A Dolly for Madison Embroidery Project

      To prepare the fabric, prewash and press the fabric.

      Cut the pattern pieces apart roughly. Sort the pattern pieces for the body, the dress, the pinafore and the pantaloons. Press the pattern pieces with a dry iron to remove the wrinkles. 

      Place the printed face behind the pattern and decide how much the design needs to be increased or decreased for the pattern face. 

      Alternately, measure the pattern from eye to and the design print-out eye to eye to determine the measurement. At the machine or in software, resize the design to fit the pattern.

      Enlarge or decrease the design, print the embroidery design again and test behind the pattern. The mouth may also be adjusted up or down if you have the software in which select those elements, group them, and move them up or down as desired. In this project the mouth was left just as is.

      Print out the heart design Patchwork Heart Applique at actual size. Resize the design (if needed) using the image on the doll body pattern as a guide. Add “I LUV YOU” text to the design in software. (Optional: after the heart design stitches on the body, use the text function on the machine to add the lettering.)

      After hooping the fabric, place the doll body pattern in the hoop and trace around the pattern. This will be the stitching line for the doll body after the embroidery is done. 

      Mark the placement line for the face and the heart designs on the fabric.

      Align the machine needle to the start point of the face design. Stitch the design changing thread colors as designated and trimming jump threads. 

      Embroidery the face design following the color sequence.

      Embroider the first color of the heart design, which is the placement line for the applique fabric.

      Interface the red applique fabric on the back side. Fusible knit interfacing was used for the project. Place the fabric right side up over the outline. 

      Place down the applique fabric. Stitch the next color which is the tack down. Stop the machine and trim away any excess fabric around the edges.

      Start the machine to stitch the next color which will be the outline and satin stitching around the heart.

      Change to white thread and stitch the text “I LUV YOU”. (Optional: If the lettering was not done in software, add machine lettering at this point if desired). Remove the fabric from the hoop. Remove the stabilizer, press the fabric from the wrong side and set the piece aside until the doll is assembled.

      Prepare the design for the pinafore. Print out the design Guys and Dolls at actual size. Determine the placement on the pattern. 

      In the project, the design was aligned below the large dot for the strap placement to be sewn on the left side of the pinafore skirt.

      Cut a larger piece of fabric than needed for the entire pinafore skirt to allow enough fabric for hooping. Because this design is small but has a substantial amount of stitches, hoop the fabric with the poly mesh stabilizer behind the fabric and float a piece of tearaway stabilizer under the poly mesh. This will help keep the design crisp. Stitch the design following the color sequence.

      Stitch the entire design. Remove the fabric from the hoop. Trim the stabilizer and press the fabric. Use the original pattern piece to cut out the pinafore skirt. Set aside until construction of the pinafore begins. 

      Using a small stitch length (1.5-2.0 mm), stitch right on the pencil line, leaving an opening as noted in the pattern instructions.

      Trim the excess fabric away leaving scant ¼” seam allowance. Set aside until needed during the construction process. 

      Repeat for the doll body (tracing of the sewing line was done in the hoop already) and legs. Follow the commercial pattern instructions for sewing the doll body together to the point of stuffing and leaving the openings as indicated for stuffing.

      Stuff the doll as instructed. Using a wooden stick makes stuffing easier. Sometime a stick is inserted into the bag of stuffing purchased.

      Use a ladder stitch to close the seams that remained open for stuffing. 

      When the thread is pulled up and secured, the closure is very neat and tidy.

      Instructions for the dimension of the cardboard to wrap the hair around are given on the back of the pattern envelope. I found a portfolio I had that was the exact dimensions and it worked well because it was not flimsy like cardboard. Wrap all the yarn as shown in the pattern instructions.

      Follow the pattern instructions for sewing the yarn hair onto the wig. Note: in this project I left the hair much longer than the pattern indicated because I wanted pig tails on this doll. This was done by sewing the yarn to the wig top according to the instructions. Before sewing the sides and bottom of the yarn down, the yarn loop was first cut from the underside close to the first stitching at the top, thus releasing the loop of yarn into a straight hank of yarn hair.

      Sometimes using a curved needle is easier than using a straight needle when working with a doll. Curved needles may be found in the needle section or upholstery section of the sewing store.

      After the hair was attached, the hair was divided evenly for pigtails and white ¼” ribbon bows were tied on the hair. The doll was laid on the edge of the cutting board, and the edge of the cutting board was used to evenly trim the hair.

      Trim up any hair ends and give the doll a cute haircut on top to make the hair shaggy on top.

      Follow the instructions for creating the pinafore. Starch the fabric to make it easier to handle.

      Complete the skirt of the pinafore adding lace to the bottom.

      Add the straps and ties to the pinafore. In this project, instead of using buttons on the dress to fasten the straps, the strap back was sewn directly on the back of the pinafore skirt.

      Complete the pantaloons and dress following the commercial pattern instructions. In this project, hook and loop tape was used to close the back of the dress. Sew them on using the instructions on the hook and loop tape packaging.

      Place the pantaloons on the doll.

      Add the dress and embroidered pinafore. Watch the big smile when you give this doll to your favorite little toddler as a newly favored companion.