How to make a yarn doll

Making yarn dolls is so easy you won't want to stop. Before you know it, you'll have a whole family of yarn dolls.

What you need:

• 2 colours of yarn (per doll)
• 2 x beads or small buttons (eyes)
• 1 x piece of cardboard 50cm x 12cm
• scissors
• glue

Number of players:

Activity:

First of all, make yourself a handy little winding tool for your wool.

Fold your piece of cardboard in half.  Cut a 2cm notch in the open edge of the cardboard at the bottom. This notch will hold your strands of yarn in place while you wind them.

Now take two strands of yarn, slot them into the notch and start winding the strands around the piece of cardboard lengthways (see video).

When you have a nice thick bunch of wound yarn, stop and cut the yarn off at the end.

Now snip one end of the 'loops' to release the yarn from the cardboard winding tool.

Lay the strands out on the table and tie them off in the middle using a piece of yarn.

Fold that over, with the tied bit at the top.

You should now have what looks like a nice thick tassle.

Tie it off about 4cm from the top, to form the head.

Separate out some arms from the remaining section.

Tie off a torso and then separate out some legs (for a boy, for a girl, leave the end tassle as a skirt)

Tie it all off, trim it up.

Glue on some buttons or beads for eyes.

Now you've got the hang of it, make lots of yarn dolls!

Hints and tips:

• You can use a smaller looped section of wound wool (looped across your hand) to create some hair for your girl doll.
• You could also use googly craft eyes for the face.
• If you make lots of yarn dolls, string them together to create a yarn doll garland decoration.
• Thanks to our sister company Kidspot Australia for creating the instructional video.