MiNa Softie Dolls

This post falls under the category of miscellany (that's for you Na), while not food related it is a project that was inspired by our blog. A few years ago, Mr Mi and I were at the art gallery shop browsing through some books when all of a sudden Mr Mi with much excitement shows me a book he has found Softies: Simple Instructions for 25 Plush Pals. Really? I mean sure, I thought it was a pretty cute book but had no idea that Mr Mi was interested in making hand sewn toys made out of felt! And so began our softie adventure.

We went through a phase of making softies all the time. Softie trees, Miffy, owls, world globe, Rubik's cube, Nintendo hand controller, Russian dolls, cupcakes...you name it we made it. Over time, we bought metres of felt in every colour and pattern that you could imagine. Then for a while ... nothing! I needed some inspiration. Which now leads me to the reason for this post. I wanted to make something that would represent us, Mi & Na. Light bulb goes off *ding* why not make softie dolls that look like us? Well, sort of look like us anyway in a 2 dimensional kind of way. Why not, I say to myself? And so began my MiNa softie adventure.

The design was actually quite simple and it didn't take me very long at all. I started off with a gingerbread woman sort of shape and just added some clothing. Na's was easy to design, I couldn't go wrong with a Peter Pan collar - it's her thing (recall the cute collar cake post)! I love anything spotty so decided to use the spotty felt for my dress. A few stitches here, another few stitches there, a button or two, some ribbon and done! But it was still missing something, MiNa loves food especially cupcakes...so how can I add that element to our softie dolls? Enter Sandy, one of my favourite stores and I found these cute little cupcake brooches. Perfect, the MiNa softie doll project is now complete. Hope you like them! Mi xo

P.S. After finishing the Na doll, I realised she bears a resemblance to Madeline or Mary Poppins Pook-A-Looz. What do you think?