Make your own Megan doll

December 5, 2022

If you’d like your own Megan doll (from the Megan & Flos vegan science fiction comics), here’s how to make one 😀

First, find a pattern. I used Jean Greenhowe’s “ten of the best” pattern which is from this book but there are plenty of others to choose from, including lots of free ones you can download.

So, I won’t give you pattern details, you can just download whichever pattern you fancy and then make her look like Megan. If you don’t know how to knit yet, you can either learn, or sew a ragdoll instead 🙂

Anyway, this is what I did:

I used DK (Double Knitting thickness) acrylic yarn from my bag of oddments – no need to buy anything new. Her clothes don’t have to be blue, you can choose what she wears, and if you don’t have a bag of oddments, they often sell bags of leftover yarn in charity shops. I used UK size eleven (3 mm) needles.

The pattern I used starts at the ankles and works up to the top of her head (working in stocking stitch – one row knit, one row purl). I started in dark blue, for her jeans, then I changed colour, and knitted her light blue top, up to her shoulders,

then I changed colour again, to pink for her head. Then I cut the yarn, leaving a long length to thread through the stitches. Hey – didn’t I say I wasn’t going to explain the pattern? Sorry – I guess that’s useless information if you don’t have the pattern, and superfluous if you do. Oh well 😀

Excuse my photos by the way, my camera phone is very old. But you get the idea with that 🙂

how to make a vegan comicbook character doll

Then I knitted the arms and the feet. Megan is wearing baseball boots, so I knitted the feet two thirds white, one third red. As you can see from the photo of the finished doll, they are proper red. I don’t know why the photos here make them look brown 😀 Then I sewed laces into the red part.

Then it was time to sew her up and stuff with kapok (natural organic fibre harvested from kapok trees, used for centuries – probably – for stuffing pillows and soft toys). But if you don’t have any kapok, you could fill your doll with cut up strips of old T-shirt. Any soft material will do.

Before stuffing, it was necessary to sew down the middle of the dark blue legs section, to create two legs, and after stuffing I tied a length of yarn around the base of the pink section, to make the head 😀 The boots were folded, sewn and stuffed before being attached to the ankles; and the arms sewn, stuffed and attached at the shoulders.

Next she needed a face! I just sewed her features on, and not very well at first – embroidery is not my strong suit – so I unpicked it and tried again. And again, until I was happy with it 😀

She doesn’t look like Megan yet does she? That’s because she needs hair!

So I made the hair by cutting lots of long lengths of yellow yarn, tying them in the middle, and sewing them from top to bottom of the back of Megan’s head. Ouch! Your pattern will show you how 😀

If you only have a little bit of yellow for her hair, the pattern shows you how to make a hat or a hood for her, and then you’ll only need a little bit to stick out the front. 🙂

how to make a vegan comicbook character doll - doing her hair

Now she looks very Megan-ish! But there’s still one more thing she needs – do you know what it is?

Her solar-powered gravity-adjusting belt of course!

For this I cast on five stitches of purple and worked in moss stitch (every row knit) until it was long enough. I kept measuring it up against the doll as I went along, until it was the right length. Then I cast off, sewed the ends of the belt together, and added the gems. Or did I sew on the gems first, and then sew the ends together? You decide 😀

Ta-daa!

Why don’t you make yourself a Megan doll? Or a Reflecto Girl doll? Or any of our heroic vegan characters. And do send us photos if you make any, we’d love to see them 😀

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Violet’s Vegan Comics – creating vegan comics, vegan stories, vegan nursery rhymes, vegan children’s books and vegan things to make and do, since 2012.

Make your own Reflecto Girl doll

November 18, 2016

By Violet's Vegan Comics

Here’s how:

First, find a pattern. I used this one but there are plenty of others to choose from, including lots of free ones you can download. So, I won’t give you pattern details, you can just download whichever pattern you fancy and then make her look like Reflecto Girl. If you don’t know how to knit you can learn

Or, if you don’t want to do that, you can make a rag doll instead 🙂

Anyway, this is what I did:

As per the pattern, first I knitted the legs. I used DK (Double Knitting thickness) acrylic yarn from the bag of oddments in the attic – no need to buy anything new, and if you don’t happen to have lilac, I know Renée wouldn’t mind her outfit being a different colour.

Then I pinned and sewed the back of leg and top of foot seams

and stuffed them with cut up bits of an old cotton T-shirt (no need to buy stuffing – recycle all the way!)

Then I knitted the body. I thought Renée would like a pretty cream vest with a pink decorative stripe close to the bottom edge.

I sewed it, stuffed it and attached it to the legs.

Then I made and attached her head,

followed by her arms.

Then it was time to do her hair, which I was very much looking forward to. I started with the fringe by just sewing some gorgeous orange yarn into her head making sort of loops between the top of her head and her face, just above where her eyebrows would be.

Making her gorgeous long locks was quite time consuming but worth it. I sewed the yarn into the back of her head, alternating between a small stitch to hold the yarn in place and then a long loop which reached down her back. Then another small stitch, then another long loop. The stitches began at the top of her head and gradually covered the top three quarters of it so that she wouldn’t have any bald patches. When her scalp was covered I cut the loops so that she had thick, long hair.

Then I sewed on some eyes and ….

… some lips. I’m not a neat sew-er but that doesn’t matter, just have fun with it 🙂

Then I made her top (included in the pattern) and embroidered – if you can call it that 😉 – the Reflecto Girl logo on the front 🙂

And then of course she needed a mask! This is not included in the pattern so you’ll just have to make it up – you can do it! What I did, if you’re interested, is

cast on 70 stitches, using size 10 needles (3.25mm needles);
first row: back stitch;
second row: Purl 29 stitches, cast off 4, P2, cast off 4, P 31
third row: Knit 31 stitches, cast on 4, K2, cast on 4, K29
Cast off purlwise

Then I sewed in the ends of yarn and tidied up the eye holes with a couple of stitches sewn with the same yarn so they’re invisible 🙂

Yes, ok, I know it looks like a giant sleep mask, but if you look carefully you can see her little eyes through the holes. Come on, use your imagination 😉

And that’s not all –

she had to have her red Wonder Woman bag! Accessories are the best!

For this I cast on ….. oh, you know what, I can’t remember how many stitches or rows I did – basically you need it to be about this big against the doll. Knit a simple rectangle that can be folded and sewn into a bag this size. I attached a press stud so that it can be fastened.

Her bag has a picture of Wonder Woman’s face in a circle on the front – remember? Luckily I had a scrap of fabric with circles on, just the right size.

So I drew Wonder Woman’s face in the circle, cut it out and sewed it to the front of the bag 🙂

Oh, and I knitted a long handle to make it a shoulder bag. Three stitches, size 10 needles, stocking stitch (ie 1 row knit, 1 row purl) until it’s long enough for the doll to wear over her shoulder like so:

Now, Reflecto Girl wouldn’t be Reflecto Girl without her …

… Dounto! So I made one. It needed to be just the right size to fit in her bag 🙂

The card I used was quite thin so I cut out two to stick together and make the ‘mirror’ stronger.

On one side I drew round a smaller circle to make the mirror glass.

Then I added the Celtic-ish symbols and letters …

… and coloured it in 🙂

All done! Reflecto Girl has everything she needs to get the job done!

Let’s play!

Why don’t you make yourself a Reflecto Girl doll? There’s lots of fun to be had.

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Now, I need to make a Distracto Boy, and a Venus Aqueous, and a Megan and a Flos , oh, and an English Family Anderson! – it’s a good job I’ve got a big bag of yarn oddments 😀 It’s going to be a busy weekend 😉

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