miya's doll

It's Thursday already, huh?
Man this week seems to have flown by.  And also crept at a snail's pace...

Our Miya girl turns 1 today.
I cannot believe it's been almost a year since we met that tiny little girlie. 
The kids had been pestering me about if we'd be able to see her for her birthday... I had been answering them with my standard, every time they ask about spending time with her, answer: "it's up to them kids, we have to give Ms. T and Miya's daddy their space and if they want us involved, we will be...".
Well, happily, Ms. T called on Tuesday saying she'd have Miya all day on Wednesday if we'd like to see her. So we planned on them coming for a visit, planned on them for dinner, and made up a batch of cupcakes to celebrate.
And then it didn't happen after all. :(
Hoping maybe we'll get to see her today.
We'll see.

Needless to say, I was hoping to have some birthday girl pics to share, but when you don't see the birthday girl, it's hard to get birthday girl pics. ;)

So I'll substitute this instead:
(this is, after all, supposed to look like her)

This is her birthday present, made especially for her, by me.
And I wanted to take a minute and record it here and share the deets for anyone else interested in making a sweet baby doll for someone special.

It all started at Christmas time, when I remembered way too late that I had really wanted to get Miya one of these baby dolls.  But it was too late to order one for Christmas.  So I searched our local stores for a nice, soft, lovey (i.e., not plastic) baby doll... picturing one she could sleep with and drag along behind her wherever she went.  And I found some really cute ones.
Only none of them had dark skin. :(

And then I was looking at the originals I wanted online again, and I thought... Hmmm, I wonder if I could pull off making one??  And that was that. I bought up some supplies and decided to make a plan and gift our girlie with my own handmade version that looked just like her and matched her beautiful chocolate skin. 

And then I got sidetracked, and long story short, this turned into a birthday gift rather than a Christmas gift. ;)

Not that it physically took me two months to make it; it really only took me one evening and part of one morning to make. Super easy and super quick.
I was going to just go from scratch, but then I coincidentally came across this tutorial for a cute little lanky monkey and it seemed just right, with few little easy enough changes... and whalah!

So I followed that tutorial pretty much exactly with these few minor changes:
No tail (obv.)
Hair and a bow instead of ears and a hat
No "monkey" face, but rather just stitched on sweet little girlie eyes and a mouth

I used all flannels so she's snuggly soft; a nice cocoa color for her skin, bright coordinates for her body, socks and skirt, and then black felt for the shoes and the black minky material for her hair (with "curls" in it).
I was originally going add little piggy tails for her hair, but I decided to keep it simple and more Miya-right-now-like. :) I just cut the head fabric as written, and added my own hair fabric right over the top of it.  I also stitched on her shoes so they're not removable. (and sewed those buttons on extra, extra, extra well!)

I also added some small bags of rice to her behind and her hands and feet when I stuffed her, so she'd have some "weight" to her and be able to sit and just to make her feel a little more substantial.
I remember my kids' favorite stuffed animals had weighted  rears or extremities (like rice or beanbag filling) and something about that is magnetic for a kid... the weight or the feel or something.  So I added it.

Oh, and I did add a bible verse, similar to the Baby Be Blessed dolls... I gave her Jeremiah 31:3; a truth I hope she'll hear and realize as she grows up.
(I just taped a piece of fabric onto cardstock and ran it through the printer, let it dry, trimmed it and stitched it on her belly)

The tutorial is super easy, and I was able to basically wing it after just looking it over a bit.
I had a lot of fun making it, personalizing it for her, thinking of her and praying for her while I made it.  I really enjoyed the project (and I am so not a sewer!) and it came out much much better than I had hoped...
I'm thinking I just might already have my gifts planned out for my four little nieces next Christmas!