Bunka Doll

For the current craft swap on EGL, I was magically paired up with a Sweet Lolita! I'm not very good at making sweet themed things, mostly because my supplies tend to follow the classic/gothic route in terms of lolita, as well as mori girl and more oriental styles, so it was a little difficult to decide what to make. My fabrics were all the wrong colors and styles, but I managed to dig some other fabric I got from my sister. One was the perfect color for a skin tone and the other was an Alice blue.

I thought, what could I make with this though? Then I remember a Lolita at PMX [which I attended last weekend] was wearing a Bunka doll pin on her jacket! Her pin was very cute, I think it was wearing a bear kigurumi/suit...And it was quite small too. I really liked it. So I decided to have a go at making a sweet styled bunka doll!

I didn't really use a pattern, but I used some tutorials as guidelines for some parts. Like the legs for example, since with this method, I didn't have to make legs then sew on "shoes" over them.

Body! I ended up not using the pink gingham since I couldn't figure out a good way to incorporate it. The type of fabric didn't match well either, it was too soft since it was more of a jersey.

Body all put together! I couldn't figure out how to attach the head and arms properly, so it doesn't look so fabulous from the back...

 

Dress made and face painted! I had to use a tooth pick and a pin to pain her face on.

 

From the back! You can see I used pink yarn for her braids. I tried to tie it in with the pink-polka-dot ribbon, since it was the only ribbon I had that was proper size! She's not that pretty from the back because I intended for her to be a pin, but she's cute as a doll too, so I left the pin out. I figured, if the owner wanted to wear her, she could use a safety pin or attach a pin herself. I mean, there's no guarantee that her owner would want to wear her, this way she can just be a cute decoration sitting next to a jewelry box or something.

  

Her bonnet turned out a little tall, but that's okay! I used some of the pink tulle to make it more interesting since I didn't have proper sized lace/good quality lace. Over all though, she's very simple, but very sweet.