Woke up with Sore Wrists from Cutting out Fabric!

I feel I got a lot done yesterday.  Even though the Women's Day book of Soft Dolls and Toys by Joan Russell has full size patterns, they do not include the seam allowances and not every set of dolls she designed  is in there.  I made full size patterns with seam allowances for the "One World" dolls and the Amy dolls.  The "Yankee Doodle Children" bodies are very similar to the international dolls.

I cut out mainly the 17 " Annie dolls to start with.  I could use more tan colored muslin.  I may dye some of the white I bought. Most of the muslin is natural or unbleached.  We have a large immigrant Asian population here in the Twin Cities of Minnesota and also many children who are part African American with white or sometimes Asian.  Sometimes if a child has a white mother,  they want a white doll,  in my experience.  It's up to the child what he or she wants!  I will be making some boy dolls as well.  Although I do want to sell them on  etsy and/or ebay, I would also like to donate a couple to local children for Christmas.  I don't know why it is often so hard to find Asian or African American dolls in the stores but it is! So the dolls I would donate would be Asian or AA.

 I tried the Lumiere and Neopaque paints.  They worked  well.  However I will need to put the paint into a tin first,  as they are squeeze bottles.  I let my sample dry and washed it several times and it is staying on perfectly.  I experimented making a face with just a water color paint and brush.  I will be doing just a simple brush stroke for the mouth. I was excited about this!  I do enjoy hand embroidery but it is very slow!  Add the time to hand sew on the head and limbs and make the wig,  and it makes it very time consuming for each doll.  And the doll is still naked and needs to be dressed!