About new dolls, new ideas and a new online shop

(Liebe deutschsprachige Leser, ich habe beschlossen dieses Blog nur noch in Englisch fortsetzten, da die meisten meiner Leser aus dem englischsprachigem Raum kommen und es sehr mühevoll ist alles zweisprachig zu verfassen.Ich bitte um euer Verständnis.)

Finally it is done. After almost three years, the first dolls are for sale. Thursday I will open the doors of my new web shop at IndieCard.
I want to say "Thank you!" to all those people that supported and not forgotten me and my dolls the last years. Your loving feedback and mails were definitely the most important support for me. And the reason to dust off my sewing machine and start with doll making again.
Now that Mona and Alexa are finished and their stories are told. I want to tell a little bit more about what inspired me to sew them the way I did at last.

As midwife I was always fascinated by birth giving and breastfeeding dolls by other artists. But I could not find a doll which captured me in a way that I wanted to purchase it. So I began thinking about sewing my own. I don´t wanted to create a toy, but tool for midwifes and childbirth educators. The beginning was hard. I had to figure out completely new ways of sewing and constructing dolls, These childbirth education dolls have to be extremely stable. To demonstrate the birth process, the dolls are pushed and pulled at different spots.
The construction of the doll body is very complex and I decided to machine sew the limbs to the body.So I had to stuff arms and legs through extra openings that had to be closed careful with small stitches by hand. The seams are inconspicuous, but a little visible.

It was also important to me to create adult proportions for the "mother dolls". While crafting it turned out that it was significant to make the head smaller and to construct a neck.

But the most difficult thing was to create the wigs of mother and child. I wanted to show the fontanels at the baby's head. And the head has to withstand some rubbing. It took some time but then I found inspiration while watching a pretty famous little person: Fröken Skicklig`s Kiki in the meadow.

I think most of you will know this amazing little girl created by the fabulous Juliane alias Fröken Skicklig. I knew and loved Juliane´s blog for a long time. Juliane enchants me with her dolls, pictures and stories. And she is one of the most creative doll makers I know.

I had never seen anyone before using wool felt for a doll wig like Juliane did at Kiki. So I tried wool felt,too. And it turned out to be the solution. Wool felt is a wonderful material for doll making. Meanwhile I´m using it not only for the wigs, but also for other details like the placenta and cord.

I wish you a sunny and untroubled Sunday!

Talk to you soon, 

Tabea