How to Make a Yarn Doll: 9 steps (with pictures) - wikiHow

Yarn dolls are one of the simplest pleasures as a child--they take just a few minutes to make, but you can personalize them in all sorts of ways--giving them bow, making them skirts and headbands and aprons. Changing the color of their hair, their eyes. So, if you've ever wondered how to make a yarn doll, wiwkiHow has a comprehensive article on how it's done.
The only limit is your imagination!

How to Make A Sock Doll

WikiHow has a fantastic article (here: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Sock-Doll) on how to make a sock doll that's definitely worth sharing! Here's the gist:

Steps

1. Stuff an ankle sock and stitch up the hem. You could also use a regular sock and just cut off the top. The toe becomes the head, the heel the rear end.
   

   Stuffing the Sock
   

   Sew the opening closed.
2. Cut off the toe of the second sock and turn inside out.
   

   Inside out foot and toe section which will become the legs.
3. Mark the vertical center line to designate legs (with slightly rounded "toes" as shown).
   

   Drawing the legs.
4. Sew approximately a quarter inch from the center line on each side. Go up one side and down the other, rounding the toes. Leave about 1 inch (2.5 cm) towards the top.
   

   Sewing around the vertical line. Take care NOT to go ALL the way up to the opening with your stitching.
5. Turn this right side out, stuff and stitch the top closed. These are your doll's legs.
   

   Legs before stuffing.
6. Sew together the hems (closed openings) of the two socks. As you sew, make sure that the legs and the rear end are at natural angles.
   

   Sewing legs to body
   

   Legs and body from the front after sewing.
7. Make the arms from the remaining sock.
   
   
   • 

     Cutting the sock to get the arm pieces.
     Cut off the heel and toe.
   • 

     Turn, draw a center line and round the "ends" of the arms.
     Turn inside out, draw the center line.
   • 

     Sew a quarter inch from the center line.
     Sew a quarter inch from the center line.
   • 

     Cut the two arms apart.
     Cut apart as shown.
8. Turn the arms right side out, and then stuff and stitch them to the body.
   

   Stuff the arms and sew them to the body on either side.
9. With a sturdy thread, sew 1/4 inch stitches around the neck and cinch them slightly to form the head.
   • You can also tie a ribbon (the doll's scarf) around to make the neck and give the doll a unique style.
10. Use buttons, beads, googly eyes, yarn and markers to make the doll's face.
    

    A sample face.
11. Add yarn hair.
    
    
    • Wrap 30 or so strands of yarn around something sturdy that is approximately a foot wide.
      

      Wrapping yarn around a sturdy object.
    • Place a strip of felt under the yarn, perpendicular to the wrap direction.
      

      Place strip of felt under yarn.
    • Hand baste the yarn strands to the felt strip.
      

      Baste the yarn to the felt.
    • Turn the object over and cut the yarn in the center of the side opposite the basted felt strip.
      

      Cut opposite the felt.
    • Machine sew the yarn strands to the felt strip.
      

      Machine sew the yarn strands to the felt strip.
    • Trim the felt strip ends.
    • Center the felt strip on the doll's head and sew it on.
      

      Centering the hair on the head.
      

      Sewing the hair to the head along the line of felt.
    • You may leave the hair smooth or braid it, as you prefer.
      

      Smooth/straight hair.
12. Cut scraps of cloth to make clothes. Sew these on to the doll. Or, you could make the clothes so that they can be taken on and off easily.
13. Add whatever extra twists you like and your sock doll is done!

Getting The Word Out: A Quick Thank You

With just 8 weeks until installation on starts on the Santa Fe University of Art and Design's campus, support has been picking up! I'm pleased to say supporters have included a set of 5 and 11 year old sisters, an 88-year old, 4-time mother and 14-time grandmother, and increasingly, various fathers around the U.S.!

Get Involved with the Maternal Health Accountability Act

Ah, the hand-written letter.

Everyone loves to get one, and you local representatives, senators, and other authorities are no different. So how about this Mother's Day, we join with Amnesty International and send those men and women who represent us a Mother’s Day action cards, imploring them to uphold human rights, and educating them about the Maternal Health Accountability Act.

Amnesty International USA will send you cards and case sheets. You write the cards, then send them back to AIUSA in the envelope provided, and they will deliver them to members of Congress on your behalf.
All you have to do is ask!




To get started, email AIUSA to tell them how many cards you need:

 demanddignity@aiusa.org.

Safe Motherhood Quilt Project

Since today is Project Linus's National Make A Blanket Day, I think it's time to celebrate quilts, quilters, and all the other fine fiber artists who are helping pull the I, MOM project together--and also give nod to the wonderful Safe Motherhood Quilt Project, started by Ina May Gaskin.

The Safe Motherhood Quilt Project, as declared on their website, is "a national effort developed to draw public attention to the current maternal death rates, as well as to the gross under-reporting of maternal deaths in the United States, and to honor those women who have died of pregnancy-related causes since 1982

The quilt is made up of individually designed squares; each one devoted to a woman in the U.S. who has died of pregnancy-related causes since 1982. One quilt square is designed and dedicated to each mother's memory and may mention the date and place of death and the name of the woman. The Safe Motherhood Quilt is the voice for women who can no longer speak for themselves."

Their touching virtual quilt gallery is worth more than a few minutes of time (http://www.rememberthemothers.net/quilt/thumbnails.php?album=4), as each woman's story is given the weight it deserves. Take, for instance, a few of the most recent entries (as of 2009):

Elideth Resendiz Elideth Resendiz was 42 years old when she died on June 7, 2008, in Richmond, California. Her placenta detached from the uterus before birth, ending both her life and that of her baby. Two other children survive. Melissa Ann Barone Melissa Ann Barone died on July 19, 2009, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at the age of 28. Her death happened a few weeks after her twins’ very premature birth and death. Katya S. Czerepak-Greer  Katya S. Czerepak-Greer, 29, of Potsdam, New York, died on February 22, 2009, a few days after giving birth to her second child, Jackson. She was an art teacher.

Stop preventable pregnancy-related deaths (via AmnestyUSA)

The International Museum of Women and Every Mother Counts have partnered up on the following pledge:

I believe that all women have a right to safe pregnancy and birth. I ask my government to keep its commitment to the UN Goal to advance maternal health by 2015 - ensuring that all women have access to reproductive healthcare and reducing needless maternal deaths. I am joining a global movement working to advance maternal health for women worldwide.

Signed,
Clare Winterton, International Museum of Women
Christy Turlington Burns, Every Mother Counts
Brigid McConville, White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood
Musimbi Kanyoro, Global Fund for Women
Helene Gayle, CARE
Mahnaz Afkhami, Women’s Learning Partnership
Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Miss Representation




If anyone else is interested in signing their name to this great document (and right now, only 1,233 of their 10,000 person goal have), you can read and sign here:


http://mama.imow.org/pledge

The Project

My name is Anna Ryan, and I’m a senior at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design in Santa Fe, New Mexico, working on my senior thesis in fine arts and art therapy. I am a passionate proponent of art as a healing medium and a medium for community growth and support—and a new mother. It was with this myriad of roles in mind that I pitched my thesis proposal to my faculty, and am now reaching out to my community.
In 2011, my daughter was one of 4 million children born in the United States. 24 out of every 100,000 of those children lost their mothers. The Center for Disease Control lists 2/3 of those maternal deaths as “entirely preventable,” the result of inadequate care or a lack of oversight, which prompted Amnesty International to officially label the maternal death rate in the U.S. a crisis. With 24 out of every 100,000 mothers dying, the United States ranks 41st in the world for maternal safety.
To help draw attention to this crisis and to the 640 women who’s deaths were entirely preventable, I am creating an installation in their honor. Exploring the rich tradition of mothers making dolls for their children, and with a nod to the doll’s history as a magic, religious, and healing icon, I am inviting the community to join me in creating 640 dolls as a testament to the mothers who will never make their child a doll.
These dolls may be yarn dolls, paper dolls, rag dolls, dolls fashioned from sticks or leather or porcelain or wood. There is no limit on materials; all I ask is that the doll be made by hand.
It was Carl Wilkens who wrote, “When we make something with our hands, it changes the way we feel, which changes the way we think.” By involving my community, I hope to reach not only the hands, but also the hearts and minds of others in order to bring healing.


If you would like to participate, or have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me at Anna_Ryan@mail.com. Since the show goes up in April, anyone seeking to participate should send in their dolls by April 1st if possible! Also, please note if you want to be credited as a participant in the project (if not, your contribution will be listed Anonymous)

Also, please share this--this project, this blog, but most of all, this MESSAGE! Too many women are dying who never should.

Thanks!