Booyah! Patternless Doll and Dress Completed

The other night I just had the hankering to make my granddaughter a doll and I was determined to do it with no pattern. It was also important to me to make this doll an outfit of some sort–and again with no pattern. Here she is.

She went through several mishaps. First I made a pretty good-looking doll. Then I thought I would draw in the chin line on the otherwise nice looking face. Bad move. She needed a face lift so I tried to surgically replace her face with a new layer of cloth. Bad move. So I decided to replace her head. Cut off the original but decided to throw the whole headless doll in the trash and start fresh.

Then I made the second doll. Not too bad but way long in the torso compared to her short legs. LOL. “Aha!” Says I. “A little surgery should do the trick!” I pulled the first doll out of the waste can… and cut off her legs. I surgically attached them at the knee and now she is happy! But naked. And kind of lumpy.

After many tries at making something that wouldn’t require tiny facings around the arms and neckline I finally had a eureka moment with this little jumper. I drew an a-line style around her on the fabric and cut that out with a v-neck. Then I cut two more of just the top half. I sewed those on as facings, finished the side seems and added lace at the bottom. I don’t know why it took me two days to come up with it. It could do with just a bit more fullness but aside from that would be easy to make for most any doll. Or kid.  The same principles apply.

I feel much better now and have worked out some of my aggression towards patterns, perfectionism and tedious detail. In the big picture–my grand baby has a doll that is not naked. Success!

Satisfaction.