How to Make a Yarn Doll

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It's easy to take a child out to the mall, snatch a pricey doll off the shelves, and pay for it at the register. But will it be memorable for the child? Another way to approach the situation is to take the time to sit down with them and make a simple yarn doll. The end product may not be as fancy as a store-bought doll, but it'll carry fond memories of quality time spent with someone who cares about them.

Steps

1. Decide the size of your doll. How big or small do you want your doll to be? Select a piece of cardboard that is roughly the same height. This card, the back of an old notepad, is about 5.5 inches or 14 cm tall.
   
2. Select your soft yarn and loop it around the cardboard lengthwise. Tie a knot at the top to secure it.
   
3. Keep wrapping the yarn around the board. You'll need at least 100 loops for a good doll. Remember, the more times you wrap it, the thicker your doll will be. On your last loop, tie it to a previous loop to secure it.
   
4. Slide a piece of string between the loops and the cardboard. Slide it up to the top and tie a tight knot. This will gather all of the strings together in the center of the board. For a pretty accent bow, you can use a different color piece of yarn.
   
5. Slide the strings off of the cardboard. Tie a piece of string in a tight knot around where you'd like the neck of the doll to be. Don't worry if it ends up being too big or too small. You can change it later.
   
6. Tie a string tightly where you'd like her waist to be in the middle section of string.
   
7. Tie the arms at the "wrists" and trim the looped yarn ends.
   
8. Clip the end loops off of the body of your doll to make a "skirt" of yarn. If you want, you can make legs instead of a skirt by sectioning off the middle into 2 parts from the waist down and tying them off like you did the arms.
   

Tips

• For a different look, braid the arms and legs before tying them off.
  
• If you want your doll to have hair, make sure you put more loops in the beginning, then pull out some loops to be just hair before you tie the neck piece. Leave the extras to dangle in back until you're ready to make them hair.
  
• Corn husk dolls are made in a similar fashion, only from corn husks rather than yarn.
  
• To make a giant sized yarn doll use a string mop instead of yarn. Take the mop off the plastic piece that would connect it to the handle, fold in half and tie to make head.
  
• For less waste, after tying the yarn at the top of the card, cut the yarn loops along the bottom before separating them into arms and legs. This reduces the waste of simply trimming off the loops after they are tied for arms and legs.
  
• Try some embellishments like ribbon or using two colors of yarn successively.
  
• If you want a doll with a long skirt, you don't have to cut and tie the legs. The bottom half of the doll will look like it's wearing a long skirt.
  
• You can put a ring of LifeSavers in the middle for the body. It's really cute!!
  
• You don't have to have legs you can make a dress for a girl.
  

Warnings

• Always be careful with scissors.
  

Things You'll Need

• Cardboard
  
• Yarn
  
• Scissors
  

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