Crafting Cloth Dolls

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.

Is it just me, or are cloth doll books hard to find? A painstaking search at three major bookstore chains in my city turned up nothing. Hobby shops, knitting shops, nothing. Amazon offered a few, but there's a lot of junk out there: for something like this, you'd like the reassurance of being able to flip through the thing before you buy it. So I took a risk.But this one was the answer to my problems! I wasn't able to find another book like it anywhere.At about 160 pages, it's kind of a long book for this sort of thing. It begins by teaching how to make traditional dolls, but as the book goes on the dolls are more, uh, non-traditional, such as ethnic dolls. The pages are glossy and the illustrations are a combination of color pictures and black-and-white line drawings. While you do get an easy-to-understand series of steps for each doll, it would have been nice to have pictures of what your developing doll is supposed to look like after each step is completed. But this is a minor drawback. Finally, there are cut-out templates at the back.I would not say this is for beginners. Although it doesn't say "advanced" anywhere on it, if this is your first go at making cloth dolls this book is probably not the best choice for you.

Doll artist and author Miriam Christensen Gourley has written another great book on cloth dollmaking. I loved her first volume, but the dolls and patterns in this one are just as, or maybe even more fun than in the first book!There is something in "Crafting Cloth Dolls" suitable to all sewing skill levels. Beginners will be pleased with the well-illustrated instruction and more advanced dollmakers are offered more challenging subjects, as well as good clay over cloth instructions.Gourley has an excellent writing style and offers clear-cut, well-illustrated instructions and helpful tips and techniques, from wigmaking to shoemaking. Everything in this book makes sense!Highly recommended to dollmakers looking to learn, polish their skills or be inspired by good dollmaking craft.

The dolls are great in this book, and it will be a great reference book that not only stimulates you visually, but helps you stretch your imagination for creating one-of-a-kind dolls yourself!

Most of the dolls I make are simplistic. These dolls are from award-winning dollmakers and are more detailed than I usually make. If you like details when you make your dolls (faces, clothes, body styles) you will enjoy the many patterns in this book. The instructions are easy to follow and well laid out. Beginning with a supply list there are different sections for creating the dolls hair, body, costume and accessories. The finished dolls in the book are unique.

Crafting Cloth Dolls is a wonderful resource. It demonstrates a wide range of techniques and styles, and is a volume that you will return to over and over. Good for the beginner or more advanced seamstress. I love the many Ideas that the book has to offer.

Good pictures, some patterns don't fit well, needs more instructions

Miriam has fabulous patterns and explanations on how to sew them. It is well worth the money with the number of patterns and different options that can be made. I will be looking for more of her books.

The sheer number of Cloth Doll making styles and techniques make this a must have for your textile library. There are so many ideas in this book, which starts from the basics, that you will want to get started straight away.

Great book. Many techniques and tips for a more advanced doll maker . My only negative comment is that the pattern cutting lines are shown with a sketched outline. The makes accurate cutting difficult.

Great book. Arrived very quickly. Really pleased with it. AAAAA

I love this book and can't wait to make the doll from the cover!

Love It!