Have A Hankie!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful New Year's celebration. We were traveling yesterday and it sure is great to be back home. We had a blast with cousins, grandparents, parents, siblings, nieces, nephews and friends over Christmas!

 

I haven't put away the Christmas fun yet, but I know that Valentines' Day is just around the corner. I actually started on some fun Valentines stuff back in November :) This sweet little Valentine Hankie Doll is a breeze to whip up. She is so adorable and fun to make. I really wanted to use one of my vintage Valentine hankies but didn't have the "heart" to cut it up. I only have four Valentine hankies and none are duplicates. I ended up "borrowing" one of Dear Hubby's handkerchief's. I love how the hankie material seems to float and billow. It really makes the doll look light and delicate. If you don't happen to have a handkerchief any gauzy material should work fine. You will just need to hem the edges before cutting the pattern out.

 

 

 Here she is "floating" through the air.

 

Supplies:

wooden ball - go ahead and paint face and mod podge it

three pipecleaners (12")-two white, one silver

white yarn

hankie

white glue (you could use hot glue, be careful)

red & silver glitter

red card stock

white card stock

tiny eye screw

scrap of red felt

thread/needle

12" piece of ribbon

sewing machine (optional)

1 Valentine hankie

 

Large heart is for  Valentine and small heart is for front of dress at collar line.

 

The hole may need to be enlarged a tiny bit, I did struggle a little trying to get four pipe cleaners into that tiny hole. The two small screws to the right of the wooden ball are the eye screws.

 

Arm: cut white pipe cleaner into two 5 1/4" pieces.

Legs: cut other white pipe cleaner in half.

 

Starting about 2" from one end of the pipe cleaner, wrap the yarn all the way to the end. You will do this step for each arm and each leg.

 

Bend the wrapped part in half-this will be your hand. Do the same thing to the other 5 1/4" pipe cleaner. You will also do this for the two leg pipe cleaners too, making a foot.

After you have bent the pipe cleaner "hand" start wrapping the hand and arm. In this photo (above) I have just finished wrapping the hand or foot and I will continue wrapping the pipe cleaner but will leave the last 1/2" free of yarn. **Glue the end of the yarn down so that it will not unravel, using a tiny drop. Let dry.

Above: Arms are inserted into the head hole and glued and then legs are inserted and glued. To make the pipe cleaner smaller in order for it to fit better in the hole, you might want to trim some of the fuzz off of the pipe cleaner. Let glue dry.

To make the shoes, just paint some glue on and then dip the foot into glitter. When it it dry knock off excess glitter.

Use the prehemmed edge of the hankie to your advantage. I used it for the sleeve cuff and bottom of dress.

 

Sleeves

1. Cut out two 4 1/2" squares from hankie.

2. With sewing machine, hem the raw edge of the other end of sleeve (the end opposite of the prehemmed edge).

3. Now, fold in half, with raw edges together & right sides together, sew 1/4" seam (you could do this by hand). Turn right side out.

4. Using needle and strong thread, sew a gathering stitch on the top and bottom of the sleeve, leaving about 3" tails to tie them later. Set them aside.

 

Dress

1. Make the dress the same way as the sleeves except cut out a 4 1/4" x 11 1/2" rectangle.

2. Only make a gathering stitch along the top of the dress.

 

 

Sleeve attached using gathering stitch.** Add dress before you add the sleeves.

 

3. Pull the gathering stitched slightly and then place on doll. Now pull threads tightly and knot off, getting the dress as close as possible to the head.

4. You will do the same for the sleeves. Billow the sleeves before tying off the cuff.

 

Here are the hankies that I wanted to use but couldn't bring myself to cut into them. I will have to be on a lookout for a duplicate that I can cut!

Right below her chin is the felt heart. This picture makes it look like a blob but I promise it is a heart <3

 

Glittery red shoes.

Stamp "happy valentines day" on her Valentine. Add glitter and then glue it to the white cardstock and finally glue it to her silver pipe cleaner.

Here she is on my white craft room tree. I think I will leave the tree up until Easter, but then there's the 4th of July and then Halloween. White will go with anything :)

 

I hope that you will make the sweet Hankie Doll and if you do I would absolutely love to see her.

 

Have a wonderful crafty day and keep those fingers busy,

Holly