Make Your Own Rag Doll - Doll Making Supplies

Dolls are a child's first best friend. They serve a purpose as friends, they teach nurturing and they are really a child's first step to becoming social. Dolls can be found in almost any household in toy boxes, on shelves full of collectible dolls, on top of wedding cakes, movie star dolls in a teenagers room and sports dolls that reside in a manly sports room. You can even make your own doll.

Rag dolls were the special friend that rode with a child in the back of a covered wagon. Mothers, back then, had never heard of the words "thrift" or "recycle", but that is exactly what they did to provide their children with a friend. They used scrap rags for the body and the clothes and weeds and straw for the stuffing. In today's world, if you would like to make your own doll, your choices of supplies are not quite so limited. The basics for a rag doll would be a pattern, fabric and stuffing. Even those basics could be whittled down, somewhat, by using old linens and textiles from your closets and making your own pattern.

For a pattern, start by drawing a rectangle on paper for the body. Draw a circle sitting on one short end of the rectangle for the head. Round the outer corners of the body and the inner corners where the head meets the body in order to shape the pattern. Place the pattern on a doubled piece of chosen body fabric, with the right sides facing. Draw around the pattern. Sew on the drawn lines, leaving the bottom of the body unstitched. Cut the body out a 1/4 inch from the stitched lines. Clip the corners and turn right side out. Stuff the head and body firmly and close the open end.

Make your own doll as whimsical as you would like. The normal size for a leg pattern would be the measurement from the bottom of the body to almost the top of the head and slightly narrower than half the body width. The whimsy size could be quite a bit longer. Use fabric that will mimic stockings and cut two for each leg. Sew the legs the same as the body, using a 1/4 inch seam allowance. Turn and stuff the legs and close the ends. Attach the legs to the bottom seam on the doll's body. Make the arms as long as the doll's body and slightly narrower than the doll's legs. Repeat the sewing used for the legs. Turn and stuff the arms and close the ends. Attach the arms to the shoulder seams of the body.

Make your own doll clothes using the shape of the body as a guide. Add hair using craft doll hair, yarn or fabric. Finally, sew or paint a face on your doll and add ribbons, buttons and trims to give personality.

You could, of course, use most any materials to make a wide range of doll styles. Try this basic doll as inspiration for others.

Wendy Pan is an accomplished niche website developer and author.

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Fabric Dollmaking supplies-3 tips on choosing the right Doll stuffing

Several times the beginning stitcher will spend hours or even days painstakingly Couture a pattern of doll only ruin it choose not not right doll stuffing. Part of the problem, is that the author of the inexperienced doll may be overwhelmed by the multitude of doll to make available supplies. However, the bad filling can not only doll damage a legacy-quality, but it can be downright dangerous.

For a beginner, ease, convenience and cost are the most important things to consider in the choice of doll making supplies. Doll dress, skin of doll, doll eye, doll hair and the face of the doll may require a serious research make order that perfect doll. But the farce doll? Who cares? Could not even see it.

Choosing the farce of doll right requires research and deliberate thinking. If the doll will be for a child, this doll will be liked and dragged around two indoors and outdoors, or it will sit on a shelf and be admired? The child has any allergies? If the doll will be a holiday decoration, where is it stored the other eleven months of the year?

Here are some tips to help you choose the doll good padding for your project.

Choosing the right doll stuffing - Tip # 1:

As a general rule, not stuff all doll with a food product. The doll can never be washed without cut carefully sewn seams and by removing the first joke.

If the doll will live in a humid climate, almost all food stuffing can germinate and ruin the doll. Wonderful smell coffee beans, but they can stain of skin tissue and it ruined forever.

Dolls stuffed any stored in attics or basements and organic material can attract vermin and bugs. Creatures will ruin the doll and create a problem that could require a professional exterminator.

Choosing the right doll stuffing - Tip # 2:

There are several dolls on display in museums which have been filled with sawdust, and there are many creators of dolls out there who think that wood is the only genuine choice. The farce of sawdust is a viable option for all s, beginners and beyond.

However, this wood sawdust is not a product any random on the floor of a wood shop swept away because much of the available wood today has been treated chemically.

There is a doll special stuffing produces sawdust available in stores specializing in doll supplies from non-treated wood very clean, very dry, and it has been sieved so sawdust is uniform in size.

Choosing the right doll stuffing - Tip # 3:

Many responsible doll as myself promotes padded polyester stuffing which can be found at any craft or fabric store. Buy the best quality and your stuffing will go faster and will be more smooth against the skin of the doll. The better quality, better it be held form of the doll.

Padded polyester is hypoallergenic. He washes and dries better than any other product. It may be extremely firm stuffed, or may have some give in it. When it was wet, it is not leech any colour or smell in the fabric. It is not beard (working its way through the fibers of tissue).

To give more weight to the doll and to help the meeting or asking, do a little cloth bag and fill with polypropylene pellets, which are also available in most craft stores. It Tuck in the doll around the buttocks area. Pellets in addition a realistic heft to the doll.

Now if you are looking for a beautiful doll pattern that was developed specifically for beginners in mind, go to http://www.missbeesdesigns.com