doll hats | Climbing Vine

Last year, I set myself a goal- make enough dolls and toys to buy us plane tickets to Washington for my sister’s wedding. Thanks to all your interest and help, I achieved that goal.
Well guess what.
I have another sister getting married in Washington – and less than three months away! I thought about setting the same goal for myself this time around, but what with a new baby, and shortness of time, and the fact that I already found a super deal on tickets and bought them, that ship has sailed.
Even with the super deal, buying six plane tickets is nothing to sneeze at, so I’d like to start pushing my shop again. I figure, if I can sell about thirty 12 inch dolls or twenty of the 18 inch, it would just about cover it the tickets. So who wants a doll? Or a horse or rabbit? I’m still selling those as well.
I’m making some adjustments to my etsy site, so take a little time to think about it, but fyi, here are a few of the new dolls that will be up for sale soon.

I have been focusing more on the eighteen inch doll these last few weeks. Here’s my brunette. I have switched them over to the new way of doing hair that I mentioned before, and she is sporting some new “pleather” shoes that I have been experimenting with.

Here’s my blondie. She is also trying out some new items, like a striped sailor dress, and a felt hat. I hope to get better at making hats. Haberdashery is fun! Or maybe it’s just being able to use that word.

And here is the red head that I asked for help with yesterday. I went ahead with a few freckles, just to see if I liked them. They are just tiny stitches, and can be removed. What do you all think?
I’m also uncertain about the black dress. Does she need something a little flashier to go with her bright hair, or is the subtle look better? I appreciate your feedback!

So there we go. Hopefully I will have enough energy and motivation to really get back into the swing of things. And if you know of anyone who might be in the market for a doll, would you be so good as to mention it? These girls deserve a good home. Thanks!

You may or may not have noticed that posts pertaining to my once flourishing etsy shop have slowed to a trickle. I make no apologies for this state of affairs. In fact, one of things I love about etsy is the ability to slow things down if your life demands it. And my life definitely has demanded it of late. But I haven’t forgotten about my little shop, and I hope to do some updating etc., to try and get things up and running again in time for the holidays.
I have in fact, made some updates already. I toyed around (pun intended) with stuffed animals, as you may remember, but couldn’t seem to get excited enough about it. I just kept going back to dolls, and since they seem to sell much better, I wanted to see if I could make some improvements there instead of branching off into new realms.

One thing I have never been entirely satisfied with is the hair on my dolls. I like the cotton jersey, since it is stretchy and doesn’t come unraveled like yarn can. It is also far less expensive. It takes a lot of yarn to make a doll wig. But the way I have done the jersey wigs makes the hair strands very thick, and I didn’t like the way it looked in the back sometimes. So I went back to the drawing board, and found a few different methods on Pinterest that I wanted to give a try. I had to make some adjustments, since I still didn’t want to use yarn. This is the result.

There are several things I prefer about this wig. The strands are thinner and look more like real hair, the strands are pulled tight so the raw edges curl under, and it gives me the ability to make bangs, which is fun and gives more variety.

What I ended up doing was stitching a braided crown around the edge of her head, and then, taking long doubled strands of jersey, I wove them into the braid with a crochet hook.
The downside to this method is that it takes me more time than the other, but I definitely like the finished product better.
I also find that it styles more easily.

I would love your feedback here. Any opinions would be welcome. It’s hard to get feedback from other sources since, as far as I know, no one else makes doll hair out of jersey!
Here’s a few photos of the other method, just for comparison’s sake.

Oh, and something else I have been toying around with.
Hats!

So much fun!

So let me know what you think!

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