My first experience with needle sculpting, or what is also known as soft sculpture, was as a result of an article published in a craft magazine in the early 1980s. The finished doll was made with stockings for the face and a baby sock for the body. The suggestion from that article was to make cute sock angels to hang on the Christmas tree. The stretchy stocking fabric was cut into a square or circle of the chosen size and a running stitch of a matching color was put in around the edge. When the stitch was pulled up it made a ball which was stuffed with polyester fiberfill or cotton balls and tied off. To create the face, a needle is inserted into the back of the ball, where it is pulled together and out the front at the site of either an eye, the nose or the mouth. To make this little angel, the nose was made by taking a pinch of the stuffing and fabric and pulling it out into a ball nose and wrapping thread from the back around several times and pushing the needle back through the ball to the beginning spot. The eyes were 4 stitches pulled in and out from the back and then marking the eyeball with a permanent marker.
The mouth was two or three in and out stitches pulled from the back to make indentations. The rest of the doll was created with a baby sock. The now cookie-shaped head with the face was ladder stitched to a colored sock that was sewn to look like a stocking cap, usually made from the toe or the top of the colored baby sock. The rest of the sock made a perfect body with the heel creating a little bottom.
Hands could be added by making little stocking balls and sewing them on the ends of cylinders (arms) and attaching to the shoulders.
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