Irene

So last week I get this wild hair that I want to sew a soft sculpture doll.  The only ideas I had floating around in my head were 1.)  I wanted to use bright colors and 2.) I didn't want it to be realistic, I wanted it to be whimsical like Elinor Peace Bailey's style.

I looked through a ton of my mom's soft sculpture patterns, I looked in Barnes and Noble, I looked at Amazon.com for patterns.  I couldn't find anything that I liked.  Then I got this brilliant idea to search online for free patterns, I found two that were acceptable.  It finally occurred to me "Why don't I just make my own pattern?" OF COURSE!! and I decided to design my own mermaid doll.

Don't you just hate when you can't sleep at night because you have so many ideas running around in your head?  It happens to me a lot so one night I got up, sketched, drew and cut out my pattern.

Next fabric.  I wanted glitter/sequin type fabric for her tail so I went to the thrift store and found this little sequin dress that was perfect.  I bet the lady that wore this to her cocktail party didn't think it would become a mermaid tail!

Next I was just going to use muslin for the body but I wanted to make it more fantasy.  At JoAnn's I found this pink cotton fabric with tiny specks of glitter on it, perfect.

For the face.  In my mind I was going to use buttons but it just didn't give her the look I was going for so I decided to see if I could paint a face.

GO!!

I made her eyes brown because I love brown eyes (I have blue myself) but then when I did her eyelashes black I kind of got carried away.  So to balance it out I decided to make her lips black too, with a hint of pink to tone it down just a little.  Let's just call the pink swirls tattoos.  I am very pleased at the way this turned out:

Next the hair.  I was going to buy some of the curly synthetic type hair but I couldn't find any that I liked then I thought YARN!  I used a whole skein of Lion Brand Homespun #405 Parfait.  This is the back of Irene.  After I stitched her hair on I had to tie each strand at the bottom because it unravelled very easily.  The left side has been knotted:

Now she needs arms, boobs, a belly button and more tattoos:

Meet Irene, aptly named because I live in Portsmouth,VA where Hurricane Irene blew through yesterday.  While my husband, two boys and I were holed up in our house I worked on her all day.  My first ever soft sculpture doll.

She stands 27" tall.

AND I already have ideas for my next soft sculpture doll.
Two hints:
1. It's not going to be another mermaid but Irene will have a friend in the future and
2. A photo:

And yes this apron will be cut up.