I know, I know, it’s Halloween week and I should have had this posted a few weeks ago. But. Stuff happened. And I really wanted to share how cute this doll was before Halloween! It’s not too late to make. If you spend every free moment cutting, hand stitching, and stuffing.

While perusing Instagram, I came across this absolutely adorable Skeleton Doll.

This charming creation is from Delilah Iris Designs. You can get the pattern at her Etsy Shop. It was $6.95 when I bought it.

Last year I made these turkeys with her FREE pattern. You can get that on her website.

I made three and sent two to the granddaughters in North Dakota. I kept one cause it was SO CUTE! Thought I would do the same with the Skeleton Doll. But. I didn’t.

Anyhow.

The Skeleton Doll pattern comes with the SVG file which is mainly why I bought it. What is an SVG file? It’s the file for the Cricut Maker so I could cut the felt pieces out there rather than with scissors.

But…..I had problems with the SVG file. Could not make it work. I asked Delilah some questions through messaging on Etsy but I still couldn’t get it to cut correctly. (Another reason I love Etsy. They are real people running small businesses and they actually answer messages. Promptly. Like immediately!) I am not a Cricut expert–yet! I’m a lot better than I was a year ago, but still have issues. This doll comes in two size–small and too small. After cutting those sizes with the Cricut I had a whole lot of little white bits and some of the black parts. Not sure where I went wrong.

They were so tiny and such a mess, I just made the fronts. Didn’t bother cutting out the back and stitching together. They are now on my bulletin board. Kinda cute there! I think they would make an amazing Halloween garland–next year!

The cuties are 7″ and 5″. I attempted to make the larger doll again but I cut the pieces out by hand. I was supposed to put pipe cleaners in the doll so it would bend. I couldn’t imagine how I could do that. The pipe cleaners were bigger than his skinny legs. Are there different sizes of pipe cleaners? So we went sans bendable body. I embroidered his crooked little face.

And then I got real ambitious and completely recreated the SVG file and enlarged the doll to 11 inches.

I stuck the bones on with a glue pen and then hand stitched them to the black pieces while I was watching the last episode of “Maid”. (Kind of a disturbing Netflix series because it is reality of what many women go through to escape Domestic Violence.)

I was able to actually get the pipe cleaners in there! And I used safety doll eyes. The nose and mouth are embroidered on.

Clipped him together…

Now it was time to have a cup of tea while I did some more sloooooow stitching….

I probably never would have finished all that hand stitching but we had to go on a two hour car ride and I was able to get him all sutured on the ride and stuffed when I got home.

And time for GLAMOUR SHOTS!

I wish I had started a lot earlier on the skeleton dolls so I could have given them to the granddaughters. Since I didn’t, I sent them junk food. Bet mom will be surprised when she comes home to candy and chips! Where did these come from?

By the way, Thursday’s post will include these very nice mice and why they photobombed the Glamour shots!