What fun to make these boy and girl yarn dolls for your Christmas tree or as holiday decorations all around the house. You could even tie one into the bow on gifts at Christmas or any time of the year.
Use bright colors of yarn for the best effect. I use 3 or 4 ply yarn - the 4 ply makes a fuller looking doll. The two dolls in the photo are 3 ply baby yarn.
Supplies needed:
2 yards or 2 meters of yarn for the head, body, legs section. And, 1 yard, plus 1 foot or 1.3 meters of yarn for the arms section, plus five half foot or 15 cm lengths to tie body parts together.
To hang the yarn doll you'll need a 1.5 feet or 45cm length of yarn.
To assemble:
For the body, take the longer length of yarn and wrap it around your spread out fingers.
For the arms, loop the shorter length of yarn around your closed fingers to make a smaller section.
The boy doll in red yarn on the left of the photo has more tied sections to form the neck, arms, wrists and ankles.
The girl doll on the right made of pink yarn has sections tied off to form the neck, waist and wrists. After finishing a girl doll I cut the fringe at the bottom so her skirt can be fluffed out, as in photo. I also cut the loops at the ends of her hands, but do what you think looks best - perhaps some cut for fringe and some remaining in loops to look more like fingers.
Follow the photo carefully to see just where to place the ties. After making one of each it becomes much easier to make the dolls.
Why not get your scrap yarn together in a basket next to you on the sofa and while you watch your favorite show measure out lengths of yarn for many dolls. That's what I did to make a tree full of yarn dolls one year.
This is a great project to get the kids involved with also as they can practice their math skills in measuring out lengths of yarn for each doll. I think this is a totally suitable project for them, with some supervision with the scissors, of course.
If you need help or want to take photos of your yarn dolls to post, bring them to our Doll Making forum. The link to enter is right at the foot of this article.
Have fun with this project! Happy Doll Making as always!
Article and photo credit Susan Kramer
