For a Swap: Birthday Dotee

Yes, another dotee doll.

Yes, it's for a swap.

The theme this time was Birthday.

It's a monster birthday cake!

I'm quite pleased with how cute it turned out.  It's all felt with vintage ric rac.  I normally wouldn't be so pretentious as to mention it was vintage ric rac but this was some old ass ric rac, folks.  I got it at the best thrift store:  Weezie's Cove.  The original price on the pack was 13 cents!  And it still looks good and wasn't degraded in quality at all.  The pic might not make it clear but it's a nice like pink (that matches the pink felt almost exactly) with gold lame-like threads running through it.  The gold threads did give me pause when I was sewing it onto the cake side.  I had to place the stitches so they wouldn't be going over the gold lines and breaking up the shine.  Good for me, the gold went all the way to the edges of the points of the ric rac, so I could squeeze little bitty stitches into the pink which hid them very well.

Construction wise this one is pretty simple.  Circle for the bottom and top (I used a container of sewing needles to make the template).  The sides are two different colors (about an inch wide by the length of the circle--I just take the circle and wrap the felt around and mark the length--I'm not big on numbers and actual measuring on small stuff like this).  The side pieces are sewn together on the wrong side so there's no seam bulge on the outside of the cake (which would make the ric rac trim bumpy).  Attach the ric rac so it looks like the drippy edge of the frosting (this took a bit of time but was not hard--just had to make sure the chocolate colored felt didn't peek through on the top dips of the ric rac).  It helps to cut the ric rac a few bumps bigger than you need so you can wrap the ric rac over the edge of the side fabrics (makes for a very nice and neat finished seam, too).

I filled it with poly fill and used two pieces of batting for the top and the bottom (to make it a little less lumpy).  I also did a tie down on the top and bottom (where you run thread down from the top and then back up to the top and tie it off to make the top and bottom lay a bit flatter).  I could have put cardboard in to make it flat but this is going to be shipping to Sweden so I didn't want it too rigid, lest it get crumpled and ruined (softer is better, you can just fluff it back up when it arrives).  I hid the tie down knot in the center of the hanger.  The hanger is attached by making a small cut in the fabric and feeding the ends down into it then sewing the ends together (a bit in from the end) THEN splaying the ends out and making one or two small stitches from the splayed ends into the top fabric.  REALLY small stitches hidden right next to the hanger.  I really hate leaving giant visible stitches on my hangers and tails.  Just like I hate big ole visible knots.  (this is just my hang up on stuff I make--I don't criticize dotees I get that may have visible stitches--it's just a style thing for things I make).

Once again, the tail gave me fits.  Ok, not really but it had me perplexed and a little miffed.  I wanted something beaded but my seed beads are really basic and the colors really didn't "go" with the pink/chocolate brown color scheme.  But that's not a bad thing.  I also needed a bauble for the bottom of the tail but nothing was right.  Then it hit me, if I stacked some small buttons it could look a bit like a tiered cake.  So that's what I was going for with the three stacked buttons.  I was also at a double disadvantage when threading the beads since I had to use four strands of embroidery floss to make sure it secured well enough, so I had to use a bigger needle which had greatly reduced my bead selection (so many of my seed beads have tiny holes).  I think this is a sign I need to invest in a little bit more/better beads for tails.  Nothing super fancy, just some seed beads with bigger holes.  Variety is good.

I took some liberties with the "face" portion of this doll.  I used the ric rac as the mouth and just added some medium sized safety eyes to get a kind of kawaii/amigurumi look.  I think it's cute as hell (and almost don't want to give this one away).

I'm also pretty darn proud of the candles.  They are tiny rolls of felt, stitched up the side with tiny flame shaped bits of felt stitched on top.  They turned out exactly like I had hoped they would AND they are all felt and stitches.  No glue.  No pins/picks/wire inside them.  OH YEAH!

Now comes the hard part.  Packing this up for international shipping.  I'm thinking if I put a bit of bubble wrap around it (and fill out the open space around the candles) I should be able to get it into an medium sized envelope with no issue.  I'm hoping to keep the shipping under $10 if at all possible.  It doesn't weigh much, so the size of the package is going to be the key.

I was being leisurely sewing this (taking lots of breaks to watch bad day time t.v.) so this is the only dotee I got completed on my day off yesterday.  BUT, I did get a damn good start on my Scarecrow dotee.  I'd say it's 75% done.  It's turning out very well though it's a tiny bit creepier than I expected.  Funny how an exposed brain (even a pink felt one with stem stitching curly cues) can have that effect.  Oh, and he gives me a definite Jethro Clampett vibe. Something about a plaid shirt, jeans, and a piece of twine for a belt just does that!

The scarecrow definitely had me buggered for a bit, but I'll discuss that when I reveal him.

I'm super excited to get the scarecrow going (and having it be sucessful) because I really want to move on to the Hat dotee.  I'm dieing to see if I can pull off the idea I have.