The End

Here is my doll already prepared for the 'museum' :

To make my doll look even more taller I put it on a pedestal:

The performance

Somehow I knew that the performance wouldn't go as smoothly as everyone wanted. In your head it seams so easy to pierce a doll with a needle. But when you imagine this act, you think of a real sharp needles and fluffy, soft Teddy Bears. My doll is not a Teddy Bear. For it to stand without nothing inside I knitted it tightly and put a lot of PVA. To pierce this doll you need to hold it in one place and use a lot of strength. Or find a spot that is softer (without so much PVA), but for that you need to jab it more than 5 times to find where the needle goes smoothly.

As all things hit with a stick they fall. And when Dem put the needle through the eye but found a resisting material inside (the back of the doll) and still pushed it further - it started to fall.

All in all, I am happy with my doll. I know that I made some mistakes at the beginning of my knitting. I was experimenting with materials, how many loops do I need, and that made the base of the doll not as good as the rest of it. It looks as if the base could fall any moment because of the impression that it is sinking, but it is not. For me that makes it even more interesting while others, I believe, are scared of it falling. 

Needles and masks

I ordered some already painted masks, but the company had only black, white and brown colors. I painted the white ones into red and the other side of all the masks into their color :

I bought a three 9mm and 6mm dowels and sharpened the ends :

Then I used some newspaper and tape to create the balls on the needles :

To make them look neater and harder I used plasta which was messy and it did not came out in perfect round shape. I don't actually mind that, it gives even quirkier look to my doll.

After that I painted them with acrylics (two red, black and brown ones) :

I also painted some pasterns on the masks, because I thought they looked too plain. I glued the masks onto the needles with a glue gun:

And finally:  

I will upload a better quality pictures after I finish to install my sculpture.

Knitting the head

The beginning :

I started to make mouth and it is a really simple process. I turned around and started to knit clockwise then I went all the way round and when I saw the point where I changed my direction I turned around again. On the first round I left two loops empty. On the second one - one loop from the first round and that is how you go.

I closed the mouth by doing the same thing as I explained above only you need to add extra loops not miss them.

The process with the eyes was a bit more complicated :

You need to choose where the outer lines of your eyes are going to be and then do the same thing as with the mouth, just don't close these two sides between each other.

What you need is a new strip for the middle part in between the eyes :

I left the main strip because I will need it to close the eyes and for further knitting (the top of the head).

And then you knit in the same principle again. I counted the number of the red circles that I have done and knitted the same amount in the middle.

I cut down the strip that I used for the middle part and picked the old one. 

 Then you continue to knit where you left, when you reach the middle part just add it to the circle :

Afterward everything goes the same. To close the head I started to miss more and more loops till there where only on left.

I didn't made it 6 feet tall only 5. But I think it already made it's purpose - it looks huge!

Problem

I started to knit the head and the extra wight did not helped at all. About 40 cm from the bottom the doll started to burst. I solved this by sewing one 40 cm tall dowel in the middle of the weak point and two 20 cm dowels from the sides of the middle one. It helped a lot! It was not an easy task as I had put a huge amount of PVA glue on the bottom hoping that it would help. However, at this point, it only made the process of sewing the dowels more difficult : it was hard to find a weak points that I could pierce my needle through. But it is already done and I am happy with the result.

Hands

The beginning of one hand :

Half of the hand done :

I created this slanting feeling by missing one loop on the top and knitting one extra at the bottom; and you go like this every time (every circle).

Finished :

Both hands done per 20 hours :

I bought a really strong thread so it would hold the heavy materials together :

And this is how my doll looks with hands :

All I need now is head. And needles.

Fixing the problems

After talking with Dem I decided to cut down the bad part of my base. Work in progress :

I lost about 15cm :

But now it stand perfectly :

And this is how thick my knit is :

I am still going to use masks, but now I will put them on the needles not the Voodoo doll itself.

I also need to start making hands. I can't knit the head and close the doll, because afterwords I wouldn't reach the inside of the doll when I will need to sew the hands and pull the needle out.

Day 20

Day twenty ( 125 hours) :

1 meter 18cm tall :

I still did not decided what to do so I could fix 'the Pizza Tower' and I found another problem. Originally, my final piece should come with a performance : one of the tourist would stick a needle in The Voodoo Doll. But here is the problem - although my sculpture weights a lot I am afraid that the needle wont go through the knit ( it is not a soft toy, the surface is quite hard even though it is knitted) and the person will use more strength and over turn the doll. I will try to catch Dem and ask his opinion tomorrow.

I am also not so sure about the masks :

I really like that pattern on my now existing doll and I am afraid that the masks will hide it.