Mademoiselle Marionette 2018 Part 9

Mademoiselle Marionette 2018 Part 9

In this blog I am going to concentrate on securing the Rough Body parts with extra material.

Pin Material

 

I have decided to start with the Arms. I take a strip of the White material and pin it underneath the Hand. I then tack it in place.

Sew Sides of Hand

After tacking underneath the Hand I do likewise on the opposite side. I have now unfurled the material along the Arm so it doesn’t get in the way. I proceed to sew both edges of the material on the Hand together

Hand in Pouch

The Hand should now be in encased in a rough Pouch.

Sew Pouch

The next thing to do is to fold the edges of the Pouch in such a way that I can sew them together and follow the contours of the Hand.

Wrap Arm

I then carefully start to wrap the rest of the material around the Arm. It reminds me of an Egyptian Mummy.

Sew Contours

After wrapping the Arm I sewed in any pieces of the material that were flapping loosely. I then sewed tightly at the Wrist and Elbow to help give the Arm more shape.

Once I was satisfied with the definition of the Arm I began to work on the other Arm following the same process.

Pin Material to Foot

Now the Arms were finished I began work on the Legs. However having an idea overnight I was going to try and cover them in a different way.

The first thing I did was get some strips of White material only this time I made sure they were wider than what I used for the Arms. I pinned the material to the Top of the Foot NOT THE BOTTOM.

I then made a few tacking stitches to hold it in place. I then went and did the same underneath.

Wrap Material over Foot

Instead of making a pouch like I had for the Hand this time I folded the material across the Top of the Foot.

Wrap Other Side

After I tacked the first wrap in position I repeated the fold on the other side and also tacked that.

Sew Along Leg

Next I folded and pulled the Foot material together and proceeded to sew up as far as I could. When the material became too far apart for me to sew together I fixed and cut thread.

I re-threaded my needle and began to sew the material from the point I had stopped. However this time I sewed the material directly on the Leg. I then repeated the process on the other side of the Leg. As you can see in the photograph the Back of the Leg is now completely covered.

Top Layer of Leg

I took another White strip of material and gave it a rough hem on both sides the length almost to the Top of the Thigh. I then attached this to the Top of the Foot. I folded and sewed alongside the Ankle on both sides.

I put a pin in the centre of the Leg to stop the material moving whilst I positioned and sewed the Top layer of material.

Sew Both Sides of Leg

I sewed one side of the material to the Inner Leg making sure that I wasn’t pulling material away from the Outer Leg. I sewed nearly to the Top of the Thigh then stopped. I repeated this on the Outer side of the Leg.

Sew Top of Thigh

At the Top of the Thigh I had excess material. At the Back I trimmed and hemmed the material at the Top. On the Front I trimmed a little material then folded on both sides.

Cricket Pads

When I was satisfied I tacked the folds of material in place. I did not however tack it to the Body material. It was left loose and formed a pocket. It reminded me of Cricket Pads.

Both Legs Contoured

The only thing left to do to the Leg was to add the contours. This was done exactly the same as with the Arms. I then repeated and finished the other Leg.

This second method seems to give a much smoother finish. If I have enough material I may recover the Arms. However for now I will have to leave them. I need to go on to covering the Body.

Mademoiselle Marionette 2018 Part 8

Mademoiselle Marionette 2018 Part 8

It is time to sort out the Arms and Legs. I started with the Legs as I thought they would be easier to do as they wouldn’t get in the way.

Leg Sewn
 

I took one of the Legs and began to sew part way up. I thought doing it a bit at a time would make it easier to stuff.

Leg Part Stuffed




 

Once I had sewn as far as I wanted I began to add stuffing. I poked it down with a pencil. I did this very gently as I did not want to tear the stitching I had just done.

I continued sewing and stuffing the Leg until I was nearly at the top. The reason for this is so that I wouldn’t be trying to sew through the stuffing when I attached it to the body. I then repeated the process with the other Leg.

Arm Sewn











 
I began sewing and stuffing the Arm in the same way as I had made the Legs. The difference in this case was when I was part way up the upper half I sewed across. 

If you look at the photo above you can see this line marked with a pin. There is quite a bit of material left above the line. This is essential for later on.

Rough Body Appendages
 











After sewing and stuffing the second Arm I pinned the parts roughly in the places. Readers with eagle eyes may have noticed that in this picture the Neck featured in the last blog had yet to be made. Hence the fact that I jumped ahead to make it easier to follow.

Legs Attached
 








I tweaked the position slightly and then sewed the spare cloth at the top of the Legs to the Back piece of the Body.

Arms On Wrong
 







I could now move on to the Arms. This part was quite difficult in comparison. It took me ages to try and get the shoulders (aka the spare material) pinned in the right place.

The reason for this was because I need to make sure that the Arms would be able to move once the Body had been stuffed. I kept pinning and unpinning the material. When I thought I had got it right I trimmed the excess and sewed in place.

This time I attached the Arms to the Front part of the Body. I thought this was best because then the Shoulders only had to bend over one set of material.

Arms on Right
 











Grr I had been so concerned that I had the Arms in the right place that I had inadvertently sewed one of the Arms on wrong. 

My Marionette would have ended up with Elbows facing both the same way. I therefore had to unpick one of the shoulders and then resew the correct way around.

String Through
 











After the problems with the Arms I decided that I would have a change. I parted the Hair until I found the Centre which was bare.

I then took a piece of string (my arm’s length) and knotted at one end. I then threaded a thick needle which apparently mum said was called a bodkin. I sewed through from the inside then made a small tack on top. I then passed the needle underneath the tack to secure it in place.

String Hidden
 










When I had finished with the string I then pulled down the Hair from the top of the Head and swept it over it. This is why I had made the locks at the top quite long.

Head Stuffed
 











As I didn’t want the string to get in the way I folded and tied it up at the Back of the Head. I then proceeded to re-stuff the Head of the Marionette.

Body Sides Folded
 







My next task was to sort out the rest of the Body. The Marionette needs to be proportional so I wanted to make the Body thinner.

I folded the Front Body piece until it was in line with that of the Inner Shoulder. I then sewed along the Body thus making the folded part into another hem.

Large Back Fold









I folded the Back material as I had for the Front of the Body. However I made a larger fold. This decreased the size of the Back material when sewn to the Front piece. This would pull in the shoulder material tight.

Body Sides Sewn









 


As you can see in the above photograph now everything is sewn in place the Front of the Body is bowing outward somewhat. 

This is not an accident. Since the Marionette is supposed to be female I am hoping that I will be able to with a few tucks here and there be able to give a more feminine shape.

If you remember back to Part 2 I had tried to do this when I first cut out the rough Body Shape.

Mademoiselle Marionette 2018 Part 7

Mademoiselle Marionette 2018 Part 7

The Back still needs work but I cannot really complete it until I have started the Front.

Circle Pinned Front

I take the other White Circle and pin to the Top at the Front.

Preliminary Stuffing

I then add further pins to secure the sides. Next I add some stuffing inside and then pin at the Bottom. This now roughly mimics the contours of a stuffed Head.

Face Roughly Drawn

Once all the pins are in place I can then begin to draw a rough picture of a Face in pencil on the Circle. If I had drawn the Face whilst it was flat the positioning of it could be askew or proportions wrong when stuffed.

Please remember that I am in no way or shape an artist. I therefore have very poor depth perception when it comes to anything of a 3D nature.

Embroidered Face

I have tweaked the Face slightly whilst embroidering. I had trouble with just about everything but in particularly the Eyes. For some reason when I added the white towards the Nose it just looked wrong. Therefore I unpicked and left the Eyes as they were.

After the Face part was finished I began to add more Loops to make a Fringe and also alongside the Face. Once I was satisfied that I had enough Hair at this point I needed to sew together at the top. I pinned them into position and began to sew.

In Between Circles

Disaster has struck. Whilst endeavouring to sew the pieces together the needle snapped. This is due to the amount of material it was trying to get through. I am not just trying to get through the 2 White and 2 Rough pieces but also the hems. That makes 8 Pieces in total.

I did not want to be impaled by flying needle parts again (which incidentally took ages to find and put in the bin). I had to rethink. Instead of trying to get through all that material I pulled the Face up a little and sewed just the two White Circles.

Blanket Stitched Scalp

I decided that I would use the same Yellow thread to Blanket stitch the Circles together as I could then use the same thread to add more Hair.

I only Blanket Stitched down until it was level with the Cheeks. This is so I can still get my fingers and therefore the needle under the White material in order to continue the Hairline.