up to you! ^^
If you want to see some example, please take a look at our finished dolls and the working-section. ^.^
There are two possibilities of making the doll's hair.
That's how the hairs for Caine or Muraki and Tsuzuki were made (and Tsuzuki's hairs are still too long... we should finally cut them. ^^;) Just go to the craft shop and ask for doll's hair - you'll get a rectangle full with hair. Cut off some parts and sew them on the doll's head with a yarn of the same colour.
If you try to sew the hairs to the head in just one big piece, it won't turn out good, because the "hair cloth" can't adjust to the doll's head that easy. It's better to cut out at least three or four pieces and sew them onto the head one after the other, beginning with the big parts, ending with the details (like small missing pieces, more hair in the neck for extra length, bangs...). Sadly, we have no better advise to you than just have some patience and try!
Here's a [photo] of an intermediate step.
Finally, cut the hairs in the desired length and then comb - for example with a Barbie comb. ^^;
These hairs look more realistic, but they have the disadvantage that they can't be too long. Furthermore, we've only seen them in rather natural haircolours. If you want your doll's hair to be very long or... blue hair, for example, you should take a look at the second alternative.
We made the hair of Hijikata, Zelgadis or the feathers on the cheek of the Gushô-Shin like that.
You need a beautiful thread (which is originally used for crochet or knitting, the optimal thread is called "Spaltgarn" in German) in the colour of your choice and a crochet hook or a thick sewing needle. If you use the latter, you better get a thimble, too.
Now take a thread which has twice the desired length. Pull it through the scalp and make a knot in the middle. It's better to make the hairs a bit longer than you want it first, you can still cut the desired hairstyle later.
Here's another [intermediate step].
It's easier to pull the threads to the parts of the head where's only the tube, but it's not that difficult to pull it through the skin cloth, either. Start making the parting (with two lines of hairs right next to each other), then make another line a little below that. You won't have to cover every little bit of the head with hairs, just make sure that you can cover the whole scalp with hair. If you can crochet, you might be interested to hear that we crocheted a kind of "cap" for Zelgadis which covered exactly those parts of the head where the hairs were meant to be. First, the cap was sewn to the head, then the hairs were fixed. This way, it was a bit easier to put in the hair and it was made sure that no scalp could be seen. But Hijikata is a good example that you can also cover the whole head without making a cap.
Okay, let's be honest - you need lots of thread for this method, and it takes even more time. In fact, the whole thing is terribly annoying. But it has the great advantage that you can choose any kind of hair colour and length - and you can even make such unusual hairstyles like Zelgadis'. ^^