Stan The Pumpkin Man - 16" Needle Felted Handmade OOAK Scarecrow Art Doll
I know that I've told you many, many times that I LOVE the fall season. So, over the past few weeks I decided to needle felt some Fall decorations and started with scarecrows. I decided that I would needle felt as much of him as I could. This would include his inner body, outer body, face, hair, arms, hands, legs, boots, and clothes like his pants. I had already decided to use wool felt to make his shirt, hat, and vest as I could easily hand sew them and them needle felt then to his body.
I wanted him to be a sitting on a grapevine pumpkin I had found at Joanns so like bendable cloth dolls I needed to use wire to make his body bendable. I tested the bendable wire on the pumpkin to make sure he wouldn't be too big for it and ended up making him 16" tall.
For his face I decided that my Punky - Elmer's Little Scarecrow face would be a good one to base him on and printed the page his face was on from his pattern.
For the roving I decided to needle sculpt his inner body out of Sunflower's alpaca roving from Rock Garden Alpacas Fiber and his outer body from a beige mix my sister had given me from Rock Garden Alpacas Fiber. His black boots were needle felted using some of the black alpaca roving my sister had given me from Rock Garden Alpacas Fiber. His hair was going to be a combination of straw yellow roving I had previously purchased and some of Ivy's brown alpaca roving from Rock Garden Alpacas Fiber. Small pieces of orange roving and rust colored roving would be used to needle felt his orange nose and rust colored cheek circles. Black DMC embroidery floss would be used to outline the scarecrow features on his face. Straw yellow roving would simulate straw coming out his shirt sleeves and coming out the bottom of his pants.
As far as his clothes were concerned I had a wonderful Fall mix roving blend that my sister had also given me that I figured would be perfect for needle felting his pants.
I needle felted his body, head, black boots and hands first then used roving to needle felt most of his facial features. Then I used small pieces of the straw yellow roving and Ivy's brown alpaca roving to create his multi-colored hair and then needle felted his pants. Then I hand sewed his hat from brown wool felt, hand sewed his shirt from orange wool felt, and hand sewed his vest from brown wool felt.
I cut his shirt out of the orange wool felt on a double fold and made a slit in the neck so it would fit over his head. I hand blanket stitched the side seams with orange DMC embroidery floss and then put his shirt on him. I gathered the shirt around his neck with the orange DMC embroidery floss and then needle felted his wool felt shirt around his neck. Then I gathered his sleeves to his wrists with the orange DMC embroidery floss and gathered the bottom of his shirt to fit his waist with the orange DMC embroidery floss as well. I needle felted the area around his wrists and waist that I had gathered with the orange DMC embroidery floss to secure them to his body. Then I made 3 small needle felted circles for buttons and then needle felted them to his shirt and body. I wrapped some of the wonderful Fall mix roving blend I had used for his pants around his wrists to cover the orange DMC floss gathering and needle felted them to stay. I created a little bow-tie out of the same Fall mix roving blend and needled felted that just under his neck. I took small sections of the straw yellow roving and needle felted small groupings under the edge of his shirt sleeves at his wrists and just under the needle felt edging of the hem of his pants.
For his hat I cut a large circle out of the brown felt for his brim and a rectangle out of the same brown felt for the hat band. I also cut a smaller lighter brown circle out of wool felt to hand sew as an accent color for his hat brim. After hand sewing the hat band seam I hand sewed the hat band to the hat brim with black DMC embroidery floss and then gathered the top of his hat band with black DMC embroidery floss. Then I added the lighter brown circle accent to the hat brim so it could be seen just behind his hair.
I cut a large rectangle for his vest out of the brown felt and then hand sewed the shoulder seams with black DMC embroidery floss. Before putting the vest on him I folded the two front edges over about 1/2" and needle felted the brown wool felt to itself. I put the vest on him and then gathered the back neck line with the black DC embroidery floss and then needle felted the back of the vest and two folded over front edges to his body to hold his vest securely.
I bent his body into a sitting position and hot glued him to the grapevine pumpkin.
I had decided to needle felt a small pumpkin for him to hold in is hands and used orange, green, dark brown, and beige roving for this. Then I needle felted his hands to the sides of the pumpkin so he was securely holding it in his hands.
My finished doll seemed to be a little apprehensive about anyone taking his pumpkins so I decided to call him Stan the Pumpkin Man. He knows that everyone will be coming in Fall for their pumpkins and hopes he'll be less apprehensive about them taking them by then. We'll see......
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