I just LOVE Hillary Lang's book Wee Wonderfuls. I forget how I found out about it, but luckily my local library had a copy. So many cute dolls/toys to make. The big question was, where to start!
I heard from my sister-in-law that my niece has just gotten old enough to be interested in playing with dolls, so I figured the Margot Topsy Turvy doll would be just perfect for her.
It took me quite a while to get this one started, and I ended up cutting it close (I spent 3 hours finishing the doll on Christmas Eve!), but it was definitely worth it.
I have fond memories of having a doll like this from my childhood. The one I had was Little Red Riding Hood on one side and the Wolf dressed as Grandmother on the other.
I thought having a holiday theme for this doll would be nice, so I picked all fabrics that were festive.
The hardest part by far was sewing on the hair. My fingers were sore afterward. I luckily did a bit of surfing the web to see what others may have said about making this doll and found first that there were errata to the book pattern that I needed to download. I then also found a comment that, when sewing on the hair, to be sure to have the yarn exit the head at the seam and enter the head in the middle (either at the part or where the bangs hit the forehead - I can no longer find the original comment). I tried one strip of yarn the other way and it does indeed distort the shape of the head more. I found in doing it the "correct" way, that any strangeness with the shape of the head can be nicely corrected.
I found myself using a ladder stitch to sew a lot together rather than using a whipstitch. And I decided to sew on the collar of the dressed-up doll to leave it floppy (and I tacked it down in two places to prevent it from flapping up, but this way it looks like a real collar).
You may also notice that, instead of sewing the sleeves to the body of the doll, I decided to hand topstitch them so they looked like real sleeves. I'm happy with that decision.
If I had it to do again, I think I would do the hair a bit differently. When doing the back of the head, I would bring the yarn up on the other side of the seam so the seam is hidden underneath. I think then, when you do the bangs, you wouldn't have to do as many (or any, for that matter) filling stitches. If anyone tries that, please let me know how it works out.
