I have been working steadily on patterns for three small dolls. The dolls’ pictures show up occasionally in this blog. I felt satisfied with the patterns, but decided to make each of the dolls one more time to check the patterns’ accuracy. Friday night I discovered that my latest version of my smallest doll had a body that was much too large. I was afraid that something was wrong with the pattern. Saturday morning I got out my smallest scissors and my seam ripper. I removed the poor doll’s arms, legs, and head. Then I removed all the stuffing from the body. I then compared the body to the body pattern and was relieved to find that the body was larger than the pattern. I hate making mistakes, but I was glad that my mistake was a cutting error. The pattern I had been working on so long was correct.

When I cut a new body I tried out a new rotary cutter that I purchased recently. It has a small blade and cut the tiny pattern pieces accurately. My new Twinkle now has a body transplant and is on her was to being a complete little doll.

My sewing mistake gave me a chance to show how much stuffing it takes to make a firmly stuffed doll. I removed all of the fiberfill shown from the small doll body on the left. Though most of the stuffing expanded when it was removed from the body casing, some of it remained compressed.

The doll body on the left is the body that I cut incorrectly. The smaller body was cut and sewn correctly.

The small rotary cutter at the top of the picture did a good job cutting small doll patterns. The larger cutter is for cutting long straight strips of fabric.

my patterns, Pattern Making designing patterns, sewing for small dolls

My family has always been tolerant of my enthusiasms. They have found my love of doll making and dressing fairly amusing, but never complained about it. In the past I never really bothered anyone with my hobby, although it could be messy at times. Lately my husband has been helping me draft my patterns and illustrations. I have mentioned his help before. He looks at the drafting as an intellectual exercise, with programing, geometrical, and creative challenges.

My youngest child is home from college for a few days. He will be a senior in computer science when school starts again. Last night I decided to use him as a guinea pig to check some instructions that I had been writing. He agreed to be a test subject. College students are probably experimented on more than any other part of the population, so he was use to it.

I handed him a tiny doll jacket that was not finished. The jacket had been sewn to the lining, but had not been turned right side out. I ask him to turn it right side out without explaining anything to him. He had an extra challenge that I hadn’t planned. One of our cats decided that he wasn’t getting enough attention and besides the incomplete jacket was definitely a cat toy.

I took charge of the cat and showed my son three pictures of the jacket being turned. He was able to turn it right side out immediately.

My experiment confirmed two things. Sometimes a picture sequence is the best way to explain a skill and my son is a good sport. (But I already knew the second fact.)

my patterns, Pattern Making

I am in the process of redrafting and rewriting my free pattern. When I looked at it a few weeks ago, I decided that it needed a lot of revision. I now have three sizes of the pattern. I hope to offer the patterns for my three small dolls in a few months. I will offer the revised free pattern at the same time. Here are some of the doll clothes I have made with my revised pattern.

Twinkle is wearing her sun dress. Floribunda has on her sleeveless top and two tiered skirt. Tender Heart is ready for bed in her blue flannel nightgown.

These two Floribundas are wearing a summer nightgown and a sun dress.

Twinkle has changed into her flannel nightgown. Floribunda is wearing her smock top and Tender Heart has on her sun dress.

Twinkle and TenderHeart both have sleeveless tops and smock tops, but I haven’t made their two tiered skirts, yet. They will have to model them for you another day.

my patterns, Pattern Making designing patterns, sewing for small dolls

I have a box full of 14 inch doll clothes that I made while I was writing my book. The church I am attending is having a yard sale and I decided to look through the clothes to see if I could find something to donate. I am glad that  I still have a few 14 inch dolls that I made while I was developing my patterns, because it would be hard to find a commercial doll that can wear these clothes.

This is Brenda. I think that she looks nice in a dress and pinafore that I designed for Mary Lennox. The outfit didn’t make it onto my book because of space limitations.

The pattern for the coat she is wearing is in the book. When I made this coat I was experimenting with contrasting colors for the buttons, pockets and cuffs. Her bag was purchased, but it contains her nightgown, robe, and house slippers. I hope that Brenda finds a good home. Surely it will be better than the box that she has lived in for the past five years.

my patterns, Pattern Making Adapting a pattern, designing patterns

I have always thought that tiny shoes were charming. The dolls that have survived my childhood still have their original outfits and hair styles, but they are all barefoot, because I tended to play with their shoes while they sat on the shelf. I have spent a lot of time recently designing and making shoes for the three small dolls shown in a recent blog. The sneakers’ designs were printed on cloth using techniques I explained recently.I then cut out and  assembled them. I haven’t  yet made bunny slippers for Twinkle, my smallest doll. To prove that I haven’t changed much from my younger self, I have lost one of Twinkle’s boots.

my patterns, Pattern Making designing patterns, memories, sewing for small dolls

Here are the three small dolls that I working on right now. Twinkle Star is around 6.5 inches tall. Foribunda Flowers is about 7.5 inches, and Tender Heart is about 8.75 inches. Little dolls have always been a favorite of mine, maybe because they don’t take up too much space in my collection.

Remember that there are only two weeks left to make a comment if you want to be included in the drawing for free books.

my patterns, Pattern Making designing patterns, sewing for small dolls

 Here is my new Mini Ginny ready for Valentine’s Day. Because she is only 5.5 inches tall, I adapted the free patterns available on my home page slightly. For the gown I folded the pattern on the hem line and sleeve casing line before cutting the pieces.  To make the dress with sash I cut  the gown pattern after I  folded it on the “cut here for top” line.  I folded the sun dress on the hem line before cutting the dress. I used a quarter inch seam allowance on all three pieces. The pants pattern will not fit Mini Ginny without more alteration.

Pattern Making Adapting a pattern

Welcome to my blog. I have been making cloth dolls and dressing dolls as a hobby for more than twenty years and sewing for much longer than that. When I began my doll hobby, I carefully followed the directions of the patterns that I ordered. I read pattern guides for pleasure at bed time the way I read novels. As time passed I realized that I had accumulated more patterns than I could possibly make. I wasn’t distressed, because although I had enjoyed reading the guides, I thought that I would be happier making my own patterns. I read books on pattern making and then I developed patterns by trial and error. I drafted patterns on ¼ inch grid paper, sewed up the project, decided what I did wrong and tried again. After a while I had a few cloth dolls and some doll clothing that I liked. I understood my patterns well enough to be able to repeat the projects. However, no one else could use my little scraps of paper to make anything at all.

Here is where my technical support (that is to say my husband) came in. He scanned my patterns into the computer and traced over them digitally. He added all the markings that I asked for. He scanned and traced the illustrations for the instructions. He then photographed the dolls and their clothing. I acted as photographer’s assistant, doll groomer, and critic.

Finally he built this website and learned how to attach a blog to it. So you see the term technical support is an understatement when referring to my husband’s efforts. I think that I made a slight miscalculation when I gave him a book on forum building for his birthday, however. I seem to be getting hints that I may be expected to read that book myself.

blog, Pattern Making