How to sew custom clothes for your dolls

Sewing custom clothes for your dolls can be a fun hobby! In this blog post ,I want to share a few of my personal tips and tricks with you! I’m going to talk about what are the easiest fabrics to use, different patterns that will make your dolls pop, sewing techniques, and all kinds of really cool design ideas. I will share some of my TOP SELLERS with you here And the stories behind what inspired me to create these unique designs for your dolls.

Tips and tricks 

I would love to share with all you Doll lovers and Doll Collectors, some simple tips and tricks that helped me along on my doll clothes sewing journey . 

How to put your Barbie dolls hands through a tight long sleeve shirt ?

Lot of us collectors order cute tops and shirts online for our dolls but we don’t realize how hard it can be to put them on our Barbies. The fingers of the Barbie doll often get caught in the sleeves, you try to force it through the tight area and you realize the fingers of your Barbie pierced a hole in your Barbie doll’s garment as you were trying to put her arms through the sleeves! Clearly, the space in the sleeve is way too tight and you are thinking that  there’s not way you can put it though ! 
Do not worry! I know how frustrating this can be !  There is a way to fix this!
Take a small piece of plastic wrap from your kitchen pantry and apply it on the doll’s hand .Make sure to wrap the plastic several times around the whole hand ,so that it creates a very soft surface. What I recommend doing ,is to wrap the plastic tightly around at least 3 to 4 times .Now, Take your doll’s garment and if you are using a Made to move Barbie doll , then raise her arms up and slide the shirt through her head , then the hands and arms. MUCH BETTER ,wasn’t it? This technique will make your life so much easier and also prevent your doll’s garments from ripping and poking holes in them - View pictures for reference. 


Fabrics and patterns

How to buy fabric to make doll clothes?

Large print fabrics don’t usually look good on little dolls like Barbie doll for example. When picking fabrics for your project , I am always looking at fabrics  with small prints .Why? Large prints are meant for human size garments and if you incorporate large print fabric in your tiny project , the end result might look a little funny and out of scale.

Here are a few tips: When browsing the isles of your local craft shop, pay attention to the kids fabric. Children’s fabric or baby fabric is one of my favorite fabric to work with . It’s not only sweet and  adorable but you will find quite a lot of options for your tiny project. Baby and kids fabric, comes in small prints.

Moreover,try your local second hand store for very affordable t shirt fabrics , stretchy spandex and jeans ! 
You will be surprised what you can get in those type of stores and what you can make for your dolls out of recycled material and fabrics ! Gently used children’s clothes makes an excellent choice if you want to get the thin, small print look for your dolls dress or tops! 

Also, pay attention to the fabrics thickness .Thick and  bulky fabrics don’t look good on dolls . You thought sewing some cool jeans for your doll out of some old pair of jeans from your grandmas closet , might not work!  

For big projects I recommend buying a full yard, Or even 2 yards depending if you are sewing  a whole collection line for your doll .For small projects and try outs, I recommend buying  1/2 yard or even 1/4 of a yard . 

 

The inspiration behind my most popular design

Since the major world health crisis that hit the whole world, my Barbie Doll Face Masks collection turned to be one of my most popular collection in the last year ! 
Who would have thought “A face mask for dolls”?

Lots of collectors out there enjoy putting face masks on their Barbie dolls for different reasons . 
Displaying Doll drama via Dioramas and Doll Photography has become very popular in the doll world nowadays , as well as creating stories and stop motion Barbie doll videos . 

 

Click here to view all of my collections