Armatures in larger dolls

A week or so ago Lara answered a post about using an armature in a larger body.  There was something about wrapping the armature with poly pellet bags but I'm not familiar with those.  Is it something you buy or just bags you fill with pellets?  From the photo it just looked like something different.

Thanks in advance,  Susan

Hi, I could be wrong. I didn't see the post. She may have meant to just put your polly pellets in your hose or what ever you use to hold your glass beads and just place them around the armature.

That's what I thought, but I wasn't quite sure. I've never used an armature before, it's a little scary

Thanks,  Susan

This is how I did my armatures.I first put the armature in the cloth body, Then take each leg and put the armature in .Then fill up to the knee with your poly pellets or glass beads depending on what weight you want. I use a combination of both. Then add your polyfil the rest of the way up. You may need to use a stick to push it down and around.  Then do the arms the same way filling glass beads or poly pellets up to the elbow then stuffing with polyfil.. Remember, don't use straight glass beads all the way up she will be to heavy.  Hope that helps.

Also if you're using the plastic pop-bead sort of armature you need to do something to close the bottom of each foot and hand. After having to take a doll apart to redo it now I use a small piece of muslin tied with heavy buttonhole thread around the ends. If you don't do this, the glass beads will mysteriously migrate into the armature itself and play havoc with the rest of your doll.

If you're using wire or electrical cable/cord wrap the ends with some batting and tie it on with the heavy duty thread. That way the inside of your vinyl is protected. When I was making porcelain dolls and using wire armatures I would always wrap the whole thing in strips of batting, but that was to keep the wire from clinking against the porcelain. Might still be a nice way to finish off the inside of the doll though.

Thanks ladies!   You both gave some good advice.  I need all the help I can get, I'm scared I'm gonna mess it up : (

Thanks again,  Susan