My Daughter Thinks I Can Do Anything—I can’t let her down

My daughters received La La Loopsie dolls for Christmas and they really like them. However, while the dolls are designed to look like ragdolls, they are made of hard plastic and are not good for snuggling with at night. So my eldest daughter, my four year old, asked me to make her a “soft Loopsie doll.” I have not sewed much more than a hem or a button in nearly 20 years, but I’ve been feeling pretty crafty lately (thanks Pinterest), so I told her I would try. I had my sister’s sewing machine in my attic and if I couldn’t figure out how it worked, figured I could always just hand sew one.
I took the girls to Michaels to get the supplies I thought I might need. I really like Michaels as a craft place and the one in Huntsville has awesome sections for baking, candy making, painting and canvases, and even jewelry making. It does not, however, have a real fabric or sewing section. In hindsight, I should have gone to Hobby Lobby. But I had already committed to making the dolls and having the girls (4 and 2) pick out their colors and whatnot. I can only brave one crafty store with the girls per day and we all wanted me to get started on the project. I had in my head that the dolls should have yarn hair and button eyes and that felt might be easy to work with (any real seamstresses are now laughing at me). So the girls picked out their yarn for hair, my four year old was set on multi-colored yarn and my two year old wanted pink. I got some inexpensive skeins and looked for buttons. Since this store was definitely more for crafting than sewing I found the best bang for my buck and just about the only way to get plain round buttons was in a bundle pack. I figured I can always find a way to use the rest later. I got some black embroidery thread for the mouth and sewing on the button eyes and creating eyelashes. I looked for filling material and found some natural cotton quilt batting that I liked and it jibed with my idea that I didn’t want to use traditional stuffing material (I really don’t know why I thought this way). I found a large sheet of white felt, I’d planned to make the head and body with and let the girls pick out smaller sheets of felt for making clothes. I was pretty sure I had the thread that I needed at home. So with the supplies I purchased I headed home and started on the project.
It didn’t occur to me to record the process until I posted a picture of the first doll on Facebook and was encouraged to pin it. Even when I expressed out utterly amateur the project was, it was suggested that it might inspire other people who don’t really sew or craft to feel like they could do something like this, too. Hopefully this does. Keep in mind this is more of a “how I did this” than a “how to do this.” I am sure there are many better ways, I tweaked the process for the second doll and will improve it again if I do another one. The pictures below are from the second doll I made.
I had no pattern so I traced the doll on to the white felt giving myself extra room for sewing (I gave the head a lot more than I needed, and not sure how to make I perfectly round head, I decided I could create more depth with an band sewn between the front and back of the head. Not necessarily the best way to do it but it worked well enough for me. I cut small circles out of pink felt from the cheeks. When I started cutting the white felt I decided it wasn’t very soft and cuddly and the quilt batting that I got was and the natural cotton was a prettier color. So I decided to make the body out of the batting an use the white felt as a liner to give support and strength to the batting. For the belly, I wanted the finished shape to be thinner at the top and rounder at the bottom, like the inspiration dolls bellies, so I created an inner belly for stuffing by layering multiple belly shaped pieces of large and small pieces. The stuffing for the legs and arms were layers of batting and felt cut smaller than the outer “skin.” Below are the pieces I started the project with.

When I took home economics, almost 30 years ago, I was taught the values of basting. I hated basting. I liked to pin and sew. This project does not let you just pin and sew. I basted like crazy. The best thing about basting is that it doesn’t have to be neat. Perfect for a girl couldn’t hand stitch a straight line if her life depended on it (I still marvel at the masterpieces of fashions that people used to sew completely by hand). Anyway, I started with the belly pieces layering them to get the shape I was going for and then basting the pile to one of the largest pieces (of the stuffing part, not the outer belly, then I did a tighter blanket style stitch to join the two large pieces, leaving the neck open. After sewing the outer pieces were together, I flipped it all right side out and tucked in the neck and whip stitched it closed. I wasn’t especially neat with it because it is the stuffing and no one will see. I also sewed on the facial features, this meant I didn’t have to baste the batting and felt for the face—yay, one less thing to baste. I did, however, do a quick stitch on the buttons with regular white thread to lock in placement of the eyes before sewing them on tight with the embroidery thread. The cheeks were sewn by hand with pink thread. The inspiration dolls have a look of visibly sewn cheeks so I kept that look by not trying to hide by thread. I gave the cheeks a more quilted look by tucking the needle under the felt just a little bit as I pulled it back through the face. For the mouth, I just drew lines for a smile with pen and followed it. The eyelashes are also done with embroidery thread. I drew them on to look like the inspiration doll’s and filled them in with the black thread.

Next, I sewed the shells for the arms and legs. I used my machine for this. I used a rather tight stitch to make sure the doll stayed together. Because I was sewing such small parts I used my sewing machine’s foot as guide to create the selvages. I left the top and about 2 centimeters worth of one side open to make it possible to turn them inside out. After sewing the arms and legs right sides together, I trimmed the ends a bit closer to the seam and turned them right side out.

After turning the arms and legs right side out it was time to stuff them. I figured out an easy way to get the stuffing pieces into the tight fitting arms and leg pieces. I ran a needle and thread through the tip of the stuffing piece and knotted it, keeping the needle and thread attached. Then I held the outer appendage pieces and dropped the needle and thread to the bottom of the “tube”. Once the needle was at the bottom, I guided it to the tip (finger or toes) and pushed the needle through. Then I gently pulled the needle and thread through, pulling the stuffing along with it. Then I cut the thread close to the seam and worked the end back into the fingers and toes.

The results—two arms and two legs. I trimmed the stuffing to be about a centimeter shorter than the outer sleeve of the arms and legs and hand stitched the sides all the way to the top. I think the stitch is called a whip stitch, if done well, it essentially disappears, closing up the seam neatly. I won’t say I did it well but fortunately that high up on the leg, that part is covered where it’s attached to the body.

Next I basted the arms and legs to the right side of one of the belly pieces. This basting job was a little more serious, making sure the arms and legs were well attached before sewing on the back side of the body. I folded the arms and legs across the body piece to make sure they wouldn’t accidently get stitched into the seams where I didn’t want them to be.

Then I placed the other body piece right side down on top of the pile of arms and legs and basted it down, checking to make sure I didn’t snag any fingers and toes. Running through the machine can be tricky but not impossible or even really difficult, you just have be confident and willing to push a little.

Next I turned it right side out and stuffed in the belly stuffing. Once again my arms are a little uneven. Like I said, I’m a total amateur so this is far from perfect. But I can tell you, my girls have not noticed it at all (the clothes cover it well and the girls are looking for the imperfections).

Next I worked on the hair. How you approach this will depend on the style for this doll my two year old wanted the hair down. The first doll has ponytails so the direction of the seams were vertical, instead of the horizontal seams you see here. To create bulk and keep the “scalp” from showing I used a lot of yarn, almost the whole skein and I’ll admit after trimming there was A LOT of waste, but I’m happy with the results. First, I pulled a bunch of yarn from the skein, looping it around both hands until I felt I had enough. Then I stitched three bands in the center of the strip I used to join the front and back of the head. On each edge I overlapped the yarn just a little bit since it was going inside. The center band, I uses a longer stretch of yarn and sewed it on across the middle. How did I sew it on? This part I’m proud of, I spread the yarn out to where I wanted it to lay for the doll and then I took a piece of tap and taped across where I wanted to sew. This held the yarn in place and gave me a guide for sewing (I stitched right down the center) and kept the yarn from getting tangled in the foot and needle. You will want to use a very tight stitch to make certain the hair is stable. Once the hair is sewn on, then I remove the tape. The tape tears fairly easily from the seam.

On the right side of the back of the head I did two additional bands of hair one in the center and one along the top, both were sewn horizontally. There is, indeed, a lot of hair on this doll.

I centered the band on the right side of the face and once again basted it together, then ran it through the machine. My sewing machine wasn’t thrilled with bulk but I pushed it through anyway.

I turned it right side out to check my work and give her bangs. Bangs on dolls, like bangs on people, hide little imperfections.

I basted on the back and ran it through the machine as far as I could –with all the hair there was quite a gap at the bottom. Time to add the stuffing for the head.

I had a roll of acrylic batting. I pulled back the back to the depth I wanted for the doll head and cut right across the roll, giving me this. Then I stuffed it in and sewed up the opening with a whip stitch.

Once all stitched up, I cut a hole in the center to tuck in the neck and attach the body. The inspiration doll has a very floppy head that rolls around and flops side to side. So does this one. It’s not quite the same but it works. I hand stitched the neck and head together and then closed the hole completely.

And then the doll was almost complete. Now all she needs is clothes.

First, some underpants. I used felt and simple shape. I basically traced the her bottom half and leg spacing then cut it slightly wider then sewed up the sides on the machine. I used embroidery thread to add decorative stitching along the waistband and add a heart similar to the one on the inspiration doll. I also added my daughter’s initial.

Now for the dress. I started with a piece of felt and folded it in half.




Then I traced around the doll again leaving enough room for sewing. Then I cut out the dress and cut a neck hole.

Next, I stitched up the sides and cut a slit in the back of the dress and turned it right side out.

Then I added some flair.
Here is the finished doll and her slightly older sister. The second doll was easier to make than the first, since I wasn’t spending so much time figuring things out. Each are totally unique. They are definitely rag dolls but the girls love them. Mission accomplished.