This is one of my favourite doll patterns, and not one of the easiest. The arms are made in four parts, the legs in one with two boots. The head is sewn to the body. Then the arms and legs are sandwiched inbetween the two body parts inside out. You need extreme patience not to scream as arms and legs fly around all over the place, these dolls are not well known for being cooperative!

And when you finally manage to pin and tack all the pieces together and have sewn all the way around the edge, you then have to get all the insides, out. Fortunately I have made one before, a larger version. But that was over a year ago and I have a brain like a sieve. So once again the legs ended up the wrong way round, Izzy wasn’t amused!

Then as I was turning her legs out I found out the hard way I’d left some pins in. There wasn’t much room between arms and legs to get hold of the pins, so I just had to be brave, suffer the pain and carry on turning her inside out. What we suffer for our art!

As for the one I made before, well I listed her on eBay not thinking for one minute she’d sell. I really wanted to keep her, but thought I’d better try to recoup some of the cost of all the materials I’d bought! At the end of the bidding I could say ‘oh dear, she hasn’t sold, I’ll have to keep her’

But she sold, on the one hand I was chuffed…but on the other…very sad. That’s why I decided to make Izzy. Would I sell I her? I’ll think about it!