Mer Baby

I've been thinking of making some kind of friendship/spirit/goddess dolls for my table at the Llammas Fair later this year. I've made a start by adapting my 'Simple Stanley' pattern to make a Mer Baby. This is the 'tester':


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For simplicity, the body and tail is in one piece. The tail fins are not stuffed. The fabric for the body of this 'tester' is a sandwich of synthetic washing up cloth and a very fine semi-sheer cotton with a woven pattern in it, filled with chocolate wrappers (Mingles!). I first of all machine stitched vertical lines of running stitch along the stripes to hold the sweet wrappers. Then I machine stitched horizontal rows of a programmed scalloped stitch to represent scales. After I had stitched the body pieces together, but before I stuffed the body, I decorated it with hand stitching to represent seaweed and added sequins and beads. The face is hand painted and the hair is knitted novelty yarn.

Here's another view:


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and the back:


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Unfortunately, I couldn't get the camera to capture the way the chocolate wrappers sparkle through the top fabric. I was after that shiny fish scale look, and she really is quite 'silvery'.