Sunday, October 19, 2014

Making Eyes for Rachael

Back to knitting dolls!  I've been smitten by a free doll pattern on Ravelry, by the very talented Deena Thomson-Menard.  The doll pattern is Lottie, and as mentioned, is freely available on Ravelry.  I started a KAL at We Make Dolls, but wanted to try out some tweaks to the pattern, so started a second doll, which is Rachael.

One of the things I was thinking about was eyes, and how to make them myself.  I had several packages of covered button forms, and made up two pair of eyes using them.  I like the way they turned out, and created a tutorial:

Covered Button Eyes

Mine were made with 7/8 inch buttons, but you can use any size you want.  All you'll neeed are the button forms, some scraps of white cotton fabric, acylic paints in white, black and iris color, and gloss or satin acrylic varnish.   These eyes would work for any doll or animal, in cloth, crochet, or knit.

As for Rachael, I used size 4 dpn's to knit her body, instead of the 7's called for in the pattern.  The yarn is Caron Simply Soft, which I do not like for crochet, but it knits wonderfully.  I wanted a smaller doll than the original, so I took out eight rows from the body, and will take eight rows out of her legs and arms (I think).

Enjoy your dollmaking day!

Rachael waiting for arms and legs :-)

6 comments:

  1. Muy interesante esa forma de hacer los ojos.

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  2. How very sweet. :) I love following your projects. You are so very talented.

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  3. Thank you, and gracias, Lois and Isabel :-)

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  4. Hey there, JOYce! Thanks for the good words; I really liked the way the eyes turned out. I want to find some smaller cover buttons...I can see a mighty army of dolls with these eyes :-)

    Waiting to see your latest creation. I KNOW you can do dpns. I tell you, they nearly drove me nuts the first time I tried to make a doll with them, but the beauty is that they construct a doll more like crochet, in three dimensions, instead of flat. Saves the seaming and you get a better picture of the doll as she becomes.

    Your kindly kindred spirit,

    Beth

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  5. My sentiments exactly about glueing felt eyes to a doll. And though I love the look that so many achieve with needle felting, I know that this is not a durable way to make eyes. Covered buttons finally just 'clicked' as a good alternative way to make eyes.

    I too buy clear acrylic eyes in bags of 100 :-) I'm going to try to find cover buttons in some different sizes, and if I don't, there is always Home Sew to buy them from online.

    Beware! Those zombie dolls looking for their eyes may haunt you this Halloween!

    My subscription to Crochet Today ended several months ago with issues of Molly Maikes. I was pretty disappointed as well :-(

    Warmly,

    Beth

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