Handmade dolls are now enjoying unprecedented popularity. Many talented hand-made masters create such amazing textile dolls that can be attributed to works of art. They try to imitate such talents, they buy master classes and patterns. Many varieties, styles and images of handmade textile dolls have appeared. The most popular among them are pumpkin head dolls, centipedes and baby dolls.
How to create a textile doll yourself
An exclusive handmade doll can be purchased from a talented master, or you can make it yourself. Maybe complex options are not for everyone, and primitive baby dolls can be easily mastered by anyone. To do this, you need a successful pattern of a baby doll, a little fabric and time and a great desire to create something with your own hands. Well, let's talk about this in more detail.
In order to make a textile baby doll with their own hands, beginner craftswomen will need a detailed description of the process, tips on the use of certain materials, even some secrets and subtleties that experienced handyman masters can share. Some puppeteers offer free workshops and patterns for baby dolls, others sell detailed descriptions of the process.
Today on sale there are not only the toys themselves, but also sets for sewing baby dolls with the necessary materials, description and patterns.
Nevertheless, if you decide to create your own unique toy on your own, you can use one of the template patterns of the baby doll. One of them is given below. To do this, you need to transfer the pattern to the fabric and begin the creative process.
Necessary materials for sewing dolls
Before you begin, you need to prepare everything you need. Well, if there is a sewing machine, it can facilitate and speed up the process, but it is quite possible to sew a baby doll with your own hands using a needle and thread. For those who are just starting to try their hand at creating and creating handmade toys, it is best to use the simplest pattern of a baby doll. It is called primitive. A pattern is suitable where the head, body and legs are whole-cut, only the handles are separately cut.
For manufacturing you will need:
- Full-size baby doll pattern.
- Fabric of any shade of flesh color for the baby's body.
- Any fabric for sewing clothes.
- Special filler for toys (it can be a synthetic winterizer, synthetic winterizer or holofiber), as well as a wooden stick for stuffing parts.
- To create a hairstyle you may need to choose: thick yarn, felting yarn, artificial hair tresses.
- Acrylic paints, blush and brush in order to draw a face or a pair of black beads, if you plan to create a doll with a face like that of a tilde or a millipede, only with eyes.
Baby doll patterns
For sewing, you can use a similar pattern, or you can draw your own.
DIY doll making process
Where to begin? To sew a baby doll, a full-size pattern needs to be redrawn on paper, cut and transferred to a fabric. Then you need to sew together or sew parts on the machine without cutting them, and then carefully cut them and make notches along the edge so that after turning the edges of the parts are flat and not pulled.
You need to stuff all the parts tightly with the filler and start sewing clothes. What the baby will be dressed in is worth thinking about right away and picking up the necessary pieces of fabric. Further, the process depends on what the clothes will be: whether it will be with or without sleeves, whether it will be pants, a skirt or a dress. Here are some tips:
- Sleeves and trousers, after they are sewn on a typewriter, must be worn on the details of the handles and legs, and only then sew them to the body.
- The easiest way is to make a chrysalis dress. A piece of fabric equal to the length of the dress with the processed edges can be gathered along one edge and sewn directly to the doll just below the neck, then attach handles and tie a bow around the neck or sew a collar.
- Shoes can be painted with acrylics, or you can sew boots on a pattern of legs with a small allowance or tie booties that can be worn and removed.
Create a face for baby
Once the chrysalis body is ready, you can begin to create a face. Here are the options:
- You can draw a face with acrylics.
- You can make a primitive little face with beads in the form of eyes.
Both options will be interesting to look at. The first option is more complicated and requires effort. In order to draw a face, you must first draw a line of the eye with a pencil, outline the nose and lips. Then with paints we draw eyes:
- with white paint fill the entire area of the eye;
- draw the iris and pupil;
- outline the outline with dark color (black or brown);
- draw cilia.
The nose can only be slightly marked, the lips are drawn in the selected color. Blush can be applied real with a small brush or cotton swab.
The simplest little face with dotted eyes can be made using black paint by drawing two identical points in place of the eyes, or you can sew small black beads. In this version, the baby can also be browned.
Make hair
Do-it-yourself hairstyle for a baby doll can be made of thick knitting threads of any color. You need to wind a small amount of thread on a cardboard of any width (depending on the desired hair length), sew in the middle to the head of the pupa. Such hair can be trimmed a little and gathered in two tails on the sides or braids.
For hair, you can use felting yarn. A small piece should be rolled with a special needle in the middle of the doll’s head and make the desired hairstyle.
For baby dolls, you can also use tresses by simply sewing them in a circle to the head. You can put a hat or cap on top.
Now the unique, exclusive baby doll is ready.