Make a Dress Up Dolly: The Clothes

On Monday I shared with you the tutorial for making a dress up dolly so next we need to make her (or him) some clothes. You can make up your own clothing shapes if you like but I have kept mine fairly simple. I have however made each dolly their very own 'super-suit' with their initial on the front, hehe!

What you need:
1 dress up dolly (see tutorial)
1 template from your dolly you have already made
fabric scraps
sewing machine
white thread
fusible bondaweb
Felt ( I used one colour for each dolly that I made so they didn't mix up their clothes).

Method:
Start out by ironing some bondaweb onto several bits of fabric, I used bits and pieces that were left over from quilting mainly but I would suggest having some denim and some white. For your other fabrics try and use fabrics with small patterns or that are plain because the pieces you will cut out will be very small.

Now to make your clothes templates use your dolly template as a guide and draw clothes shapes to fit her. You can be as imaginative as you like, if you want to make a super suit for yours then just cut off the head and hand from your template when you're done and use then. Then draw around these onto the paper side of the bondaweb. This is pretty fun because you can design an entire wardrobe out of your fabric scraps. If you are making a super suit for your dolly make sure you cut out the main suit form one colour and the boots, pants and initial from a second colour.

Then you need to cut out your clothes shapes from your fabric, take off the paper backing and lay them onto your felt so that none of them over lap. Leave off your boots, pants and initial of that super suit because you need to bond these to your suit NOT to the felt. (If you want to make a mask for your dolly to coordinate with your suit you will need to glue this to some prickly velcro.) Take a tea towel and iron the clothes onto the felt until they have bonded.

Next you can place the boots, pants and initial onto the super suit and iron these on (don't forget your tea towel!) You can also iron on any other details you like, for example a collar in a contrasting colour, a pocket on a dress or a pretty hem maybe.

Once these are all ironed to the felt you can use your sewing machine and stitch extra details onto the clothes like hems, pockets or embroidered details using some more fancy stitches.

This looks very messy because of all the loose thread but when you cut out these pieces, which is the next thing to do, they almost all get trimmed as you cut any way.

And there you have it, a lovely dress up dolly and her entire wardrobe. And now you know how you can add to her wardrobe any time you like. I hope you're little one enjoys it too. Zoe xx

You can find this and other tutorials over at Stitch By Stitch.