expiration date 

a few nights ago, i overheard aina making her nightly prayer to jesus, asking him to tell santa (she can’t write yet, so she can’t make a list for santa) that she wants a doll for christmas. her exact word was, “jesus, could you tell santa that i would like a doll for christmas. she should look kinda like aina maninonet, but without strings so that I can hug her and take her to bed with me. Oh, I want the hair to be pigtailed and blonde… and she should wear stripy tights.”

so i thought, rather than buying her a doll, maybe we should make her a rag doll. a blond rag doll that she can dress up. so, the next day, when aina told me about her request to santa (she usually tells me everything she said on the prayers… she doesn’t know i eavesdrop), i suggested to make it ourselves. she immediately agreed and was excited with the idea.

she started with drawing her own design of the doll. i told her that we should make her naked, and she can make all kinds of dresses for her. and this is what she wanted:

i negotiated the size of the lips, though.

anyways… based on her drawings (kinda), i started with patterns. i wanted the doll to have thumbs and feet. it’s going to be fun to make little shoes.

and then the usual cutting fabric and tracing. i washed and ironed the fabric prior to cutting to avoid shrinking if we need to wash the doll.

aina said that she wanted the eyes to be black, just like hers. and red lips, just like in her drawings. it’s okay to have the lips less thick, though. so, before sewing everything together, i did the face. and she was very happy with it, especially with the eyelashes.

then, after sewing and stuffing the limbs, i attached the two arms into the body. this part is rather tricky because the two stuffed arms didn’t really fit into the body cavity when it was inside out. i had to sew half of one side, leaving the underarm to make space for the other arm. i hope that explanation is clear enough, because i forgot to take pictures during this time… sorry.

anyways, after the arms are attached, it’s time to stuff the head and the body.

the torso was closed by attaching the legs.

then, we had to take a lunch break. aina wanted to take her new doll out, despite it was still bald. we had to do a makeshift dress out of ari’s old teeshirt. but i guess that’s enough for our lunch out.

tomorrow, we’ll do the hair :)