Nijah's First Doll

This is the story of Nijah's first doll, 12 years later.

This doll was first made about 12 years ago for my daughter. She carried it around and loved it as you can see from the picture.  Hers is the one on the left.

I was new at making toys, let alone designing them. My mom, who loves to crochet toys, proofed the directions for me and placed sticky notes, on the side with the corrections and some highlights to the actual text. These directions have been sitting on my desk for years, moved to another town and still sat on my desk. I finally got to them and found the doll too!

I decided that I would use the same basic idea but that some changes needed to be made. I used half double crochets on the new doll because the double crochets would let little fingers in to the stuffing.  I also used a smaller hook and lighter weight yarn.  This made for a smaller doll.

I also decided to go faceless for this new doll as Nijah ripped the face out of the original.  She was about a year old when I gave it to her and the recipient of the new doll is about 8 months old.

Both dolls are made from 100% acrylic yarn and stuffed with polyester fiberfil.

Here are the step by step directions to placing the hair on the doll.

First I cut lots and lots of strands.  Then I outline where I want hair.

I then insert the crochet hook where I want the next strand placed.

I fill in the area working from bottom to top and left to right.  Bottom to top is practical for the way the hair lays and placing new strands.  Left to right is preference.

I then fold a strand of yarn in half and wrap it around the crochet hook.

I then pull the strand through the stitch.

I then hook the 2 ends on the left around the hook and pull them through the loop I just made.

I then continue to pull the hook up and to the right, pulling the ends completely through the loop.  Then pull the ends tight to make the strand secure.

I continue these steps until all the hair is filled in.  It is time consuming, but I love the finished look.  It took me an entire movie to do her hair but I really like it.

Until next week, fiber on and Happy Thanksgiving!