American Girl class: Kirsten week 1

This week in our class, we had a very fun craft-- making yarn dolls! They took a bit of time, but they turned out cute!

Here are a few pictures, but only a few, since I was pretty busy helping the girls! It was an all-hands-on-deck kind of craft!
The 1:00 class, braiding the hair:

more braiding...

The 2:00 class, working on the arms...

There were directions to make yarn dolls in Kirsten's Craft book, but I decided to use these directions from Jamin instead: 

To make the Yarn Dolls you will need…

A piece of cardboard cut to 5"X7"
30 yards of yarn for body
10 yards of yarn for arms
1 yard (same as arms) for waist and tying arms.
 Three 2 yard pieces of yarn for hair (I gave our girls three 1-yard pieces)
2 blue beads for eyes
red felt for mouth
white thread and needle to sew on hair and eyes
glue to attach mouth

Step 1 – Wrap all the body yarn around the cardboard in the 7" side.  Use a small piece of the same color as the body to tie off the top tightly and then remove from the cardboard.

Step 2 – Wrap the arm color around the same way.  Remove from cardboard and cut one end.  Tie a small piece of yarn to secure the end that still has a loop. Braid the arms together then secure the cut end with a small piece of yarn (or rubberband).  Cut the loop end so both ends are the same.

Step 3 – On the body use a small piece of the body color to tie around and make a neck.  (You now have a tassel.)

Step 4 – Cut the bottom of the tassel so it is now loose (We cut the tassel after we removed it from the cardboard). Divide the tassel in half.  Insert the arms and then use a piece about 3 inches long of the arm color to make the waist.

Step 5 -  Take the 3 yellow pieces for the hair and braid into one long piece.

Step 6 – Arrange hair on head and stitch with needle and thread.

Step 7 – Use needle and thread to sew on eyes.

Step 8 – Glue on felt mouth.  (You could use yarn to make the mouth.)

HERE IS MY FINISHED YARN DOLL!

We ran out of time in class to finish the doll (we only have one hour!), so the girls each took two blue beads and a small piece of red felt home to finish them. We did the best we could in the time we had...


For snack we had Swedish Meatballs. Most of the girls liked them!


We did not begin our on-going project, since I knew this craft was going to take longer than most. We will begin our project next week with more braiding!