WIP Friday – Maminka doll

This is not such a great photo — I just couldn’t get a good one today as I left it too late and it’s quite overcast this afternoon — but you get the idea.

So, this is my WIP for today – a doll made from a pattern in this wonderful Japanese craft book.

It’s designed by the very talented Mitsuko from Maminka — which theoretically should look a little like one of these girls, but there is no way the pattern piece for the head will result in a face as round as these… instead it comes out looking a little squished. I am a little disappointed in how she is turning out as my doll making skills are a little rusty (see the puckered neck, the wonky eyes?) and I wasn’t as careful as I could have been with the stitching.

Never mind…

It is nice to make a doll from someone else’s pattern once in a while – I find it so much easier just to follow the directions rather than fiddle with pattern pieces of my own concoction which don’t always quite fit together in the way I imagined. It’s also good in terms of studying how someone else tackles the shape of an arm, the way a head fits on to the body or the proportions of the limbs to the torso etc. Unsurprisingly it isn’t quite as satisfying as visualising, designing and stitching a character all of your own but it’s a good exercise for someone who is feeling a bit out of touch with it all.