When I was a child I had a doll that I absolutely loved. She
was given to me by someone that I care for very much. And I dearly wish that I
still had her. But I don't. And this has been playing on my mind for a while
now. Until I bought a vintage craft book about a month ago.
The pattern for this doll has been brewing in my mind for a few months, but I
didn't really have the confidence to get started on it. Then I saw a
'suggestion' of how to make a similar doll in this vintage craft book and
thought, what the hell, lets give it a go. I hinted at it in this post
and gave you a sneak peak, but didn't actually finish her until today.



This is Julianna. Her dress is made from one of my favourite Paul Smith fabrics and has a collar that ties at the shoulder. I designed the dress based on a real full size pattern of a 1970's dress (minus the shoulder tie) that I was given a while ago. I have no experiance of dressmaking other than the dress I made for my Princess and the Pea doll. But I really enjoyed making this one and I feel that I'm really building in confidence.
She stands 17" (43cm) tall, so she's quite a statuesque young lady. Her
hair is made from brown wool and is worn in a jaunty bob, pulled in at the nape of her neck. Her features are embroidered.
Oh and she has a best friend called Sophia.
Sophia is also 17" tall, but wears her hair in a slightly more traditional plait made from the same brown wool as Julianna's.
Sophia wears a green leafy/floral abstract printed dress. It's obviously the same pattern as Julianna's dress but I altered the collar to suit the more traditional look of her dress.
Julianna and Sophia are the best of friends. They love to do everything together. In fact you could say that they're joined at the hip.
Because they actually are joined at the hip!
You see the doll that I had when I was younger was a topsy turvy doll. One end of her wore a beautiful dress and had her hair all done up, whilst the other end wore a night dress and was asleep. And I loved that so much.
I did intend to try and do a more exact copy, but eventually decided to make the doll as two seperate dolls, purely because it was more fun that way.
It's taken me so long to finish Julianna/Sophia because I've struggled with each new step. Amongst other things, I haven't tried to sew 'real' hair before (the Princesses is embroidered), so I left her sitting on my table for a while whilst I worked up the courage to try it. And then she had to sit around faceless whilst I worked out how on earth I was going to embroider their faces - most of my toys are asleep for a reason!
Anyway I'm really pleased with her now that she's finally finished and more than that, I'm really pleased that I got to grips with some new techniques - none of which were nearly as hard as I thought they would be.
Oh and just as a very strange coincidence, if you look over on Whip Up today, you'll see some more Topsy Turvy dolls made by Megan Hanson-Knarhoi.
Julianna/Sophia is now in the shop .




















