Hi everyone, welcome back! In the previous tutorial, I showed you how to create the base for a Waldorf style doll head using some of my son's old wool socks. In Part 2, I'm going to show you how to shape the head and finish the face.
Waldorf dolls can trace their origins back to a traditional European cloth doll style that mothers made for their children using scraps of fabric and soft wool fleece which were readily available to them. In the 1920s, a Waldorf teacher named Mabel Spiegeland, introduced these dolls to her class because they reflected the schools values that focused on educating the whole child – mind, body, and spirit. The school's founder, Rudolf Steiner, believed dolls were an excellent way to foster the development of children through imaginative play, but was adamant that their features should be kept very simple so that the child's imagination would not be hampered.
The delicate facial features such as cheeks and nose are formed by needle felting tufts of batting to the head and then stretching a knit fabric over the top revealing a gentle face with subtle but delightful features. If you have never needle felted before, don't worry because this is a great project to try your hand at it. Don't let yourself get hung up on details, we simply want to add a little fullness across the lower part of the face to flesh out the cheeks and chin and apply a little button of the nose to add just a hint of definition. It won't look like much at first, the magic happens as you apply the skin.
Follow along in the video to see how to create the full doll head.
That's it, your head is finished. In our next tutorial, I will walk you through
making the body, and the wig.
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