My First Large Doll: The Story of a White Unicorn

Edit: Now with references since the commissionw as delivered.

For the past 2 1/2 years that I've been plushing, I have never made anything over 6.5 inches. I received a challenge this year from a commissioner to make something relatively to scale based on an image they gave me. I made two dolls and had wanted one to be 3x bigger than the other.

(I apologize for the poor background. This plush is larger than any setup I have for photographing it.)

For me, there are 3 main differences I faced when scaling up. They came up in :

• jointing
• eyes
• construction of the mane. 

Jointing:
One of the things I definitely struggled with was figuring out how to joint the doll. I worked with bolt joints for the first time and having never even used a wrench before it took some figure out. I picked a tapbolt with a nyloc nut, and I was frustrated for a couple of days trying to figure out why the limbs kept falling off, only to realize I have to break the nylon on the nut.

Eyes:
It was also the second time I worked with colored eyes, which always throws me off when looking at the face. Constructing the eyelid and white of the eye out of wool at such a size also threw me off.

Construction of the Mane:

The mane itself was an even bigger job than the ones on my small ponies (even though the small manes are all sewn by hand). For the mane, I machine sewed each strand, stuffed it, then hand sewed them onto the head as well as sewing the strands together for one continuous piece. I am very pleased to get results that match the reference I was given

To sew the strands together and attach them to the head took 7+ hours of hand sewing alone, not to mention the time it took to construct the strands.

Last but not least, I have attempted satin stitching on my machine to put together a tail, but I have yet to get the result I like despite using heavyweight interfacing. I know the results can be achieved without a walking foot, but I have yet to figure out how to get smooth stitches.

Overall, I am happy with my first attempt at a large doll and his mane sorta makes him look like a princely character to me. (I've been watching too much MLP) He'll look more complete with a tail and all the proportions will make sense then. Hopefully I will figure out a way to photograph him so that the photos will do him justice.

Until then,
Laine

Adventures with a Sewing Machine

Another cloudy weekend morning where I have to go into work. I have actually been more interested in working on this commission than crunching some data and struggling with the new assay we are using in our lab. My boyfriend got me this little machine. Having never machine sewed, I did things via trial and error. After 1/2 a spool of hand sewing thread, I figured out a couple things:
-I can't use hand sewing thread on a machine
-When bringing up the thread from the lower bobbin, I need to actually pull out the loop, not maintain it
-I can't get good tension with super thin fabric
-Although there are techniques for sewing round pieces without pinning, for a first time user, it's better to use pins

After a couple of hours figuring it out and finally getting the tension right, I started working on this unicorn. I have the head, legs, and body sewn. Now it's just waiting for ears, mane, horn, and eyes. I put my finished kitten next to it to show the scale. Both are private commissions.

Hopefully after my project due on the 6th, I'll have more time to work on dolls.