Flowers need stems, and little dolls need arms that have a little bit of form so that children can make them move around and pose them to suit their needs.
This is one way to make something that can be used for these purposes.
Firstly, take a length of fleece fibres about 20cm in length
(a shade of green for flower stems, a skin colour shade for dolls)
From the top of the length, gently section off a piece about 1cm in width.
Try to keep this width in full as you work.
Hint: Pull gently. Fleece has a tendency to come apart just at a crucial moment!
Take a pipe cleaner about 15cm long.
Start about 1cm from one end and wrap the fleece around the pipe cleaner, keeping the fleece about 1cm wide. Wrap TOWARDS the short end of the pipe cleaner.
When you reach the end, and it is covered, (BIG TIP HERE!) bend the tip of the pipe cleaner over to secure the fleece. This ensures your stems/arms will last!
Continue wrapping now, keeping the 1cm width as much as possible, towards the other end.
At the other end, do the same as above, wrapping to the tip and then turning the tip over slightly to secure th fleece.
If you run out of fleece along the way, continue wrapping the dreggy ends of your fleece around the pipe cleaner until they are gone. The end of the fleece will become as thin as a piece of cotton and will secure itself to the pipe cleaner. Take another strip of fleece and lay it on top of where you just finished, and continue wrapping.
To finish, wrap the fleece until the end becomes as thin as cotton and wrap these last strands around the pipe cleaner to secure.
This is what it looks like when finished.
Your stem/arms now have a little loop at either end.
Use this loop to secure the flower to the stem by threading the cotton through the hole of the loop and back into the flower. Repeat a number of times to stabilise the flower head.
For Waldorf doll arms (small dolls, beanbag dolls etc), you can either do one of two things:
- Sew up the material pattern for the body and before you sew the head in, you place an 'arm' pipe cleaner through the space for the hand and out the other side. Fill the body with wool stuffing, add the head of the doll and sew it all up. Finally, sew around the 'wrist' of the doll with hidden stitches to secure the arms to the material.
- Make a Flower Fairy doll, using a body made up of pipe cleaner frames, including this one for arms.
(I will soon release an e-book on how to make these.
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A Flower fairy doll workshop-These dolls use pipe cleaner frames
Heidi's dolls also have a little piece of tricot material that covers the wool 'hands'. This makes them a little more sturdy for little children.
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