Well, I promised I would show you what I made with the frilly frocks in my last post – so here goes: a maker’s dozen.

It’s taken rather longer than I expected.

I made a dozen basic dolls without delay…It is a fact that something that’s a pleasure to do once, can become a chore when you have to do it twelve times.

But in this case I didn’t really mind. I got into a sort of rhythm: drawing, cutting out, stitching, snipping, turning, stuffing, stitching again. The repetition can be a bit boring, but allows for a pleasantly wandering mind… and the ability to listen to radio plays and the like without worrying about making mistakes when I get caught up in the plot.

But then you have all that blank possibility staring at you…

And that’s where the problems really start!Making commissions is great in lots of ways. The dolls are already sold, to someone who likes your work enough to seek you out to buy from you directly.

But commissions come with their own challenges…

What does the customer really want? Have I interpreted the brief correctly? Will they like the finished article(s)?

It’s easy to get lost in a crisis of confidence.

And when you have twelve different-but-similar little ladies to create, it takes a big dollop of imagination to bring those blank bodies to life.

I started with the hair…Once you have a hairstyle, it’s easier to create the face, rather than the other way around, I find.

And from there, I put off deciding what they were going to wear for a bit longer by giving them all knickers.

Which meant it was time to face the moment I’d been dreading: cutting into the frilly frocks.

I’m a terrible procrastinator. I have to admit: actually taking my scissors to those little dresses took me quite some time to work up to. I drank a lot of tea and did quite a bit of cleaning the kitchen before I was quite ready to take charge of the task in hand.

But I got there in the end.

I made it easier by starting with snipping the dresses’ straps. They happened to work very well as little lacy knickers.

And once I’d made the initial snip, it got a bit easier. One by one, the girls started to emerge…

Given the pastel palette of the frocks, I sort of went with a theme, trying to make each doll an individual and at the same time recognisably part of the same series…Some have wings…And some don’t…Once they were done, I psyched myself up to send photographs to the person who ordered them.

Thankfully they liked them!

Happy dance ensued!On to the next commission, I thought. One order down, three more to go.

But then I remembered…

I’d finished twelve dolls – but what I had forgotten was that there was an additional order for another, extra doll (of a slightly different design) for the same person, that I hadn’t yet finished.

So instead of a dozen dolls, there will be a baker’s dozen.

Or should that be a maker’s dozen? ♥