I must be bewitched!

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She is wise and she knows many things. She is a healer, a counsellor, a listener. She has helped many people. Although she is happy with the life she has chosen, sometimes she is lonely and wishes for the company of her own kind. "Are there any more like me?" she asks. "No," I reply, "not unless I make them!"


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Her body is made from scraps of fleece fabric, chiffon and silk needle felted onto a base of recycled fibres with the addition of dyed wool sliver (roving), machine quilted and heavily embellished with hand embroidery, beads and sequins. Her face is a hand painted and lightly needle sculpted coloured pencil portrait. Her arms are appliqued and lightly stuffed and her hands and her spiky fingers are needlewoven. She wears a necklace of silver beads and animal bones (not really; plastic, I thought they looked like teeth or vertebrae!) and she carries a strange looking skull. She measures about 10 inches from the top of her hat to her base.

Which is the right Witch!

What's in my head doesn't always come out through my fingers. That's what happened with the witch doll I made a few weeks ago, so I thought I'd have another go.

While I was thinking about it, Gina Ferrari raised the perennial question about pricing on her blog Fan my Flame. I was interested to read the comments, many of which suggested that the price should reflect the size of the item and not the work that went into it. Her response was to explain the processes and costs involved in making her hand embroidered brooches here. This struck a chord with me, because some of my dolls are quite small and the processes involved in making them look the way that they do are not immediately obvious.

I had a real problem pricing that last witch doll, so I thought I would document the process involved in making this next one, that is slightly more elaborate. (This is Part 1, Parts 2 and 3 are below, I published in reverse order).

1.

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I started with an offcut of fleece fabric, a piece of recycled "eco-felt" and some scraps of silk. I layered the fleece over the felt, scattered silk scraps over and "mangled" it all together on the needlepunch (embellisher) machine.

2.

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Strands of coloured wool tops (roving); gossamer light and fine as a spider's web, mangled all over the top.


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The needlepunching gives a nice texture and a "felty" feel!

3.

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Rows of machine quilting in my favourite Greek Key stitch pattern, for even more texture and interest. I used grey in the bobbin and black in the needle, and loosened the bobbin tension for a slight "cable stitch" effect for a little more texture and interest. I wanted a worn and faded look for this piece of fabric.

That's the body fabric finished...

Which is the right Witch? - Part 2

4.

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Draw and cut a pattern, cut out the fabric, sew it up on the machine and stuff it.

5.

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Now she needs a face, so out with the pens and coloured pencils.

6.

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Sew the face on, stuff it, add a border of trellis stitch and lightly needlesculpt the inner corners of the eyes and the outer corners of the mouth.

7.

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Add my trademark hand embroidery.


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Sew on the arms with buttonhole stitch and stuff lightly. Add a border of trellis stitch.

Not quite there yet..................

Which is the right Witch? Part 3

8.

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Make the base, a covered cardboard circle. Make the hat brim, layers of felt and base fabric mangled together on the needlepunch (embellisher) machine.

9.

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Add finishing touches to the face, and hair and eyebrows.

10.

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Embellish with beads and sequins.

11.

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Embroider the hands in needleweaving.

12.

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Stitch on the base and the hat brim.

13.

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Make her some accessories - a voodoo doll and a broomstick.

14.

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All done!

How would you price this one, given the processes involved?

Because my embroidered friendship dolls are necessarily relatively expensive, for a recent craft fair I also made some plain fabric ones with very simply embroidered faces. One particular customer said that she thought the embroidered, beaded dolls were much nicer and asked why they were so much more expensive, as they were all the same size. I explained how the fabric was made, and that the beading and embroidery was all done by hand and took a long time. Back came the response "What, so you expect us to pay for that?!" Good job I didn't have a gun!