Looking for a new hobby or just decided to try yourself in a different kind of creativity? Want to learn how to make dolls out of fabric? The article describes the process in detail and gives patterns. Choose the option you like. Sew with the children. This fascinating process can turn into a daily pleasant activity.
Hobbies for yourself or creativity with a daughter
Making souvenirs with your own hands is always a pleasure. The ability to sew is a useful skill. If you decide to find a new hobby, tell your daughter how to make a doll with your own hands at home. If you are interested in a child, you can spend time with benefit, inventing different characters and embodying them in fabric.
Necessary materials and tools
To understand how to make a doll with your own hands at home, you should study what it will take. And you need the following:
- Body fabric in beige or white. It is better to take natural material (calico, calico, satin) or use nylon tights.
- Tea, coffee for dyeing a white fabric, if you can not find the right tone.
- Cotton wool, synthetic winterizer or other stuff for stuffing.
- Material for clothes.
- Paper for a pattern, pencil.
- Template.
- Thread, needle, pins.
- Sewing chalk for drawing contours.
- Threads for embroidering facial features or paint with brushes and PVA glue for the same purpose.
- Decorative elements for decorating clothes.
- Sewing machine, but you can also use manual seam.
The number of materials and their list will depend on the chosen method of creating products.
How to make a doll with your own hands: manufacturing technology
The whole process can be divided into two stages:
- Creation of a character’s body.
- Execution of the order.
In the first step, you need to do the following:
- a head;
- face;
- hairstyle;
- body;
- hands;
- legs.
Clothing is made separately, but for interior dolls it is usually made non-removable. It can be sewn directly to the base or even glued. The most important and responsible thing is to make the body itself. It is made both in separate parts, and for example, it is made by the head with the body, limbs with the body.
When stuffing parts with synthetic winterizer, it should be borne in mind that the density of the head should be greater than the legs. If the limbs are too tight to fill, they will practically not bend, because of which it will not work to plant a doll. When the neck is slightly full, the head may fall. This should also be taken into account. If something doesn’t work right the first time, don’t be upset. All comes with experience.
It is worth noting a slight nuance about the seams. Some sew them until the details are cut out of the flap, and then they grasp the scissors and bypass the contour almost close to the seam. You can do it in the traditional way. On complex curved contours, incisions are made so that the fabric does not tighten after twisting and stuffing the element on the front side.
It is difficult to twist long and narrow parts of the legs and arms, and this is a characteristic feature of popular interior dolls. It is worth using a pencil or a wand, while making allowances for seams to a minimum.
Now you know how to make a doll out of fabric: first you make the head, then the rest of the body, and last, do the outfit. This is the most interesting, fascinating creative stage, but you need to go through the rest.
How to sew a doll with your own hands: a master class on making a head
Puppets most often begin to sew with this element. The head is made of fabric or from a cut off part from kapron tights. In the first case, two parts are sewn together on the wrong side. Through the hole left, the product is inverted, filled with padding polyester. In the second embodiment, cotton is immediately stuffed into a nylon "bag". By tightening the fabric with threads in certain places, you can form a face relief. If you want naturalness and volume, you can even use the bottom of a plastic bottle as the basis. It will be enough to add cotton wool for the roundness of the cheeks and chin.
If you decide to make your head out of calico or other natural fabric, but you haven’t found a suitable shade, take the white material and create the desired shade yourself by coloring with natural pigments of tea or coffee. Coffee gives a darker color.
The technology of dyeing consists in the fact that a white cloth is dipped in a hot solution (infusion) of a natural ingredient, held in it until it cools. It is pulled out, hung out or laid out on a flat surface so that it does not turn out to be stains, until it dries out incompletely, it is ironed. After these procedures, you will get the desired shade, which, thanks to the last operation, will not be smeared.
It is better to dye the fabric with large rags in the pan for uniform color, but first you should try to do this on a small piece. Tea should always be filtered, otherwise the tea leaves will stain. In the infusion, you can not only hold it, but also boil for about 0.5 minutes.
Facial features are usually painted with paints. Acrylic will do. So that the pigment does not fall into the fabric, it is worth priming the right places with PVA glue. The second way is to embroider the eyes, lips, and shape the nose from the fabric by stuffing. You can stick purchased plastic eyes. This option is usually used if the doll is made in the form of a character in the animal world (cat, hare).
The hair is made of thread floss, yarn for knitting or other available material. If you have an old wig from an unnecessary children's toy, you can try it on. Usually, the hair is first collected in a hairstyle, and then gently attached to the head.
Outfits for dolls
Now you have learned how to make dolls out of fabric, but you still need to decorate them. A certain image is created not only due to facial features, but also due to clothing.
The basis of any character can be made according to one pattern. This will greatly speed up the process. Your heroes will differ in clothes. Sew for one sundress, for another dress, dress the third in pants and a shirt (it will be a doll-boy).
Outfits can be themed, or you can use
national costumes. As already mentioned, clothing is usually non-removable, so it can even be glued, and not sewn to the base.
Thematic Collections
If you make interior dolls for your home, choose some general idea, for example, cooks are suitable for the kitchen, fairies or princesses for the bedroom. In the living room you can arrange characters in national costumes. If you are making gifts to friends and relatives, choose a character according to the particular profession of the person to whom the souvenir is intended. So, you will get a teacher doll, artist, driver, etc. Funny fabric dolls come in the form of animals: cats, dogs, lambs, goats, bears and mice, bunnies.
The characters make and just in the form of cute animals without elongated body proportions.
Souvenirs for sale
Now you have learned how to make dolls out of fabric, you saw how varied the ideas for their design can be. You can turn such an activity not only into an interesting hobby for yourself, but also start making souvenirs for sale.
Now, hand-made products are very popular, especially for interior dolls. They can unobtrusively diversify the room, give it a unique style and zest. Buyers for their products can be found via the Internet on special thematic sites, in social networks, or you can put products for sale in the gift shop of your city. There are even such stores that specialize in a particular type of product or sell only the handicrafts of local craftsmen.
You have learned how to make dolls out of fabric. It is not difficult if you have a ready-made sample, several patterns of patterns of body parts and clothes. Choose your favorite idea. Turn an interesting activity into a family hobby.