Bunka Doll: Part 1

Guess what I'm finally making - a bunka doll! I've admired these dolls for a while now, but never really thought about making one until now. I've seen a few fabric dolls on an 18th Century sewing group on Facebook, and it made me want to make a doll out of fabric too - however I thought that the style and clothes of those dolls would be too difficult for a newbie like me, so I settled for a bunka doll after browsing through some websites. 

I found this website on Blogger, which had a free pattern to copy and some very clear instructions, so I thought I would use that to make my doll. I doubled the measurements given in the diagram, as I wanted a bigger bunka doll, and cut my fabric from white and red cotton (red is the traditional colour of bunka dolls as it is thought to protect children from harm, so I made the shoes and some of the outfit red). 

 

Here you can see how I stitched the shoes to the legs. The red is very striking! I don't usually sew with red for some reason (probably because I mostly make clothes and don't tend to wear red), but here it was really fun. It looks great with the white of the doll's body.

Legs sewn together and turned inside-out with a knitting needle.

I added rolled-up card and stuffing to the insides of the legs and arms (not photographed for some reason). It's funny, because in the photo below they remind me of the Wicked Witch of the East when Dorothy's house dropped on top of her. They're like tiny ruby slippers!

Sewn to the beginning of the body. It was a bit difficult to sew the legs to the body with the card inside, so I would recommend trimming the card quite a lot before stuffing them inside the body and sewing. I did trim mine beforehand, but I found that it needed more cutting off of it, as one of the legs didn't catch to the body and I had to do it again.

And that's as far as I got today, as I had to go back home! It was really quick and fun, so I could have done a lot more in one sitting. I'll update my process as I go along. For now I have to think of other fabrics to use for the dress, bonnet, face and hair. I'm thinking black embroidery thread hair, and a dress with red, navy and pink flowers.