Help Needed with Cloth Dolls

[raggedymom]

Does anyone out there make primitive cloth dolls? Perhaps you could help answer a few questions.....

1. What are you using for hair? I have limited access to supplies, and only have (knitting) wool, and fabric strips which I have frayed. What is the best way to sew hair onto the dolls?

2. I am not having a lot of success with tea-staining my fabrics. Any suggestions?

3. Does anyone know of a website that can give me some tips on painting features onto cloth dolls, or even painting an entire doll - for example making a Hallows Cat out of calico and painting the cat with black chromocryl (?) paint.....

4. Are there any websites with free patterns you can download for primitive cloth dolls, Raggedy Annies, Halloween appliques (cushions etc) ......

I hope someone out there may have some solutions or suggestions....

Happy Sewing!

[DDawnH]

Hi, I have a Simplicity pattern for a cloth doll and I cut the yarn to the lenghth I wanted the hair to be. The pattern said to lay the yarn out on the doll head fabric pattern piece and sew in the sections on with the sewing machine. That is what I did, it is time consuming but worth it.
For the second question. For the tea staining from all that I have read you need to boil the fabric until it is a little darker than you want, then rinse in cold water until it color stops coming out or it is the color you want. To set the color either give it a vinegar bath, iron it dry, or put it out in the sun to dry.
For question 3 and 4 if you go to http://www.diynet.com or http://www.hgtv.com and put in searches under crafts and hobbies or collectables you will come up with doll patterns and how to do its on the dolls. Just make sure you search dolls. Hope all this helps.

[raggedymom]

Thank you for your help on this!

I also found a website last night called www.rusticraggeys.com, which had a page with information on teadying as well, if anyone else is interested.

Regards

[DDawnH]

Glad I could help. You might also go to http://www.about.com and go to hobbies and games. Then click on sewing they will have a ton of links for free patterns and they also have a forum you can go to to get and give advice. Hope this also helps.

[raggedymom]

I'm sorry, I was typing too quickly before. That website should have been

www.rusticraggedys.com

oops!

[DDawnH]

Thanks, that is a nice site. I bookmarked it. Now I want that free pattern.

[Corvette]

Here is another site to check out. It has patterns, tips, etc. for making various types of cloth dolls.
http://www.clothdollconnection.com/FreePatterns.html

[katyo]

I got a free Simplicity (pattern #3604) rag doll pattern off the web from Home Sewing Association (www.sewing.org). I printed it out and then used the enlarger on a copy machine to get it the size I wanted.
I have a doll made for me when I was a child that has the yarn hair sewn on to a strip of bias tape of the same color. The yarn strands are folded in half so that the bangs, which are the folded part, hang over the tape by a couple of inches and the long hair hangs down the other end. After it was laid out on the tape (it isn't really tape but more like ribbon, but I think it is called bias tape) and sewn down, the strip was then hand stitched to the doll along the hair line. It's hard to discribe, but looked very simple.
Happy sewing.
katyo