Needle Felting a pet for an American Girl Doll

A Basset Hound for Kit

Meet "Molly" my newest  needle felted creation.  She turned out really cute and my grand daughter, Aria, is pretty happy with her and so am I.

Why Molly was created::

Before Christmas The American Girl company opened up an American Girl pop-up store in downtown Portland, Oregon and my daughter-in-law, granddaughter and I went together on the new MAX line to check it out and do some shopping.  Aria had saved her own money and had a shopping list of accessories for her doll Kit that she was hoping to be able to buy at the store.

If you are not familiar with American Girl Dolls.....let me tell you...they have quite the following and have been around long enough to have generations of enthusiasts.  Older, special edition dolls are highly collectable.

 The dolls are very well made and have the most amazing accessories to go with them.  You can have a doll that looks like you, hair color, eye color, glasses, dental head gear, or even a wheelchair.  Every year there is a special edition collectable doll and there are also "Forever" dolls that represent different girls from American history and ethnicity and come with their own book that tells their story.   All the dolls are very expensive and the cost of all the wonderful little things that go with them adds up FAST!!!! The quality, however, is very high and the attention to all the little details is amazing.

The American Girl pop-store was at Pioneer Square in downtown Portland and the MAX dropped us off right in front of the store.  The store was filled with little girls clutching their dolls with their moms and grandmothers so we fit right in.

Aria has four American Girl Dolls.  One of which she purchased with her own money....Kit.  Kit is a "Forever" doll who is a girl reporter from the 1930's era.  Aria was wanting to buy Kit's camera and  typewriter sets and she did ...with her own money.  Her mom and I proceeded to pick out things for Kit too (and things for Aria's other dolls as well).  Aria made quite a haul that day and was so excited to get back to the house and play with everything.

Back to needle felting::

The doll Kit has a pet Basset Hound and there was one in the store.  It was a basic, simple little stuffed animal that cost quite a bit for what it was.  I said "Grandma can make you a better one".
So,  I have finally done it and made good my promise.

Here's Aria with Kit and Molly.....and a big smile.   Molly turned out really well but needed accessories of her own, so I made a dog bed, with a pillow and Aria put a "M" on it,  I made a bone (every dog should have one) and Aria made a ball so Molly would have a toy too.

Molly the Basset Hound with bed, bone and ball.

Here's that beautiful smile again.  I think she is really happy with how everything worked out.  We chose the purple/ off-red color combination because Aria was not sure if the dog should be male of female.  She settled on the name Molly....so  IT"S A GIRL"

Molly has sewn in glass eyes, short wrinkled legs and very big feet.  I made a wire armature first and felted the figure in all white around the armature in order to give the figure stability and keep the proportions right.  There is pink on the inside of the ears and two shades of brown with black roving that overlays the white body to create the markings.

Because the figure was felted over a wire armature it is slightly posable....especially the tail.  The whole project took about 5 hours.

Here's a picture of Kit in her bed with her look-alike mini doll (yes, even the dolls have dolls!) and her faithful Basset Hound, Molly in her very own bed with bone
and ball.   So Cute!

Happiness is ...spending time together & creating together....most of all....making memories together

Hope Life is being sweet to you and may all your creations bring smiles as great as this one.

Love to all,
Margaret