Dollmaking Books

Now crafters of any skill level can create beautiful cloth dolls! Author Brenda Brightmore, an internationally recognised cloth doll designer, offers this fabulous collection of patterns for a range of dolls, from flapper dolls with attitude, to modest ladies, to cute babies and children. Easy-to-follow patterns and step-by-step photos and illustrations guide sewers through 10 cloth doll projects. Every process is detailed, from the basics of cutting patterns to applying the final touches of paint to the faces. Each project includes a convenient list of materials for both doll and clothing. Vivid full color photos detail the gorgeous finished projects and provide inspiration for crafters. This guide is packed with the valuable information aspiring fabric doll creators need.

Beadwork, which has typically been used in fashion, home decoration, and jewellery, is reaching for new horizons and showing up on quilts, journals, knits, crochet, and fibre arts of all kinds. In this book, author Patti Medaris Culea and beading experts Anne Hesse and Laura McCabe illustrate new ways of using various bead techniques to embellish the cloth doll.

Sections include the basics of beadwork, beaded flowers for the doll's hair, bead embroidered faces, starbursts (using crystals to enhance the figure), wings and things (creating wings, crowns, and shoes with beads). Each chapter presents a different type of beading application in detail, with full instructions. Techniques are highlighted with step-by-step photos. A gallery of interpretations of the same pattern by leading artists is included for further inspiration.

Design couture fashions for an 18" cloth doll by constructing garments from various decades of history: 1940s suit; 1960s collaged and layered outfit; formal gown; fantasy fairy ensemble.

Patti Medaris Culea is a talented artist who makes unique art dolls and cloth doll patterns.

The face is the most important feature of a doll—it is also the most challenging. So it is surprising that there is so little instruction available on creating doll faces. This book fills that void.

Author Patti Medaris Culea began her career in art as a portrait painter and she puts that experience to work when creating her doll faces. In this book, she shows readers a simple technique for easily creating faces using her step-by-step approach. She gives her tips for how to divide the face into quadrants, graft features together, and much more. Every aspect of dollmaking is covered—from the basics to detailed techniques for making the various faces to instructions for putting a pattern together.

Readers will learn how to use watercolour pencils, acrylics, and fabric paints, as well as learn techniques for using collage, stamping, and beading, and will find tips for working with stretchy fabrics to create indented eyes, separate eyelids, and sculpted lips.

Though dollmaking is one of the oldest forms of artistic expression, contemporary artists continue to expand the boundaries of this craft by creating exciting new work that incorporates all types of media.

In this book, artists from around the world release their creative forces with glorious abandon as they take three simple dolls patterns and turn them into one-of-a-kind works of art featuring hand-dyed fabrics, beads, stamping, coloured pencils, and much more. Internationally known cloth doll artist and teacher, Patti Medaris Culea brings together a collection of projects ranging from simple and elegant designs by emerging artists to elaborate dolls from premiere doll designers. These artists offer easy to follow instructions, tips and special insights, along with creative variations for each of the projects.

This book is aimed at teachers, students, and anyone with an interest in art principles, defines traditional fundamental design elements and illustrates their applications in beautiful, modern polymer clay. Straight-forward design concepts such as colour, pattern, shape, dimension, texture, and composition, which apply to all media, are explored. After studying each concept, readers create a project, complete with step-by-step instructions and clear illustrations, which reinforces it. These numerous exercises are geared towards stimulating and improving the reader's design quality and creations.

This is sure to be an art principles resource book readers will use over and over.

Two revered doll makers—Elinor Peace Bailey and Noreen Crone-Findlay—come together for the first time in this unique retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk. Crafters and doll enthusiasts will marvel at the two different inspiring creations and presentations of this age-old story. Features step by step instructions, patterns, illustrations and photos to help readers weave, sew, and craft more than 15 delicate and whimsical dolls, as well as build a complete puppet stage for presentations. Perfect for storytellers, doll makers, troop leaders librarians and parents.