The technique I used comes from Judi Ward in her Bleuette in Cloth class. The joints are made using plastic grapes inside the cloth for structure. (I did not take her class, one of her students explained the concept to me and I did the best I could. I'm sure that taking the class will help immensely if I decided to do this again.)
I started with the fabric and paper clay hands. The first hand was just a glove looking type so I could test the size of the ball joint I made:
As you can see, the hand I made was swallowed by the grape end at the wrist:
The elbow joint was a much better fit:
The joints are wooden beads that fit inside the grape halves. I changed the way I made the hand, and strung the arm this way:
That works much better. Here she is with her head hiding behind the body with the arms strung through:
I made her head large on purpose:
She is only about 10" tall.
After she sat strung for about a week, I noticed that her body parts were being squished by the stringing, and she was too stiff. So I had to cover her completely in clothes to keep her at least semi-proportional. That's the problem for me with this method. (and why I said the class would teach me a lot!)
Because she is so stiff, she looks like she got caught with her hand in the cookie jar... LOL
Anyway, check out what Tea Rose is doing on her blog with felt and wood beads.
Susans Place © 2006 Susan Wallace •