Doll: Part 5 of however many it takes to finish her

Now that my hands are cramped, my fingers are bleeding, and my eyes are permanently crossed, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

I thought about how to finish the beading for hours upon hours. But, as usually happens, I didn't come up with anything until I got started. Sometimes you just have to DO. Thinking, planning, talking about it... it all means nothing until you actually begin. So, let's jump in head first (excuse the pun).

 I have no idea what kind of beading thread I'm using. I know that's horrible, but we've got 3 kids, a dog, a cat, 5 chickens, hundreds of fish, and a mortgage. Beading thread is not high on my list of things to research. If you're interested, however, there are a lot of choices out there for you to pick from, and I'm sure you can find help at your local beading supply shop.

This particular thread is actually comprised of lots of little ends and from time to time the end becomes frayed and is difficult to thread onto the needle (I may need to count how many times I've used "thread" in this post!). There are ways around that. You can, for example, snip the tatty end off the thread, but that won't necessarily fix the problem as now you have a new tatty end. You can by a block of bees wax to run your thread through. That is very effective, but it can overly stiffen some types of thread, and you could live in an area like me that when you go into your local craft shop and ask for a block of bees wax they look at you as though you've just started speaking Aramaic. My solution? Chap stick. Put on some chap stick, run the frayed end of the thread through your lips, and voila! Plus, your lips will be healthy and nourished.

So here are some progress shots of the bead work. I'm not sure how many beads are there. I worked in counts of 25 and 10s (some have 30, some have 50, some have 25). The trick is to eyeball what looks right, but have a good enough count that you can replicate it on the other side. 

 I decided I wanted something that looked like beaded drapey sleeves. I think I saw something similar in the Chicago movie.

 This isn't at all what I pictured!

But it works.

 The finished product of the bead work. I could do more. Oh yes. I could create a mat of beads to cover every inch of her! But, there is such a thing as too much. It's the same concept as when I chose her eyes, I don't want to detract from the overall design, but rather enhance it.

I sound so artsy. Do me a favor. Read that last sentence with a fake British accent. You know the one. Like when you go into a gallery and everything they're selling is crap but they're charging millions for it. Read the sentence the way the employees of that gallery talk.

 Ahh...totally lost where I was taking that for a second.

Moving on to hair!

I don't really like doing hair. It's painful. But here are my 3 tools for the job. A thimble, a pokey thing Steve made, and a modified needle.

That's the end of the needle where the eye (the hole you put thread through) usually is. The end popped off when I was trying to work out the logistics of hair with my last doll, Samantha.

So pretty.

Anyway, it's exactly what I need to put the hair into the head. Also, it's a darning needle, so the point isn't really so much of a point as a rounded blunt end.

Still puts a hole in your thumb through a leather thimble when pushing through a plastic doll's head. I found that out the hard way with Samantha. So this time, I'm using a metal thimble, and I urge you to do the same! Learn from my mistakes people!

So this is the yarn I'll be using for hair. Confession: this whole doll revolves around this hair. I saw it in my drawer while I was working on Samantha, and thought it would be awesome hair. Just not for Samantha.

To measure the hair, hold one end of the yarn where you'll be pushing it in. Measure how long you want the hair to be. Add a couple inches- remember, you can cut it later if it's too long, but if it's too short you're kind of up the creek, if you know what I mean. No? Too bad, keep going.

Now, double that length of thread and cut. Find the middle of the thread, push onto your modified needle, and hold tightly enough that it doesn't just flop out again. With your nifty sharp pokey thing, or ice pick, Make a hole big enough to push the yarn through. It should be pretty tight, which is why you have the thimble. The tightness is what holds the yarn in!

Now, I've discovered that the act of pushing the pokey thing in, has rendered the step of gluing the head together completely useless. I'll figure something else out eventually. That's one of the joys of crafting. Coming up with creative solutions to problems you had no idea you'd run into. Ever. Trust me. Enjoy it. If you don't, you won't enjoy crafting. It's a huge part of the process.

Remember how I marked where the zig zag was going to be on her head? Of course you do. I'm following those lines to begin with, mainly because it gives me a starting point. Sometimes starting is the hardest part, but you've got to do it sometime.

I'm also being quite sparse with her hair. I've only got one skein of this yarn, and since I bought it a few years ago, I can't get anymore. And I've learned that means that if I go all out now, I'll run out of hair part way through. This way I probably won't, just because that's the way it seems to go. But if I do, it'll will be easier to add another color and make it look like that's what I meant to do all along!

So this is where she's up to. I'm going to keep going with her hair, and hopefully she's almost done.

I tried to count how many times I used "thread," but got bored. If you count up how many times "thread" appears, I may be able to send you a goody of some sort. I'll try to work that out.