Art of ZAN: Waldorf baby doll

I have been wanting to try my hand at a Waldorf doll for ages, so I brought all the material and stuffing online at, http://www.winterwoodtoys.com/. It sat unused for many weeks, while I researched and goggled many Waldorf doll patterns and instructions and pinned so many :) I wanted a free pattern to use.

I found ** Guerilla Fluff Holiday Sew-a-Long!!*** on YouTube and watched and watched and finally I was ready to tackle my baby. I down loaded free patterns from,http://ohjuniper.com/2013/10/01/free-15-inch-waldorf-baby-doll-pattern/, that is the one Guerilla Fluff is using, but I wanted a movable joint pattern so I down loaded from http://doingwithout.livejournal.com/41229.html and http://www.lapappadolce.net/waldorf-doll-patterns/?lang=en. What pattern I used I have no idea because I think I got the two mixed up, but in the end it didn't matter.

My head at the beginning, I needle felted the nose on and added a bit more stuffing in the cheek area.

all stitched up with a nice stiff neck, although it was floppy at first, I found by pushing the excess stuffing up into the head area that it firmed up really well before I wrapped it up.

Doll skin on and pins in place.

Yes! it is coming together

I used big buttons for the joints and much poking and pulling to anchor them.

I did not have a long dolls needle so I used my longest needle, it worked for the joints but not very well for the stitching on the face, the eye was to wide and was leaving nasty holes in my babie's face :(.

So I used a normal needle with skin coloured cotton to sculpt the face and then embroidery cotton to colour it in. I could not go to the back of the head to hide the knots so I went near the ear line thinking I could hide it with hair after.

I ended up making ears for it, so it all worked out well.

Yeah! A naked bald baby

I made hair from yarn but I was not happy with the look.So since it was my prototype doll I decided to needle felt the hair, it was only going to sit in my craft room and not be played with so needle felt hair would do the trick.