The making of Baby Mira

I've had a few Facebook friends ask about how I made R's birthday doll, plus I used a ton of blog posts on doll making myself, so I decided to write a little more about Baby Mira. But first, here are her glamour shots!

For anyone who is considering making his or her own Waldorf doll, following are some of the details of her construction. I apologize for not having taken photos along the way! If/when I make another, I promise I will add pics.

Materials

• Wool stuffing: Typically people buy wool stuffing from somewhere like Weir crafts or an Etsy shop, but I actually just bought a 100% wool sweater from Goodwill and unraveled it. I got the idea from these two blog posts, which I'll reference a bunch below!
• http://farmishmomma.com/?p=348 
• http://doingwithout.livejournal.com/30295.html
• Strong twine: You can buy this from a craft store too, but I happened to have some lying around because my mom uses it to wrap Christmas presents. It wasn't very good quality (scratchy and straw-like), but since it goes inside the skin fabric, you can't really tell
• Yarn for hair: I got this from JP Knit & Stitch, which was great because it meant that R could come with me and pick it out (she knows I'm making her a doll, but she hasn't seen it yet). I really love the color she picked-- turquoise, green, and purple are my three favorites! Maybe she picked up on my reaction to that, but what are ya gonna do ;-)
• Embroidery thread for face: I wish I'd picked a subtler color for the mouth (more of a pink than red), but I didn't want to redo it. R picked the eye color.
• Skin fabric: This I ordered on Etsy (I got dark tan). The first blog I listed above describes how you can buy your own and the second suggests using sweatshirt material, but this was something I didn't want to screw up because it's pretty obvious. Plus it's probably harder to dye your own if you want a darker skin tone, which I thought would look better with the yarn R picked for the hair. Technically you only need a 1/2 yard of this fabric, but I wound up having to buy another 1/2 yard because I messed up often enough to warrant redoing the body/head skin a couple times. If you're making your own pattern, I recommend a whole yard.
• Good quality cotton thread to match the skin color (I bought locally)
• Crochet thread to match the skin color, if you want to do bellybutton/bum. Regular thread won't be strong enough because you really have to tug it. Unfortunately I bought a really thin type of crochet thread online because it was cheap-- I didn't know they come in different thicknesses. It did break a few times, so I hope it holds up to use!
• Sewing machine with ballpoint needle (because you're dealing with stretchy fabric and it apparently helps) and needles for hand sewing: You don't NEED a machine, but holy cow this would have taken forever without. I take that back... I really think you do need a machine. There's no way I could sew strong enough seams by hand for a two-year-old's doll. I recently purchased a refurbished Brother CS6000i online and it's great. Not finicky, easy to use, not overly flashy (although there are some stitches on there that I'm sure I'll never use), and best of all, affordable!
• Doll sculpting needles: You will definitely need these. You need at least one 5" needle and one or two 3" needles will be handy too. These are used for sculpting and embroidering the face.

To make the head, I followed the instructions from the Doing Without blog listed above. This involved unraveling some of the sweater (I used the arms first, knowing I would need strips of the body later) and winding it into a ball, then using the twine to shape the head. I also wrapped a large square of unraveled sweater around the ball, which made it a tad more supple so that I could shape it better. I may have wound it too tight. The other advantage of wrapping the unraveled sweater around it was that it gave me a bit of a "neck" stem, which I then wrapped with some cotton ribbon I had lying around (I have no idea where I got it!). Anyway, that made the stem a little stiffer so the doll's head isn't wobbly. It's basically the same thing the Farmish Momma (first blog listed above) did with the cheesecloth. 

I did the skin around the head the same way the Doing Without blog describes, which resulted in some not-so-attractive hand-stitched seems on the back of the head. Most of it is covered with hair now, but I will probably try to come up with a closer pattern and sew it more carefully next time.

The eyes... ohhhhh the eyes. I had to sew each one probably 4 times and ultimately redo the head skin because the fabric had so many holes from redo's. It is SO HARD to get them symmetrical!! I used several youtube tutorials as guides, but ultimately, I think it's just one of these things that gets easier with practice. I actually recommend trying it on some scrap fabric first. You have to count the ribs on the skin fabric as you go to try to get them the same width and everything... but it doesn't always work out because it stretches and so forth. Luckily, the mouth was much easier! Tip: If you come in and out from the top of the head rather than the back (with your 5" needle), the doll will have a slight smile!

The body pattern: This is where I went a little over the top. Originally I was going to use the pattern from the Doing Without blog, which maybe would have been a good idea. But I really wanted to get the type of bum that Fig & Me makes on her dolls because they are SO cute! I also like how they have actual knee caps, feet and such. The only way to get all that is to make the legs separately from the body and to actually sew the two leg pieces (and arm pieces) together vertically instead of horizontally (meaning the seams meet at the elbows and knees instead of the sides of the arms/legs. Hopefully that makes sense to people without a visual! 

I will now *attempt* to describe how I came up with my pattern!

First, I found my American Girl Doll (yup, I kept it from my childhood!) incredibly helpful with this process. I like her general dimensions and I realized later that it will also be super helpful when I make clothes, because there are a TON of American Girl doll clothes tutorials on the interwebs. Also she has contoured arms and legs, which achieved the knee caps, elbows, etc. I wanted. The tricky thing was that I still needed to create a seam allowance and also account for the fact that the fabric is stretchy. So I used a flexible measuring tape and did my best to add about 0.5 in around each piece for the seam allowance. I also extended the arms and legs a bit, knowing that I would need to sew them into the body panels. I wish I had given them each an extra 2 or 3 inches-- trying to pin them on with only an extra inch was a pretty finicky process.

For the actual body shape, I again used Samantha the American Girl as a guide, but I made the back panel slightly longer than the front. This was so I could add some seat darts on her bum to make it more like the Fig & Me dolls. The seat darts give the bum a rounder shape and allow the doll to sit upright without something behind her, making it less of a rag doll. I actually found this stuffie dart tutorial helpful for this. I had to redo the body panel once because I wasn't happy with the location of the darts.

Once I had the body pattern roughly sketched out, this blog (download the free ebook and skip to page 136) came in handy to make sure she was going to be somewhat proportional. Here is the order of the body assembly: 

1. Sew the two arm pieces together, right sides together, leaving the top (by the shoulder) open for turning and stuffing. Same goes for the legs, but if you're doing feet, leave the bottom of the foot part open too, so you can sew the sole of the foot on after the sides (but before turning right side out). This was a little awkward on the machine, but it came out okay.
2. Stuff the arms and legs: I used the process described by the Doing Without blog. It gives you the ability to bend the arms/legs at the elbows/knees a bit, which is nice. I stuffed the hands and feet first with some unwound sweater bits and also added a little bit to the knees and elbows to give them more shape. Make sure you leave the couple inches at the top open so you have something to sew to the body.
3. Sew the back body panel seat darts. You kind of have to hold the fabric up as though the doll is sitting to guess where to put them. I sewed and clipped one of the darts, then folded the panel in half lengthwise to estimate a similarly placed/sized one on the other side so they were somewhat symmetrical. Like I said, I had to redo it on another piece of fabric to get the placement right, so don't be too hard on yourself!
4. Sew the back and front body panels together, right sides together. Only sew the sides from where you estimate the bottom of the armpit will be and leave the bottom, where the legs will go, open. You will also sew the top edge from where the neck will start down to where the shoulder (where you'll insert the arms) will start. This will leave the neck whole open, where you'll insert the head stem.
5. Once you've turned the body right side out, insert the head stem and sew around the neck, using a ladder stitch. Make sure you turn the fabric in, the way you would do if you were hemming something, around the neck of the body panel so no rough edges stick out. 
6. Next, start stuffing the body (I used unraveled sweater bits) around the neck, filling out the shoulders a bit, so you can get a better idea of how to position the arms. Some doll makers, such as Bamboletta dolls, sew the arms so the doll looks like it's going to hug you. I chose the more natural positioning of Fig & Me, making the arms hang gently at the sides. I pinned and ladder stitched around one arm at a time (after inserting the arm all the way into the shoulder hole and turning the body panel fabric edges in), going around twice to make them more secure. I had to redo one of them because it was turned slightly differently than the other.
7. Finish stuffing the body, making sure you fill out the shoulders and neck area fully. Leave about 0.5-1 inch at the bottom un-stuffed for inserting the legs into the body. Turn the body panel edges in at the bottom and ladder stitch the legs to the body. You will also have to ladder stitch the crotch between the legs. Next time I may attach the legs with the whole body panel turned inside out, before stuffing the body and sewing the neck, etc. I think it would be too bulky to do on the machine, but at least then you can do a really solid hand-sewn stitch ahead of time. It was tricky trying to pin the legs once everything was stuffed.
8. Bellybutton and butt crack (and vulva!): I used this tutorial for the bellybutton. You can just do it the way you sculpt a nose, but I liked the spiral effect! If you sew it on the way she describes, you can use your 3-5" doll needle to then come out and where the top of the bum would be and back in between the legs, pulling really tight, and tying off as close to the bottom of the bellybutton as you can get, creating a butt crack :-) I chose to go in the bellybutton, out the upper part of the bum, back in between the legs but on the back side of the crotch seam, back out between the legs but on the front of the crotch seam, and then in another inch above that, tying off under the bellybutton. Basically this created a bum and a vulva. Anatomically correct dolls might not be for everyone, but as a friend pointed out, it's confusing to have all the body parts except for the privates. I realized it kind of made it seem like a vulva is too shameful to put on a doll, which is not the message I wanted to send my daughter. Anyway, vulva optional, but that's how I did those body parts!
9. Nipples: Another friend insisted that I try making nipples, which I made the same way as Doing Without describes making the nose, except of course smaller.
10. Hair: I actually attached the hair before doing any sewing of the body, but I put it last because I now realize it is easier to do in this order. The hair kept getting in the way, especially when I was trying to hand stitch the neck and arms. There are several doll hair tutorials out there, but I highly recommend using the description from Making Waldorf Dolls, which luckily I found at the Boston Central Library. The one thing I did differently was I wound up sewing my bottom layer of hair right down to the base of the head (not just the crown) so less of the head skin showed through when doing "up-do's." 

Phew! I think that's everything! All in all I think this took me about 3 months of working on and off. I managed to finish two months before her birthday, which was way sooner than I expected! And only a few tears were shed from frustration ;-) Happy doll-making!

Dollies and wings and crowns... oh my!

Hello friends and family, it has been a while! I laughed a little when I saw my last post, written almost a year ago. At the end I had said I was still working on the "work-life balance"... well as it turns out, I struck it for a while, but things fell a part a little when R's naps became less reliable. Working from home is HARD! It felt like I was planning our whole day around nap time just so I could get an hour of work in, then another 30 minutes after bed time. As you can imagine, 1-2 hours of work per day doesn't really get you a whole lot financially and the stress of it outweighed the benefits. I decided to move on from Mama & Me a couple months ago, aside from continuing to sub for for the Breastfeeding drop-in.

This has actually been kind of amazing for me. Instead of stressing about getting enough work done, I am volunteering a few hours a week for the Parent Connection Mentoring Moms program through Beth Israel Deaconess, which is an AMAZING program that allows seasoned moms to support new moms over the phone. This is one way I'm able to continue "work" in the field about which I'm passionate, but without the stress of a job with more hours.

I also discovered recently that I LOVE creating things! This coincided nicely with the current boom of second birthday parties. So without further ado, I present some of my creations!

A Waldorf-style tent made from the grabbed the sheer, inner curtain from this room, strung around the plastic hoop formerly housed by the cover of a laundry basket, and hung from a hanging plant holder. Add some Christmas lights and put a bunch of comfy pillows underneath, and voila! You have a Queen's Tent!

This is Floppy. Floppy was meant to be an Easter present, but she saw me making it and had to have it right away. The are pretty much inseparable (very much regretting the white fleece, as it looks perpetually dirty!). Last night my mom accidentally took Floppy home as a stowaway in her backpack, causing many tears and resulting in Brian having to ride his bike to Manna's apartment to get Floppy back. Whoops!

Crown 1 (for a friend's birthday)(

Crown 2 (for another friend's birthday). I also made a third, but forgot to take a picture. Crowns are really fun and it gives me a use for all those empty cereal boxes we accumulate... I slip them inside the fabric to make them less floppy!

Dolly mei tai (a type of baby carrier that originated in Asia and is tied on). I made two of these as birthday presents. R wanted to keep this one... that's the downside to making birthday presents for other people's kids!

Butterfly wings, for another friend's birthday. I started making a set for R too, but never finished, which is a bummer because we went to a fairy house making event in Franklin Park today and they would have come in very handy! Initially I glued the blue pieces on, but they wouldn't stay, so I had to sew every. single. one. Ayayay... R's will be a little simpler!!

 Lastly, la piece de resistance, R's birthday present! Baby Mira is an anatomically correct, Waldorf-style doll, made out of natural materials. See more photos and learn about how she was made here.

What's really fun about all these projects I've done is that I can see R's creativity blossoming alongside my own. She now loves to "fix" her stuffies, "plant gardens" with sticks, make beds and clothes for her dollies and stuffies out of fabric, and more. She calls them "mydeas" and really impresses me sometimes! 

Using the sewing kit I made her-- embroidery thread with a dull embroidery needle, some large buttons, and quilt batting inside of an embroidery hoop. She often takes her needle and thread over to her stuffies to "sew" their holes!

She made this "carrier" for Baby Sasha out of my measuring tape. Technically I tied it, but it was totally her idea!

There you are, a very long post to update you on our life right now. I'm not sure what's to come for me career-wise (although I'm toying with getting certified as a childbirth educator... because, you know, I haven't spent enough money on my education and credentials!), but right now, I'm really enjoying being a Certified Mama!

Why Me? A post about gratitude

It's human nature to always be worrying about what's coming next and to focus on life's stressors; it's a survival tactic. But sometimes things click so perfectly in your life that you can't help but stop and notice how freaking lucky you are. I am at that place in my life right now, to the point where I keep asking myself, "Why me?" Why am I so lucky? Why does everything I hope for come so easily to me? I am not a particularly spiritual person. I know that I am a kind and empathetic person, but I consider myself agnostic if not atheist. But days like this make me consider whether I had a past life in which I earned some serious karma brownie points.

And so, friends and family, this is a post about gratitude. I don't know who I'm grateful to exactly, but I DO know what I am grateful for.

1. My husband: I am, by nature, an anxious person. He "gets" me and this chills me the heck out.
2. A totally sweet living space: I do dream of someday having a larger, single family house with a big back yard, but our condo is simple, cute, and easy. And you know what they say... "location, location location"; I can't think of a better place to be with a dog and a baby than JP! Plus, let's be honest, I can't even keep 500 square feet of floor clean... I don't even want to know how dirty a whole house could get!
3. My daughter: I have wanted to be a mom for as long as I can remember. Case in point, I read the Dr. Sears Baby Book cover to cover (nearly 800 pages!) several years before we even started seriously talking about having kids. Now I have a sweet, generally easy, and yet spunky little girl who is the light of my life.
4. My MPH: Despite becoming a mom while in grad school, I managed to finish. Phew! Otherwise I would have wasted a LOT of loans!!
5. My new job: When I posted on Facebook that I was looking for a job that allowed me to be with my daughter and yet still help moms and babies, it was almost a joke. I didn't think such a job really existed. By some stroke of luck I happen to be friends with the owner of Mama & Me, who also happened to be looking for someone to help with promotions among other things, and I just happened to have the qualifications and personality to fill that gap. I only started a few weeks ago and I'm already planning, developing, promoting, and running events with two of my professional idols. Seriously, if I could have dreamed up the perfect post-graduation job, this would be it. And I can't help shamelessly promoting said events, so please check out http://www.mymamaandme.com/world-breastfeeding-week/ and https://www.facebook.com/mamaandmestudio/events!!!

I'm still working on the work/life balance (I'm not sure anyone ever stops working on that? Certainly not parents!), but I am just so excited to be me right now. So if I see you on the street and you ask how I'm doing and I answer a tad maniacally, just know that it's a combination of sleep deprivation and true enthusiasm.

You're One! The Things You Can Do...

I know every parent thinks his/her own baby is a genius. It's because we watch them grow so quickly, going from not being able to do much to being able to do SO many things in such a short span of time. So I can't help being excited about all the new things my daughter can do because I think she is incredible!

Without further ado, here are some of the AMAZING things you can do, Baby!

1) STTN: Such an important part of parenting life that it has its own acronym. You started sleeping through the night randomly a few weeks ago and we are soooo grateful! 8-10 hour stretches of sleep without needing to nurse you back down feels amazing. It also makes me proud because we never sleep trained you and we still bed share, which just goes to show that the "experts" are full of crap when they say babies need to be "taught" or "trained" to sleep well.

(I wish I had a cuter photo of us both in the bed, but this is the best I can do-- little baby in a King bed!)


2) Walking: Look at you go!

3) Talking... sorta: You know what a squirrel says (insert tongue clicking sound here), you know the monkey says "ah ah!" and you can say "hi" (and Mama and Dada of course). Also, I have been trying to teach you the sign for "all done" for months and was really trying to reinforce it this morning when you were done with breakfast. You weren't quite getting it and you were clearly getting frustrated, so I went to get a towel to wipe your hands. As I was getting the towel, I kept saying "all done" and then I turned to you and you went "ahhhhh DUUUUUUUH!!!!" in a very growly voice!

4) Bringing me books to read: you love to sit and look at books by yourself, but today you brought "Is Your Mama a Llama?" over to me to read to you, which I thought was very sweet.

5) Giving kisses without me asking for them: you did that today for the first time-- a nice slobbery lick right on my cheek!

6) Pet Leigan nicely... some of the time! You still like to pull out fistfuls of fur, but you have also figured out that petting is just like waving with your hand on his back.

7) Pointing when I ask where Dada/Leigan/Mama is.

8) Apparently you know that hats go on your head! When our friend Lisa came to visit, she asked if you wanted the hat you were pointing at, and you patted the top of your head.

9) Recognizing names of your toys: We asked you where Berkeley Bear was, and you picked him out from the bookcase and brought him over to us.

10) You lay down your head when I say "goodnight"... if only it also magically made you fall asleep, too!

You are learning so much so fast... keep up the good work, Baby! <3

Just Call Me Mama, MPH!

Hello everyone, it has been a while! That's because I was busy finishing up my last projects and assignments EVER! I am very relieved, proud, and excited to report that I have FINISHED all of the requirements for my Masters degree in Public Health with a concentration in Maternal and Child Health. This weekend I graduated and received my diploma, so I am officially an MPH Mama! Here are some photos of this weekend's festivities

Checking out the program

Cutie pie!

Can you spot me?

Waving to my fan club

Ahhhh!

So much cuteness.

Jumbotronned!

Out of focus, but too cute not to share

I can't decide who is cuter!

Penalty boxed!

She doesn't seem to mind

Baby's first bike ride! It was such a beautiful day and she loved it (except the process of getting in)

Here we go! (Notice I didn't actually bike in the gown... pretty sure that would be hazardous)

Babies in helmets... need I say more?

Post-graduation, Grandma and GradRaj babysat while we had a much needed date night! I don't have any pictures from that, but I will say that the cheesecake at Tres Gatos was kiiiind of amazing.

The next day, they babysat AGAIN so we could clean the basement. Since cleaning is not at all exciting, you get to see all the fun they had without us:

Waving to GrandRaj at the Tot Lot

Put 'em up!

Obsessed with stairs!

Looks like someone was eating the sand again

Checking out the lilacs at the Arboretum

As our student speaker, Christina, said yesterday, the first question people ask when they find out you graduated is "what's next?" First, I intend to enjoy a relaxed summer with my cute little peanut, as well as do some blogging for the Massachusetts Friends of Midwives (MFOM). Second, I am seriously considering several certifications (not at once of course): postpartum doula, lactation counselor, and childbirth educator. After that, I may try to freelance a bit, as well as partner with local organizations such as community health centers. I am also looking for part-time, flexible jobs... basically it is still quite open ended, but I kind of like it that way right now. Many possibilities! There, now you don't have to ask me about it ;-) All right, I have been far too productive today... time to watch some Parks and Rec and then get ready for a bike ride (with baby on board) to the Esplanade! Congratulations to all my graduate friends!

It's not easy being curious!

My little butterball has been getting herself into some tricky situations lately. I feel a little bad for taking photos first and helping her out second, but I just can't help myself ;-)

Well let's see here... I came in here to get my leg warmer, but now it's out there...

Maybe if I just...

Oh bother!

Well, I thought I wanted this green block, but this didn't turn out how I'd hoped...

This one was surprisingly difficult to get her out of. We managed in the end! :-)

Happy spring!

Hi friends and family,

Between the worst bout of teething we've ever dealt with and end-of-semester projects, this week has been pretty rough. That's why today's two hour nap (for both me and Baby) and fun in the sun felt even awesomer than awesome! It finally feels like spring is here to stay and we are both thrilled. Grandma came out to meet us at the playground, where Baby crawled around, looked at all the "big kids" with admiration, went on the swings, and had a shoulder ride with lots of belly-laughing involved. Love this little butterball turkey!

Very excited to have her hands out of the wrap so she can pull my hair!

It's bright out here! Time to swap winter hats for sun hats!

I'm really hoping that the two good naps she's taken today are a sign that the worst of the teething is over... it is so hard to see her so uncomfortable!