Want to make some clothing for dolls?
We have a helpful guide for you to set up your machine and for cutting clothes for dolls.
If you are a beginner, with this guide, you will get a clear idea of how to design, cut, and sew some basic pajamas for dolls.
Also, you can modify the pajamas later on if you wish. Without further ado,
let’s get started!
Supplies
Pattern
You can use the pattern of the dress currently the doll has, or you can simply download some free size small pajama patterns from the web. Don’t worry about sewing the same dress the doll has now; as we said, this guide is for making doll pajamas. The truth is, sewing is intuitive, and you can adjust things even if you are following a guide for something else.
More Necessaries
Other than the patterns, you need fabrics, thread, pins, scissors, an iron machine, tailor’s chalk, and a mat.
Sewing Machine Setting
You need to set your machine on the basic stitch style for making doll cloth. Set the length of the stitch on 3, and set the width at 4. Put the needle dial on the far right, and the tension can be swapped from 6 to 8. So, go ahead and set your machine this way.
Read care carefully the following tips to make clothes for dolls.
Tip 1
Cutting small clothing can be a little hard. We suggest you print out some patterns for pajamas. It’s easier this way. Also, make many copies of the patterns as many as you are going to make.
Tip 2
Now, let’s say you will cut the fabrics for making pants and shirts. To do that-
Step 1
Cut some fabric pieces according to the overall size of the doll. You should cut the fabric pieces in an even shape; avoid any angular pieces for now.
Step 2
Once you cut the pieces, there should be two fabric pieces for pants. Now take one piece of, and place it upside down on the mat. Then, take the other piece for the pants and lay it on the top of the first fabric.
Step 3
Now, take the design for the pants, and cut it into shapes.
Step 4
After cutting the shape for pants, place that on the top of the fabric pieces for pajamas. Now, you can cut the fabrics following the shape.
Step 7
Next, cut the top of the pajamas, which is a shirt. In the process you have cut the pants, you can cut the shirts following the same process.
Step 8
Once you are done with the cutting part, you can start stitching. Follow our lead to stitch as well. You can serge the area if you want. And, if you don’t have that feature on your sewing machine, you can simply stitch the edges.
Step 9
When you are stitching the edges, leave a small seam allowance. Next, you need to go for the pant legs. You should cut the pants a little longer as you will be folding the edges in and then stitching them. If you are surging the edges, you don’t need to cut the legs longer in that case. Again, you still can surge by folding the edges. And, in that case, you need to cut the legs longer. Now, you choose what you need to do.
Step 10
Now, roll the pant to the middle seam in the center. Then, you can stitch the middle of the pants in a single seam. As you will be doing it in one straight stitch, make sure the center seam is lined up nicely. Otherwise, the pants will be distorted in the legs.
Step 11
You can take the right side out now and take a look at the small pants pattern. Next, you need to go for the top side of the pants, which is the waist area.
Step 12
Now, you need to add some elastic on the waist of the pants. Measure the elastic by the waist, but make sure you are taking the elastic little shorter than the real size of the waist. You need to gather the fabric to make it fit for the waist of the dolls.
Step 14
To make a casing on the waist, fold it and stitch it by leaving a little opening for the elastic to go in. Once you make the casing, with the help of a small safety pin, you can put the elastic in. Then, stitch through the whole waist with the elastic on and add the edges of the elastic together.
Step 15
We are done with the pants; now you need to make the shirt. As we have directed you to cut the shirt the way you cut the pants, you should have the fabric pieces in your hand now.
Step 16
Take the wrong sides of both fabric pieces of the shirt. Then, stitch the borders of the shirt. You can surge the sides if you want. Also, you can put a straight stitch. But, you can also use a zigzag stitch if you want. There will be less fraying if you can surge the sides. However, from the hands to the body, stitch the areas slowly and nicely. Leave the bottom and the neck area.
Step 17
Once the stitching of the sides is done, you can go for the bottom. To stitch the bottom, fold it if you are using a straight stitch. If you are surging, you can fold or not fold it, as your choice. Also, you need to stitch the openings of the hand; as they are small, you better hand stitch them.
Step 18
Now, come to the neck area; you can’t actually put it under the needle as the fabric is so small. We suggest you do a little hand stitching here by folding the neck area. If you still want to use a sewing machine, you go slowly and move the neck around carefully to stitch it properly.
Step 19
You can use the cloth the way it is now, or you can add a collar. To add a collar, your need to make it separately and then stitch it around the neck area. Also, if you want you to want the shirt to have buttons or some other decorative materials, you can go for it! You can slit the shirt in the middle if you want and add some buttons to it.
We hope you can make the dresses now and adorn the cute little doll dresses as you wish!