De-Stressing The Holiday Tension With A Free Cloth Doll Pattern

Today's free cloth doll pattern comes from my much needed day of relaxing :) With all the errand running, baking, keeping the ids busy that are home from school, sometimes moms (and grandma's) just need a few minutes to themselves.

The free cloth doll pattern that I'm giving you today gives you just that... it's a rice filled doll that you can warm up in the microwave. Because it's filled with rice, it holds the heat longer and you can relax in your favorite chair with a warm cup of coffee and this new doll to relax those tense muscles.

Here's what you'll need to make this free cloth doll pattern:

• 1/2 yard sweatshirt fleece, flannel, polar fleece or any soft moldable fabric (make sure fabrics DO NOT have metallic paint or threads woven into the design)
• 2 pounds of rice, whole wheat, buckwheat hulls, or dried beans (Do NOT use popcorn)
• Small amount of polyester fiberfill
• Funnel 
• Thread to match fabric 
• Freezer paper
• Free Cloth Doll Pattern

Here are the steps to take to make your free cloth doll pattern:

1. Trace the free cloth doll pattern onto your material and cut out. 
2. Lay your material so that the right sides are facing each other. Stitch around the edge of your material (so that it's inside out)- be sure to leave an opening under one arm so you can turn the fabric and stuff it after stitching.
3. Once you're finished sewing, turn the doll inside right. Stuff the head, legs, and arms with polyfil stuffing. 
4. Now use the funnel to fill the rest of the body with rice. NOTE: you could fil with beans, but I've found rice holds the heat longer. When you fill the doll leave some room for the rice to move around in the body - you want this to be flexible enough to wrap around your neck or lower back etc. 
5. Finally stitch the opening closed. Be sure to do a good job here - you don't want any rice escaping when you start to use this doll.

When you're ready for some "me time" head the doll in the microwave for 1-2 minutes. Then sit and relax.

A warning from the free cloth doll pattern creator -
WARNING! Do not use a fabric with metallic threads of any kind or sew with metallic threads as your doll will catch fire when heating in the microwave. We recommend you use a patterned fabric for this project, eliminating the need to paint a face or add hair or clothing, as some paint and yarn will not be safe in the microwave.

Special thanks to Sandra Corson-Walker for sharing her free cloth doll pattern with us.

More Holiday Spirit - Free Cloth Doll Pattern

Today I decided to do a special Holiday Edition of free cloth doll patterns. On Friday all of our family will get together for a holiday party where we decorate cookies, do crafts with the kids, sing Christmas carols, and eat way too much.

This year I thought it would be awesome to give the kids a gingerbread man that they can decorate with paint and felt pieces. So I found this great free cloth doll pattern for a simple gingerbread man.

White searching for gingerbread men patterns, I cam across a picture of a family of gingerbread garland that I just loved. So, I also used the free cloth doll pattern to make Gingerbreadman Family ornaments (see picture below). It was a super simple process.

Here's what you'll need for this holiday doll making pattern:

Materials:

• Brown Felt (enough for the family of dolls - remember each gingerbread person has 2 sides) I used Felt Squares picked up from a local craft store for .25 per sheet. I fit a big gingerbreadman and a little gingerbread man on each sheet. Then unfolded the scrap and cut out another small gingerbread (so 3 per sheet). This seemed cheeper and easier than buying a bulk sheet of felt.
• Multicolor Felt (for clothing and accessories)
• Fabric Paint
• Polyfil Sutffing
• Thread (to match brown felt and mutilcolor choices)
• Fabric Glue (for tacking on clothing before sewing)

Steps for completing your Holiday Doll Making Pattern

1. Trace the free doll pattern onto the brown felt Then cut out. Remember 2 pieces of felt for each doll you make.
   
2. Now, sew the two pieces of felt together leaving a gap for stuffing across the head. You could use brown thread for this step. However, I chose to go with White since gingerbread cookies normally have a white decor edge on them. It gave it a great contrasting pop.
   
3. Next you need to stuff your gingerbread family using the poly/fil stuffing. I didn't stuff too much as they were meant to be wall decorations during christmas - just enough to give them some fluff. Once it's stuffed to your liking sew up the open gap.
    
4. Decorate each gingerbread man/woman to your liking. I just cut out felt pieces for dresses, ties, hats, hair bows, etc. I've added some of my designed below. I tacked the clothes on with glue first, then sewed around the edges with matching thread to ensure the gingerbread family will hold up over time.
    
5. Sew the gingerbread family together. I just looped some thread through the hand edges to that they'd meet. however, I found a few paper garland gingerbread pictures online that attached the hands to hearts. I may try this on my next batch for another family member - I'll update with pictures if I do.
   
   Note: In my first go at this doll making pattern, I didn't create a way for the family to hang their garland of gingerbread. So, I'd add a ribbon loop to the back of the two end dolls for future projects...

EDITED: to add details of how we used the free cloth doll pattern to make the ornaments with kids

Gingerbread Christmas Ornaments
To make individual gingerbread ornaments using the free cloth doll pattern with kids I pre-sewed the gingerbread men before the get together. Then let the kids stuff their gingerbread men, and sew the last little gap shut (with a parents help).

I also pre-cut a bunch of clothing and accessories from felt scraps I had from past projects. The kids glued on the pieces using Elmers glue to make their individual ornament. Be sure not to put on too much glue or the cloth wont stick to each other.

Finally, I wrote each kids name on their doll using some fabric paint. We let them set out to dry over night and the next morning had beautiful new ornaments for the tree.

To get the ornament to hang - I just sewed on a loop of ribbon at the top of the head after the doll was complete, but if you wanted you could attach this inside the doll before clothing it shut when stuffing.

Hope you get to enjoy at least one of these awesome doll making projects. When you do, come back and post some comments of how well the projects went or send in pictures!

Simply Adorable - Free Cloth Doll Pattern

I absolutely love this adorable free cloth doll pattern. MarthaStewart.com has them showcased because of how cute and easy to make this free cloth doll pattern is.

There are a few websites out there that share their version of this free cloth doll pattern. You can see one of the doll remakes by Emily Burnette clicking here.

I chose this free cloth doll pattern because of how simple they seem to be. I also liked that they were made from felt and cloth both to give the doll different textures. The simple cloth doll design leaves plenty of room for your personal creativity to take over and decorate the doll. I'm going to use this free cloth doll pattern to make a ballerina doll with a tutu.

Here are the materials you'll need for this free cloth doll pattern:

• Skin Colored Cloth For Face & Arms - I used felt - but others just use cotton fabric
• Cotton Cloth For Dress
• Cotton Cloth For Legs
• Hair Color Felt
• Paint for Face (White, Black, Brown, Red)
• Sewing kit (thread, needles, scissors, etc)
• Polyester fiberfill
• A stick to stuff

Included with this free cloth doll pattern is a 3 page tutorial. It is a 10 step tutorial for making the entire cloth doll pattern. However, she is very basic in her instructions so you'll have to "run with it" when it comes to designing the face and adding accessories like the scarf or apron shown in the picture.

Overall a great free cloth doll pattern, I just wish she gave more detailed instructions.. but after a making a few dolls on my own now I'm confident I can tackle these.

Here is the 3 page tutorial for putting together the free cloth doll pattern - Page 1, Page 2, Page 3

Download the Free Cloth Doll Pattern

Special Thanks to Emily Martin for for her creativity and willingness to share her free cloth doll patterns with the world.

Enjoying The Christmas Spirit - Free Cloth Doll Pattern

If you're anything like the other crafters of the world you absolutely LOVE decorating for the holidays. This Christmas season, I really wanted to put my very own Santa doll up in the house - one that I had made and not purchased from the store.

So, I began searching the internet for different Santa Doll Patterns. I even went to the local bookstore to see if they had any holiday dollmaking books (no such luck). The good news is that after some searching, I came across a free doll pattern online for an excellent santa doll.

I chose this free cloth doll pattern because it added a few more skills that I haven't tried yet. The first are the detached arms. All of the previous cloth doll patterns that I've tried had attached legs and arms to the body before stuffing. This cloth doll pattern requires them to be separate and attached after stuffed. Sounds a little tricky, but the detail it gives should be worth it.

I've also never stuffed the doll with a stick at the neck to give it more strength. All of my past dolls have been for kids so I wanted them to be flimsy bodies (but durable of course). This doll will most likely be shelved near the mantle or stand by the christmas tree so he needs the extra body support.

This free cloth doll pattern also forces me to use new types of material - the fuzzy thread for the hair, and the fuzzy material for Santa's clothes. I'm a little worried about how easily they'll sew together, but with the awesome directions that the pattern and instruction gives I'm sure it'll come together nicely. So, let's get started:


Here are the materials you'll need for this free santa doll pattern:

• Felt (skin colored)
• Cotton batting (neck)
• Stick (neck core)
• Furry yarn (hair and brows)
• Artificial leather (boots and belt)
• Red Woolen or cotton cloth (clothes)
• Furry cloth (beard and rimming)
• Thick paper (for shoe sole)
• Snap fasteners
• Elastic

Other materials you probably already have:

• Sewing kit (sewing machine, needles, scissors, etc)
• Polyester fiberfill
• Threads to match your materials - White, Skin Tone, Red, Black)
• Craft glue
• A stick to stuff
• Blush for cheeks
• Paints for the face - Black, Brown & white

The best part of this free doll pattern for Santa is the step by step picture instructions. You can find the complete instructions for this free cloth doll pattern here:
Picture Instructions For Body
Picture Instructions for Clothes

Here are just a few steps that I pulled from the instructions:

Constructing the head and adding a nose. I haven't added facial features like this before.. only ever painted them on - so I'm looking forward to trying this out.

Building the body strong enough to stand on it's own.

Making boots for the legs that will be strong enough to support the rest of the body makes me a little nervous, but with the instructions and pictures - looks pretty simple.

Here are the free cloth doll patterns you'll need to download and print:
Head, Arms, & Legs
Jacket & Pants
Cap & Body

It may be easier to just download an entire PDF of the free cloth doll pattern for Santa - You can do that here: Free Santa Doll Pattern

Special Thanks to Runo the dollmaker for being so creative and sharing your free cloth doll patterns with us.

Enjoy this free doll pattern and don't forget to send in your pics!

Making My First Cloth Doll - Part 3

WOW making cloth dolls has been a HUGE learning experience! Today I completed my dolls hair and started working on her face and boy oh boy has it been interesting.

First thing I'd like to say is... WHY doesn't anyone have training on attaching hair to a dolls head??! I scoured the internet for HOURS looking for a way to attach hair to a doll without using a sewing machine. It took some time, but I found a short blog post with very little pictures to follow to walk me through it. (No worries - I'm making a video that shows how to do this. Once I get it complete I'll link to it here).

Ok so, I'll break how I made this cloth doll up into two sections - first how I did the hair, and then how I'm planning to the face.

Making Cloth Doll Hair
1. In this first step I decided I would keep the hair style very simple especially since this was my first making cloth doll experience. I layed yarn across the top of the head and held it in the middle where the hair part would be. I then pulled the yarn until it was at a length I liked. NOTE: when I cut the yarn to sew onto the head I cut it about 1/2 and inch longer than I planned just incase I needed to trim at the end.

2. Now that I have the length of the hair I wanted I cut about 20 strand of yarn. The yarn I purchased for this project was a thick yarn with multiple strands twisted. After cutting the yarn into strips I pulled each strand apart - in one of the doll making tutorials I found online they said you could get curly hair this way - it worked perfectly. The yarn pulled apart easily and gave my doll wavy hair (similar to the little girl I'm making it for).

3. The next step was to figure out how to get the hair on the dolls head. After scouring the doll making websites for hours I found a way of individually sewing the yarn onto the dolls head right down the center of the head. You could do this off to the side if you want a side part. I was planning on pigtails so I kept the part down the middle for the entire head.

4. The following steps get so complicated but I've tried to make it simple.
push in 4 pins down the middle of the head where you want the hair line to start making a straight line back. Now wrap a string of yarn around the first pin so that the ends lay to the side of the doll equally. Now pull your thread through so that it comes up the midle of the yarn where there pin is. Now wrap around the yarn and go back into the head at the hair line. You pretty much just made a loop around the hair coming out of the dolls head and back in.

I did this repeatedly for about 50 strands of yarn. Your first 10 will be the most time consuming and then you just get into a grove of sewing the hair down the hair line - after a while you wont need the pins to wrap the yarn around, you can just hold it in place (which makes it easier).

Like I said - it's extremely hard to put the details here - so I'll try and get some pictures up in the next week or so as I work on making my second cloth doll..

Making Cloth Doll Faces

The face is such an important part of the doll - the rest has just been following a pattern and a set of instructions, but when it came to the face I had a hard time finding the one that had a personality that fit the design of the doll. So here's the steps I took... for my first cloth doll face - I think she's turning out GREAT!


Of course I first turned to the internet to see what I could find in the way of printable doll faces, but didn't turn up much. Most of it needs to be ordered and I am just too impatient for that. So I landed on a site that had faces and I used my computer screen as a light box. I traced a couple of the eyes and a couple mouths onto a sheet of printer paper.

Then I played around with colored pencils trying to get an idea of what would look good on the doll. The next step in making cloth doll faces was to try them out on the doll. So I cut the paper and placed the design on the doll where it would eventually get painted on. Here are a few pictures I took of the decision making process:

Making Cloth Doll Faces Process:

First draw out some different faces. 

Then cut out the faces and try them out on the doll.

This one was my favorite so I added some color to see a little more of what she will look liked with a painted face. The final step is to draw on the doll.













I just used a regular #2 pencil to draw directly on the cloth doll.. I drew lightly so that I could erase any errors and fix any off balance. Finally, (after running back to the craft store for some paint brushes) I painted the face onto the doll.

Picture of the completed doll to come!

This making cloth dolls experience has been really fun and inspired a LOT more dolls to come. Next up on my list is to make some cloth baby dolls for my sis-in-law that's due next month. Look for those posts to come - I'm starting next Monday.

Making My First Cloth Doll - Part 2

Last week I started making cloth dolls for the first time in AGES... I printed out the free cloth doll pattern I found online and followed the pretty simple instructions - you can get that free doll pattern here.

This week I worked on the doll a little more and got the legs and arms attached to the body, and then stuffed the body and closed up the head. Here's the steps I took, though I'm not sure I got pictures of every step.

Making Cloth Dolls - Attaching Arms & Legs
1. Lay the head/body piece on the table right side up

2. Next, pin the arms and legs in place on the side and bottom of the body piece. Sorry, I didn't get a picture at this step, but when I start on the second doll I'll try to update this post with it.

3. Sew the arms and legs onto the front side (or right side) of the body piece.

4. Pin the arms and legs together in the center of the body once they are attached to the body piece #1.

5. Now, lay the second bodyhead piece on top of the arms and legs with the wrong side up. This was my first making cloth doll experience so it sounded odd to me that I would lay the right side of the fabric face down and until I understood how it would come out in the end. So for now, picture a sandwich...

The bottom layer is the first, body piece with legs and arms attached, the middle layer holds the arms and legs, and not the top layer is your second body piece laying right side down (so the doll looks inside out.

6. Pin together the bottom body piece and the top body piece and sew the two pieces together. I started at the side of the head  and worked down the head to the neck and then around the body. After sewing all the way around the body I sewed up to the other side of the head leaving a gap of about 2-3 inches at the top of the head.

7. Now pull the arms and legs through the whole at the top of the head. I had to do this in stages. I first un-pinned the arms and legs and then pulled the arms through and then the legs followed easily. They wouldn't both pull through  at the same time, so pulling the arms through first and then the legs was easier.

Now you should have a doll with stuffed arms and legs and an empty body.

8. The next step in making cloth dolls is to stuff the doll using the poly/fil that I stuffed the arms and legs with. This took a large amount of stuffing, but was quick and easy. I stuffed the body until I got to the head and then stuffed the head. Once the head was stuffed I pinned the crown of the head and sewed it shut using a whipstitch.

This part is going to be covered by hair so I didn't stress too much on making it a perfect stitch - only that it was strong enough to withstand a little girl playing with it.

That was enough work in one sitting... so I took a break and started researching how to attach hair to the doll and how to make doll faces. Check that out in my next Making Cloth Dolls post.



Some Quick Tips I've learned so far:

• I used a blanket stitch for the entire doll, but after turning it right side out and stuffing the doll you could see the stitched. They were large and didn't look that strong. On my next go at making cloth dolls I'm going to use the backstitch - it is easy, but also gives a stronger stitch so the doll will be much stronger for kid play.
• Youtube is your best friend :) Any time I got stuck on stitching I went to Youtube and found a video that walked me through the stitch and how to finish it up (like the whipstitch at the top of the head. Or stiching around a corner etc. 
• Be careful stuffing the body parts of the doll - pushing too hard can pop your hem line and then you have a hole. I did this once and had to look up another stitch on how to fix this.. wasn't easy, so just be cautious.

Happy Doll Making!
Chaunna