Ever since we started our home schooling in early September I haven’t had much time for making dolls. I’ve made a few other things here and there, mostly small projects, and I’ve done quite a bit of knitting. But there hasn’t been much dollmaking, and I set about last week to correct that.
If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll have seen these pictures before. That’s the best place to get glimpses into what I’m working on. What you wouldn’t have seen though, are the hours I spent trying to create my own pattern for a long sleeved doll dress. I made a pattern for a sleeveless dress a while back, but it is late autumn, after all, and the dolls look a little chilly if all they’re wearing is a sleeveless dress.
So I spent hours moving back and forth from sewing table to drafting table (my drafting table is also our dining table, schooling table, crafting table, game playing table and puzzle putting together table). I wish I understood better how patterns came together, as that may have made my task easier. As it is, I had no less than a dozen or so failed attempts in scrap fabric, all of which now line the crate on our front porch for the stray cat to sleep in. But once I finally let go of the one final piece I was struggling with and reworked the bodice without it, the pattern came together beautifully! And now I can go from fabric to finished dress in a little less than two hours!
I’ve made two dresses so far, both in plaids. I didn’t mean to, but the dolls were rather insistent about what fabric I used to make their clothes. It really does make my job much easier when the dolls tell me exactly what to do.
And now, I’m working on just a few more details, and I hope (HOPE, HOPE, HOPE) to have four (maybe even five!) dolls listed for sale this weekend. I don’t have any boys in this batch, but I’ll try to do one in the next. I’ll post again with final pictures of them all, though you’ve seen two of them before (or at least parts of them).