What a clothespeg can do

My growing family of Clothespeg dolls needed a place to live, and some furniture!  The room box is a wine crate that I purchased from this Etsy seller:

The Crate People

The crate was advertised as 13" x 11" by 8" deep.  It actually measured 7" deep, but still works fine.   They have a tremendous selection of crates.  The one I bought is actually nicely finished inside; not rough at all.  It could be painted or stained, or simply sealed with varnish (not a bad idea).

But of course, a roombox needs furniture, and all of the furniture in this box was made with clothespegs and wooden plaques.  If you cannot find plaques the right size, balsa or basswood sheets are very easy to cut and readily available at your local craft store.

The Bed:

The bed was made with a single plaque 6 inches long and 2 1/2 inches wide; four flat clothespegs, and  four popsicle sticks.

Cut one leg off of each flat clothespeg, and make sure the distance from the head of the peg to the point you cut off is the same distance on each peg, and nice and flat.  The plaque will rest on this 'ledge' , and the remaining leg of the peg will be the posters for a nice, four poster bed.

Use the popsicle sticks to make the headboard (three sticks cut to size) and the footboard (one stick cut to size).  Glue the plaque to the clothespegs, let dry, then glue the popsicle sticks to the head posters and the foot posters.  After all is dry, stain or paint your bed, then antique it if you like with antiquing medium, or make a very light wash with burnt umber paint and a lot of water (thank you for this tip, Jenny!)

The mattress is a piece of Warm&Natural cotton batting, folded in thirds and sewn together on the back side, then quilted with French knots.

The Table:

The table is made with the same size plaque as was used for the bed, two spring clip clothespins, and four popsicle sticks.

Separate the spring clips so you have four table legs.  For a Hitty size table (good for dolls 5 to 6 1/2 inches tall) cut 1/2 inch off of the slender end of the table legs; make sure your four legs are the same length.  This also makes gluing the legs to the table supports more stable.

Cut two of the popsicle sticks so the are about 1/4" from each short edge of the table top (about 2" long), and glue two legs to each of these.  After these assemblies are dry, glue them to the short ends of the table top, then glue the long popsicle stick to the table leg and the bottom of the table on either side.  Let this sit upside down until dry.

Paint or stain your table, then antique or not.

The Chairs:

Each chair is made with four flat clothespegs, one 2" by 3" plaque, cut in half (one plaque will make two chair seats), and one popsicle stick.

Cut both legs off of two of the clothespegs for the front legs, and one leg off of the other two pegs for the back legs and the back vertical supports.  Cut the plaque in half so that you have two seats that are 2" x 1/1/2 ";  glue the front legs to the bottom of the chair seat.  Let this dry a bit, then glue the plaque into the back legs, letting the 'ledge' created when you cut off one leg hold the back of the seat.

Let this dry, then cut one popsicle stick to make two slats for the back of the chair and glue in place to the back of the vertical supports.   This chair could be made into a bench with a longer seat; it could also have an upholstered seat by putting a bit of batting on the seat then pulling fabric around this and gluing to the underside of the chair seat.

Paint or stain as desired, and antique or not.  You now have a full suite of furniture for your doll.

Occasional tables can be made with wood bobbins and wood scraps; a pegboard could be made with a popsicle stick and a 3/16" dowel rod.   Cut the dowel into 3/8" lengths and glue into holes drilled in the popsicle stick.

The wall quilt and the bed quilts are from some Gail Wilson projects I did several years ago.  The tea set on the table is a set of charms from Michael's, but I had to borrow a tea pot :-)  The rug was made by a dear friend several years ago, and the jug, basin, and chamber pot are bits of pottery I had about.

I plan to add a peg rack for hanging clothes, and maybe a tiny cross stitch sampler.  But for now, Ruby PegHitty and Daisy PegHitty are quite happy to take tea :-)

A couple of other Peg's found a place to explore in my fairy garden...

Ivy Peg (in the ivy dress), and Lily Peg, with the bunny, spending time in the fairy garden;  I hope you enjoy the day as much as they are :-)

Many Clothespeg Friends

This last week I've spent making five sweet dolls from clothespegs.  The basic instructions for this doll are here:

How Penny is made

And you can make a doll exactly like this, which is what I did with the first one I made...Nettie Peg Hitty.

With a carving knife, and a little time, I modified my next dolls to have more slender ankles and wrists, and more rounded shoulders and hips.

From the left, body peg, arm peg, leg peg, doll parts

I removed some material from the neck area and the hip area of the body peg; whittled away some of the area around the wrist peg and rounded the top of the shoulder, and did the same with the ankle and hip of the leg peg.

After this, the parts were well sanded with 320 grit sandpaper.  Here's a tip...apply duck tape to the back of the sanding paper; it will last a LOT longer!  A nice guy at Michael's gave me this tip :-)

Painting the face is always a challenge for me.  I resort to toothpicks as much as possible, though the eyebrow and top of the eye really need to be done with a very, very fine brush.  Below are the steps I use to draw, and then paint, the face:

To draw a face on the bead, start with a sharp pencil, like a mechanical pencil.  Place two dots where you want the eyes to be.  I like my faces to occupy the lower half of the head, so I placed my two dots just about the mid point of the bead.

Draw two U shapes under the dots, then an arching line over the U.  Place the eyebrows over the eyes, then place a dot where you want the mouth to be, and finally, two very tiny points for the nose.  Now you have the face drawn on your bead.

The first thing to paint is the eye color.  For this, take a round toothpick and snip the end off of it, as you can see in the first two pictures above.  Dip the tip into your eye color paint, then carefully dab the paint color into the entire area of the U shape of the eye (these dolls don't have eye whites...just my preference).

Next, use a new toothpick,  cut the end off of it, and dip it into your mouth color, load a little more paint onto this pick, then place a dot of paint where you marked for the mouth.  You can leave it just like this, which gives a sort of astonished or quizzical look to your doll, or you can take the sharp tip of another toothpick and pull the paint at the side, which is what I did to make the mouth above.  You can pull the paint up slightly, to give a grin, or down slightly, to make her more pensive.

With a new toothpick, dip very lightly into brown paint and dot the two points for the nostrils.

And finally, take your very fine brush (and in my case, my courage) and dip it very, very lightly into black paint and paint the curve of the top of the eye, and the eyebrow.

After the eye color has dried (and make sure it is dry...acrylics take about an hour), with another toothpick, dip the tip into black paint and paint in the pupil, leaving the eye color surrounding the side and bottom. 

Blush the dolls cheeks by putting a bit of blush color paint on a paper towel.  Dip a dry brush into the paint just at the tip, then scrub this on the paper towel until the brush has very little paint on it.  Rub this round the cheeks until you have them blushed to your satisfaction.  If you need more paint,  just dip the brush in and scrub most of it off on the paper towel.

After the pupil paint has dried, add the eye light with white paint and the tip of another toothpick.  And now you're done!

I carved and sanded and painted my dolls over the course of a week.  The last doll I made, which is Hitty size, I decided try some antiquing medium.  To apply, make sure all of the paint on the parts is very dry.  Leave them for 24 hours before applying the medium.  Use a brush barely loaded with the medium, and brush it all over one part, then wipe the medium off.  It leaves a patina on the doll parts that make them look older and somewhat used.  I was afraid of using too much, so it may be hard to tell from the pictures:

Both of these dolls were painted with identical flesh paint and white socks.   The one on the left was antiqued, the one on the right was not.  You can see the effect best on the sock in the middle picture.

And finally, a comparison between the first Peg Hitty I made, and the last one, which was finished up this morning:

The doll on the left in the large image is the latest doll, the one on the right the first one I made.  You can see that the neck area is more slender, as are the ankles.  The shoulders and hips are more rounded, and the inside arm area has the clothespeg whittled down a bit more.

In the images the side, the right hand doll is the more recent one; these are closer pictures of the shoulders, wrists, and ankles.

Now, all they need is some hair!

Sidetracked!

So there I was, busily working on my next crochet doll, when I received a sweet note asking if one of my patterns could be used by a Hitty group for a challenge.  But of course!  I love it when people use my patterns as a jumping off place for their own imagination.  I was also kindly asked if I would like to join the group :-)

So I did.  Then I began a deep dive into Pinterest images of Hitty and other wooden pegged dolls.  I made two Gail Wilson Hitty's several years ago...

But I wanted to make a wooden one.   I am no carver; I'd probably slice off my arm trying to carve one, but then I remembered this delightful tutorial that Joyce sent me a link to:

How Penny is Made

So these are the instructions I used to make my Clothespeg Hitty :-)  She is more slender than the Gail Wilson dolls

So she had to have her own patterns for undies and such.

But I had such a good time making her.  It has been ages since I have painted a doll; discovered that my matte varnish had turned into a lump :-(  Still, she is painted and now dressed in a camisole and pantaloon, and I have a friend for her in the works.  If I make her just a we bit smaller (five inches instead of six), she will fit perfectly into a Celestial Seasonings Tea Box Trunk :-)

I know she isn't really a Hitty, but she works for me; satisfying my love of making dolls, and making them my own.  Thank you, Becky, for a great dollmaking tutorial, and for sharing it with all of us.


Update 7/11/2016:

I now have the pattern for Clothespeg Hitty's underwear and her wig.  These items will fit this slender doll, but may need to be adjusted for other Hitty's.  The wig fits a 1 inch diameter wooden bead.

Clothespeg Hitty Undies

Clothespeg Hitty Wig

Helene's Wardrobe and Fox Box

Helene, and Fox, from the book Jane, The Fox, And Me

Based on the lovely illustrations from the book Jane, the Fox, and Me, I decided to make Helene a wardrobe.  When we first meet Helene, she is in school, and her basic school outfit is a long sleeve pullover and leggings:

Helene's knit pullover and leggings

And she also carries her school supplies in her backpack:

Helene's Backpack

It is winter, and Helene wears a knit jacket,  cap and scarf to keep warm:

Helene's cap and scarf

Helene's knit jacket

Before her friends became her tormentors, they all dreamed of having vintage crinoline dresses, and Helene's mother makes her one.   But, it isn't vintage, and it has become last year's dream.

Helene's crinoline dress

At camp, Helene wears shorts and a tee shirt and sneakers.   These outfits are made from some basic patterns for Yun Shu

Wardrobe basics for Yun Shu

Some items from Wardrobe Basics for Yun Shu

Put it all together in her Fox Box, with a cross stitched fox banner, peg rack of shank buttons and grossgrain ribbon, a flower garden afghan, and a chest made from a tea box and cardstock.  

I used three free crochet squares from Ravelry for the afghan, and some freely available printables from Pinterest to cover the tea box chest.  Shank buttons made great pegs for the peg rack, sewn onto a length of grossgrain ribbon, which was then glued to the back of the box.

All the patterns should fit Yun Shu, with the exception of the shoes.  I altered Yun Shu so that she has very tiny feet, and this is what the shoes fit.  Otherwise, any very slim bodied eight inch doll should be able to wear these outfits.

Enjoy the crochet!