Customer Reviews

Crafting Cloth Dolls

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I knew I would enjoy this book even before I opened it, as Miriam Gourley's previous book on cloth dollmaking was so good. The earlier book had more basics in it, I feel this book is for more experienced dollmakers who want to be a bit adventurous. Miriam includes some interesting sections on home-made felt and felting, armatures, cloth doll construction and painting effects. For me, the best part was the 10 cloth doll projects at the back of the book, ranging from a simple cloth doll to a policeman to a doll with felted clothing. I loved the charm, diversity and sheer adventurousness of these projects. Definitely worth buying if you have any interest in cloth dolls at all.

I really like the book "Crafting Cloth Dolls" for several reasons. It is loaded with color photos of dolls ranging from the simple, painted on faced muslin body styles to complicated, wire armature bodied dolls with clay and needle sculpted faces. A basic doll body pattern is included as well for users to create and expound upon.

Doll techniques covered include armature making, dyeing doll hair, wig making, shoe making, fairy wing making, face painting, and drafting doll clothing patterns. A technique for needle sculpted faces and a button joining technique were drawn and explained.

Patterns with body and clothing templates, supply lists, and clearly written instructions are included with the book to make 10 different styles of dolls. The dolls include Tulip (the doll on the cover), a tomato man, a constable, medieval knight, Japanese woman (from Japanese "Little Peach" fairy tale), simple rag doll, felted doll, felt body doll with paper clay mask, whimsical doll made of wire clothed with embillishments, and a very elegant maid doll.

The final pages of the book include a source sheet to locate the various doll artists that contributed to the book and order their respective patterns.

With so many doll making techniques abounding, this book cannot possibly cover them all; however, the patterns and easy to follow instruction with this book make it an excellent addition to the beginning doll makers library and an excellent source of inspiration for the more advanced doll maker.