Making a Jane Austen Peg Doll

Dear Georgettes,

Have you ever wanted to make your own character in a little doll or model of your own? We have stumbled across a couple of ways to help you achieve this and have created a short series of swaps, for us to express our characters or their neighbours through our own hands. Image above is from Etsy Up All Night Studio

The doll is a Jane Austen style peg doll that I found too irresistible for us not to have a go and try for our own satisfaction. The idea is for us to purchase an old fashioned PEG the kind which has straight legs and what looks like a head at the top. We will then drill armholes, and sculpt with paperclay over the top part to form the bodice and neck and head. The full instructions are in the blue link video below. Regarding the pegs, there are several kinds available, some have square flat heads as in the video, I have some from twenty plus years ago in my stash but see these are the same sort in blue amazon link. I am unsure if this is Australia only, but Amazon have them in all their sites of that I am pretty sure.

amazon link

Follow this video to make your doll part 1

I will leave a long sign up for this, and also a long send by, so that you can get the required paperclay and pegs to make the doll, and relax while making your clay part of the peg doll. It certainly is a new way to use the pegs that I have not come across before. It is up to you which paperclay you purchase. I have DAS paperclay at home that I shall be using. It comes in a white or terracotta, and is cheap, we only need the smaller 500g block or smaller if you have that type available.
A special note, too much water will create cracks in the finished doll, the lady using the pink clay is using an awful lot of water, and I would not advise wetting the clay too much. Keep it damp by all means, but paperclay should not be slippery sloppy wet like that.

This doll will take us over a series of three swaps with a video for each, for us to watch, to continue and finish off our character doll as we go.

Please Note - We shall be keeping our dolls at home, THIS IS AN EMAIL SWAP ONLY - Do NOT send your doll. The Type 3 is for the amount of work we shall put into making this creation,

You will have ONE partner for this swap, sending them a photograph or a few photos of your sculpted Stage 1 undressed peg doll.
Write to your partner of your character doll happenings, accompanying the email, of how it is evolving for you.

We hope you will join us in this new adventure for the Georgettes, crafting with a smile on our faces.
As an added note if you have any queries whatsoever do contact me Janemilliken1@gmail.com - or @Star7Lily as I have been a dollmaker since I was 14. I am three score and five now! So many years under my belt of creating dolls, cloth dolls, peg dolls, paper dolls and clay/porcelain dolls. My forte` lies in historical costuming too - so any questions on this subject also, I am here to help.

We have another type of doll up our sleeves, and that shall follow after we complete our Jane Austen Peg Doll. We encourage and are open to suggestions if anyone has found another toy or doll type that appeals to them that may make a good swap. Happy crafting, Anna, Nickalli and Jane x