Making Cloth Dolls
It may seem strange to you, but in my family both the boys and the girlsloved cloth dolls. You see, my mother was an expert in making cloth dolls. She...
It may seem strange to you, but in my family both the boys and the girls
loved cloth dolls. You see, my mother was an expert in making cloth dolls. She knew exactly how to go about it. She could make rag dolls, well-dressed china dolls, handmade wooden ones – you name it and she could put it together. She could make the perfect clothes for American girl dolls, dressing them up in such fancy outfits that you would practically envy them. Although none of my friends had the same cloth doll hobby that I did, and I sometimes got made fun of over it, nevertheless I have grown to treasure my toy dolls. To this day, I sew doll clothes in my spare time, and collect cloth dolls.
One of my favorite things is making clothes for my dolls. I love sewing clothes for 18 inch dolls. You see, in general I love making clothes, but it can often be an involved and time-consuming process. The great thing about learning how to make doll clothes is that it is such an easy way to create mock ups of full-size costumes. Although cloth dolls don’t show you how the outfits would look on you, they do provide you a way to cheaply and easily play with your imagination and find out what types of clothing might be worth further investigation.
My first exposure was learning to make Barbie clothing when I was a kid. You see, our cloth dolls were precious. We were very careful with them, and did not want anything to happen to them. After all, our mother made them for us, and we deeply loved the work she did. Nowadays, I still have that sort of respect for my cloth dolls. My Madame Alexander dolls, for example, never leave their display cases. They are too valuable, too perfectly made, and too fragile. The cloth dolls that I actually play with are of a much coarser grade of workmanship. Nonetheless, I love them all.
If you have ever wanted to learn to make cloth dolls, you really should try it out. It is much easier than you might think. There are all kinds of do-it-yourself guides available, so you can easily find out the information that you need. Even if your first few cloth dolls do not look very good, keep trying. After all, the point is to have fun!