Make, Create and Grow

My daughter fell in love with some soft toys of Jemimah and Humpty Dumpty (from Playschool) at our local library. Unfortunately, she was unable to touch them or play with them, which inspired me to make her own. It seemed like a fun project, and simple enough to figure out how to make by breaking down the elements. As always, the devil is in the detail, so lots of lessons along the way and new skills acquired!

Humpty Dumpty

Humpty was the favourite, and he seemed easier, so he was first. I drew a pattern myself by hand and guessed a lot. The result is a disproportionate Humpty, with legs too short, arms too skinny, face too low, and more rectangular shaped than egg. Nevertheless, he is very well loved. Ruby’s favourite part of Humpty was his nose, so I did make it quite large on purpose! I choose a polar fleece scrap for his nose to make it extra soft and fluffy too.

He’s made from calico, with felt details for mouth, spots and eyes – all stitched down well. Ruby has loved trying hard to pull off each red spot and his eyes. So far they have held on! White and green fabric make his collar, and red ribbon for his bow. I just used brown wool for his hair.

His hair stumped me on how to attach it. I watched a few videos of different techniques, but still didn’t know which way to go. In the end, I stitched rows of wool along a piece of felt that I then hand stitched on. The hair is pulling out in some sections, I think I will need to redo this in the near future.

Jemimah

Jemimah was the next project. I almost don’t want to share this one, or at least, feel like I should make a better one and show the differences. Again, Ruby doesn’t seem to mind she’s ‘rustic’ and loves her so I think I’ll just move onto the thousand other projects I have on my list for now!

I bought a book at a sewing market recently on making dolls and bears and just made the ragdoll, but used Jemimah’s face and hair. This ragdoll body is much more detailed than Jemimah, and in hindsight, drawing my own pattern probably would’ve been easier. I have also found, since making her, a pattern for her, just a little too late! Here’s the link though in case anyone is interested and wants to go straight to the source. It also includes patterns from some clothes for her, super handy. https://mmaker.weebly.com/projects/jemima

How to attach her hair really stumped me again. Some methods I watched seemed way too involved; I didn’t want to sew each individual strand of wool hair on! I settled on a technique that used lots of lengths of wool sewn down the middle onto a piece of tape, then handstitched on. The first lot I did, the hair seemed just a touch too short, and it’s hard to get the piggy tails in, so I redid the hair.  

Her face isn’t right, but she looks enough like Jemimah that Ruby recognises her and loves her, so that’s a win!

My hand sewing skills are very poor to say the least! Attaching the head, arms and legs has taken a few goes, and is very messy. I definitely need to watch some videos on techniques and have a little more practice.

I chose to dress Jemimah in the overalls, her outfit from the 90’s Playschool episodes. It’s nostalgic for me and sets her apart from the current Jemimah dolls in the blue dress and stripy tights. They’re also super cute! I used the pattern from the link above for the overalls, but had to adjust the pants size and shape to fit the doll body I used. The shirt is from the above pattern too. I used some scrap cotton jersey I had with vegetables on it. The shoes are black felt. I just used the bottom of the pattern for the legs of the doll and used slightly narrower seams.

I’m glad to have these done, I procrastinated with Jemimah for a long time and got sick of her sitting half finished on my desk. She isn’t finished as well as I would’ve liked, but she’s done and I can finally move onto to something else. I have habit of getting halfway through a project, getting bored, or to a difficult point, and just starting something else fun and not finishing the previous project. I’m trying hard to make myself finish things before moving onto something else. I have too many things sitting around that need a zip or buttons and hemming but I just haven’t ever gotten around to it! I think it’s time to clear my half finished project pile!