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Travel & Leisure: Spool People
Tanya A. Brown
 Note: instructions for making traditional spool dolls with limbs abound on the web. This is not one of them. If you wish to make such a doll, try doing a search on "wood spool doll".
If you've sewn for any length of time, you've probably either collected quite a number of empty thread spools or have felt guilty as you chucked them in the trash. This craft is a good use for such discards as well as many other odds and ends you may have laying about.
I first learned about making spool people from my mother in the dank, orange and brown days of the 1970s. She in turn probably got the idea from a craft or women's magazine of the time. Making spool people was something she anticipated with great relish, saving up spools and scraps galore. It was a thrifty craft, a way to exercise her imagination while keeping her young daughter (me) busy.
There was, alas, a minor bit of drama when I accidentally swallowed a "jewel" (a giant rhinestone) which she'd been especially proud of. Since her world view included things like seeds sprouting inside people's stomachs and bras being padded with fiberglass, she became frightened for me. Despite the fact that I wasn't choking, I was seized by the ankles, turned upside-down and shaken in a futile attempt to eject the "jewel". Good times! Hopefully your own endeavors will be a bit less exciting but no less satisfying.
Supplies
- Spools - plastic, wood, cardboard; whatever you have on hand.
- Glue - A glue gun was used for these examples. Although hot melt glue isn't ideal for plastic, it'll stick it together well enough for this craft.
- Batting, fleece or other thick material suitable for padding
- Fabric scraps
- Yarn, trim scraps, sequins, buttons ... whatever scraps you have wandering around your junk drawer.
- Paint
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Spools come in a variety of shapes, colors and sizes. All are suitable for making spool people.
At left are both modern plastic thread spools as well as cardboard cylinders used as packing materials. The dark brown one is particularly nice since it could depict a realistic human skin tone without having to be painted. |
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Form the armature
This stack of spools is going to be the basis of our doll. Frameworks like this are often referred to as armatures or skeletons.
Glue the stack of spools together. If you want the exposed parts of your finished doll to be a specific color, this is the time to paint them.
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Wrap in batting
For our doll, we don't want the edges of the spools to be prominent, so we'll wrap the spools in batting to disguise them.
Of course, this is a matter of preference. One could also leave the spools unwrapped and create a totem pole doll or a monster. |
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Adding more batting. It would have been nice if the batting had extended to totally cover the bottom spools, but this happened to be the piece we had on hand.
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Make a skirt
A rectangle of scrap cloth is glued around the bottom to create a "skirt".
For a more finished appearance, you may want to turn under and press about 1/4" on the bottom of the fabric before gluing. You could also glue on a piece of ribbon or trim to disguise the bottom edge. |
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Make a shirt
A rectangle of another fabric is glued around the top to create a shirt.
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Make a jacket
Creating a jacket will require a bit of finessing.
First, we cut a rectangle of fabric which will wrap around the cylinder with a bit of overlap.
Next, we press over about 1/4" on the top and sides (and bottom, if desired).
We iron the top corners over a bit as well. That will give the jacket a V-neckline. |
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A loose running stitch along the top edge will help us gather the fabric around the doll's "neck". |
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The "jacket" is glued to the doll. Notice how it's loose around the neck area, and the gathering threads are dangling. |
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Here we've tightened the thread, glued the fabric down around the neck area, then removed the thread.
If the gathering thread has inadvertently gotten glued down, it can be removed with a seam ripper.
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Add a scarf
A necktie or scarf made from grosgrain ribbon is added to disguise the neck area. Unfortunately, it also disguises the V-neckline of the jacket. A deeper neckline or a bow tie would have avoided that problem. C'est la vie.
A bit of narrow ribbon is glued around the bottom of the jacket to form a belt.
Our doll is beginning to give off a repressed, 80's career woman vibe. She also has a remarkable lack of waistline, probably a side effect of eating too many lunches at her desk.
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Add hair
"Hair" is glued to the top of doll.
Making hair for dolls is an art unto itself, discussed in myriad doll-making books and websites. Since I'm a lazy person, I settled for making a thin, anemic pompom from scrap yarn (Moda Dea Vixen) and then plopping it on top of her head.
Hey, I've known people with hair like that! Except for the colored speckles, that is. |
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Add facial features
Features are sketched in with a fine point permanent marker and acrylic paint.
She looks like she belongs in a Tim Burton animation, doesn't she? "The Nightmare Before Grocery Shopping" or "She Came From the Glass Ceiling" or something.
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Another example
This is the skeleton for a slightly different doll, one which is only two spools high. The top spool is cardboard, which will give the head an interesting color and texture. |
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The bottom spool is wrapped with batting.
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Jumping ahead several steps, the beard is formed from cotton balls and the feet and hat are made from scrap felt. This doll is pretty crude, but I swear there used to be a guy who watered plants at the local drugstore who looked just like it.
Now that you've seen how simple it is, why not make a spool doll of your own? And don't forget to email us a photo of it for the reader project gallery! |
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