Technique Tuesday: Making Tiny Doll Hands

As mentioned in a previous post, I am often asked about hands. Probably the most common question is, "How do you make those tiny fingers"?!  People looking at my sculptures love that the fingers move and that the hand is pose-able.  The great thing about cloth hands is that I only have to make one type, but I can change the entire look of a doll by altering the placement of the fingers.

I described the process a previous post, but it is easier to understand by watching the video.  I must give credit where credit is due: I learned the technique in a class by Akira Blount at Arrowmont School of Arts and Craft.

No special tricks involved in the process, but the key to success is t-shirt fabrics.  So simple, but it makes a huge difference!  Another benefit is that you don't have to spend a lot of money on special cloth, just visit the thrift store and buy some gently worn shirts.  If you are making needle-sculpted heads, you can use the same fabric for those.

Questions or comments?  As always, let me know. Watch the video, then try some hands yourself.

Another Set of Hands

As you seen from previous posts, I'm in the process of creating large figures.  With bigger bodies, one can create more detail and expression.  Two body parts are important for creating expression (or at least, there are two areas the human eye dwells upon); heads and hands.  This post details the construction of more detailed hands for the larger figures.

My small hands are made with fabric and chenille stems - works great but the joints are too rounded (if you bend a finger, your joint forms a point at the bend).  To provide a more realistic joint, I need to create bones or stiff areas.  This would only allow fingers to bend where they should.  After trying various beads and tubes, I realized that paper beads would be the perfect solution - stiff, lightweight, and free.  To create the beads, I rolled strips of glue-covered paper around fine knitting needles.

The chenile stems were threaded onto the tubes with space between the paper bones to allow for bending.  As you can see at the right, the fingers bend in a realistic manner.

Before making the fingers, I spent some time making a correctly sized template. This hand is about 50% the size of an adult hand.  If you try this yourself, don't be tempted to use a child's hand, the scale is different and won't look right.  Each finger and bone is mapped out (fingers are different sizes!) and the bones placed correctly on the chenille stems.

The fingers are sewn onto a palm of stiff interfacing (the type used for baseball caps) and the knuckles are padded with bits of felt. There is no stuffing in these hands (or any other type of hand I make) because stuffing nearly always creates a bizarre, swollen, snake-bitten affect. Look at your own hands; usually they are pretty flat.

The palms are padded with more felt near the fingers and the base of the thumb.  If you look at your own hand, you can see that these areas are a bit thicker than the rest of the palm. The finger chenille extends all the way to the wrist so that the entire hand can be inserted into the arm and the wrist bent if necessary.  Even though the hand/palm is stiffened, it is still movable and can assume any normal shape from a fist to fingers fully spread.

The outer covering is made from felted wool.  The usual method of inserting wire or chenille won't work here, so a layer of wool is pinned to the hand, edges turned under, and very carefully sewn by hand.  This was the most difficult and time consuming part of the process because the seam allowances were so tiny.  Thank goodness for felted wool.  I elected to use blue thread, so the stitches are visible.  

Stay tuned for more detail on this figure - he's quite the handsome fellow!

A Show of Hands

Work in progress with wired hands

Hands and their gestures can add a lot of nuance to a figure. For a variety of reasons, many people have a fear of making hands.  Fingers are small body parts to begin with, and sewing something extra small can be a daunting task.  Stuffing something so tiny can pose problems.  Creating realistic gestures can be tricky.  Never fear, you have options.

The mitten hand is a good general purpose hand for a beginner.  There are few small parts (only the thumb, really) and it's pretty easy to turn the hand right side out.  "The mitten" doesn't offer much in the way of gesture, but by altering needlesculpting tension, these hands can be open or closed and can be sewn into a variety of positions when completed.

The nice thing about this hand is the process of stitching finger grooves creates a bit of a curl to the fingers- very realistic.  Notice in the mitten hands shown above that they have been overstuffed (they look like pudgy baby hands).  This is a problem beginners often have - if it's hollow, stuff it.  Actually, the best mitten hands have almost zero stuffing, as seen below

A reasonably good mitten hand

The little cat doll above has typical mitten hands.  The palms are pretty flat, the hand curls a bit and it has clearly defined 'fingers'.  The hands are stuffed lightly and tucked into the end of the arm.  I use a round of backstitches to keep the hand in place.  Because I use wools and other heavy fabrics, the stitches are nearly invisible.

The hand that I use the most is a realistic hand with all five fingers.  I used to be afraid of these (turning those tiny fingers!), but the key is using knit fabrics.  Knits are a bit trickier to sew (use the appropriate needle in your machine), but the end result is sooooo much easier to work with.  Another big help is creating a pattern with the fingers spread wide; this will give you some (but not much!) seam allowance and prevent blow-outs when turning fingers.  When stitching, don't use a shorter stitch length; this will decrease stretch and cause more problems, not fewer.

Unshaped hands with chenile stems

The hands shown above have been turned right side out and then 'stuffed' with chenille stems.  It is a good idea to turn the fingertip end of the stem into a tiny loop - otherwise you or a customer may get poked. Generally the hands won't require any additional stuffing.  For extra support, sometimes I insert a narrow strip of very stiff interfacing (the type used in baseball cap bills) into the wrist. This prevents the limp wrist phenomenon that can occur if your figure is moved and posed a lot.  Not a problem if the figure just sits around with one pose.

Hands after shaping

The photo above shows two hands in which the fingers have been bent into more realistic poses.  The left hand has been curved just a bit to approximate the normal appearance of a hand at rest (glance at your hand, it takes effort to open the fingers flat).  The right hand has been bent into a pointing pose. Although the fingers look a little too long and the joints are not as pointy as they should be, rest assured that on a figure, they look fine.  There is something about the human brain that interprets not so perfect body parts on artwork as looking realistic.  This is why Barbie (who's proportions are way out of whack), looks fine to most of us. 

The one downside of using wires in hands is that the hands can get bent out of shape during shipping or movement.  It is fairly easy to repose fingers, but sometimes I get gallery owners going crazy with the fingers. 

Work in progress with wired hands (see 1st photo)

So try some hands.  Start by making a pattern.  Trace three hands (an extra for mistakes) onto t-shirt fabric (the hand should be perpendicular to the grainline), then sew using 12 stitches to the inch (don't hand sew these seams, it just won't work).  Turn right side out (go slowly and think happy thoughts!).  Insert chenile stems. 

One last thing.  I'm going a bit backwards here.  The body, arms and legs should be made first, then the head and hands last.  The reason for doing this is that there is a ratio of body part sizes the eye expects to see.  If you make the head and hands first (which most people want to do), your body rarely comes out the right size.  Something to think about.  If you're just practicing, start making those hands!  Practice makes perfect.