Sorry no video this week

 Sorry everyone, no video tomorrow. We have had high pollen counts here and my allergies have been nuts the last week and a half. Between not being able to breathe and the allergy stuff making me sleepy I haven't gotten much of anything done. I am planning to be back with another Doll T-shirt decorating video next week.

Let's Decorate a Doll Shirt part 1

 

Watch the video here.

This is the first video in a short series, I'm going to call it a “mini-series” on decorating doll t-shirts. I have so many ideas that I want to share. I hope to do either 3 or 4 videos now and then maybe throw in a couple more at a later date.

I do want to talk about one thing before we start this adventure. There is one very important warning I want to make sure you are aware of before you do any of this. That warning is that any of these methods could have a risk of bleeding color onto your doll. That is a risk we run not only with decorating our fabrics but also with using anything other than plain white fabric on the dolls. I have seen dolls that have been stained from commercially purchased doll clothing. It can happen anytime you use any colored item on the doll. So keep that in mind. That being said although I have seen the result of it happening I have never had it happen to any of my own dolls and I use a lot of colored fabrics and I love to decorate my doll clothes. I don't want to scare you off from decorating your doll clothes just make you aware that there is a possibility however tiny that it could stain a doll.

To prepare for this I did sit down and sew a bunch of plain white doll t-shirts. I was able to pick up 2 XXX Large t-shirt blanks at Hobby Lobby and easily got 6 doll size shirts out of each one. Hopefully I am set for a while anyway.

For our first shirt today I did a simple applique from some patterned fabric. I fell in love with this butterfly design the second I saw it (it is from Hobby Lobby if you want to try to find it too) and knew it would be perfect for this shirt. I used the same ultra-hold Heat 'n Bond that I used for the shirt in our sewing series. For this shirt I wanted to show you a slightly different way to do basically the same thing. This time the design was provided right on the fabric ready to use. When looking for fabric look for designs that are about 1 ½” about 2” in size. Since I used the ultra hold I didn't need to do any sewing on this one. I did decided to use just a touch of fabric paint for the antenna on the butterfly. I just didn't want to try to cut around them and felt this would look better. Feel free to use the ones on the fabric if you wish.

This method of decorating would also be perfect if you can find some character fabrics with appropriate size designs. There are a bunch of Disney fabrics in the fabric stores as well as lots of fabrics with common cartoon characters on them. You could create some really cool looking doll clothes using those too. 

 

 

Our second method is one of my favorite ways to create designs on doll t-shirts, alcohol markers. I picked up this set of Bic brand markers a while back but you could use the ones from Sharpie, the ones from Dollar Tree or the fancier art ones from the craft/art store (like Copic brand) just look for the word “permanent” on the marker. Also test it with rubbing alcohol to make sure it will work. It is best to do this on a scrap of the same fabric your shirt is made from to be sure how it will re-act on the shirt. I find that some markers work very differently on different fabrics.

For our last shirt this week I used mostly the brush on fabric paint. This is really easy to use because it already has the additive in it to make it work on fabric. If you want to use regular craft paint you will need to add a textile medium to it.

Since I am not an artist I just did a quick abstract design. Then I added a squiggle with a gold metallic fabric paint. I did a similar design on a skating dress for my daughter years ago and it was a hit at her ice rink. I ended up making several more for her friends.

So those were the decorating methods for this week. Which one is your favorite? Which one will you be trying first?

Be sure to come back next time for some more ideas.

As always thank you so much for taking the time to watch the video and read the blog. It means a lot to me. I would love it if you could pass on the links to your friends that also do doll stuff.

Let's Sew Doll Clothes part 10

 

Watch the video here.

 

This week we tackled the top to our doll pajamas. This is a fairly easy piece to sew. For the most part we did most of the same steps in our doll t-shirt a few weeks ago. The biggest difference is this shirt has a set in sleeve as opposed the raglan sleeve in the t-shirt. I know a lot of people are a bit afraid of putting in a set in sleeve but they really aren't that difficult if you take your time and just concentrate on it step by step. Be sure to line up the top of the sleeve with the shoulder seam on the top as well as lining up the notches. The thing to remember about the notches is that almost all the time the notch with the most “bumps” will be the back. Pin as much as you need to in order to feel comfortable and keep checking for tucks in the fabric as you sew.

I am really not sure why my cuffs were a bit off but I am not going to worry about it this time. I left them partly because I wanted to get both the top and the video done but also because I wanted you to know that no one is perfect.

For the hem this time I decided to use a twin needle. This is a really easy way to make your garment look more professional. You get 2 lines of stitches that are always going to be parallel with each other. Also by the nature of the stitch it is somewhat stretchable with a simple straight stitch. Be very careful that you have your needle position set to the middle of the foot before you even think about lowering the needle. If you hit the foot of your machine you can break the needle and if you hit hard enough you could send a piece of the needle flying and/or mess up the tension of the machine. I think the little bit of care it takes to ensure a safe seam is more than worth the end result. This is one of my favorite ways to do a hem on garments both for the dolls and for people. I also use the needle in home dec. sewing a lot.

In order to get a balanced stitch with the twin needle you will need to adjust the upper tension on your machine. You will need to loosen the top tension until the bobbin thread goes back and forth between the two top threads in a zig-zag design. Just be sure to set it back where it was when you switch the needle back out.

The twin needles can be pricey so I recommend waiting to purchase them either on a sale or with a coupon. On the bright side you use is so little each time they last for many projects before you need to replace them. I fact the only time I usually need to replace mine is if I break one of the tips not because it got dull.

I did use the three step zig-zag to put in both sides of the Velcro this time. It is a quicker way of putting it in and for a pair of pajamas I figured it would be fine.

Remember if you have any questions be sure to ask them. If you have friends that you think would benefit from my tutorials be sure to share the links with them.

I am planning to start some tutorials on decorating doll t-shirts next week so be sure to come back to see that.

Let's Sew Doll Clothes part 9

 

Watch the video here.

 

 

This week we are going to sew the pants half of our doll pajamas. They are a pretty straight forward project only 3 pattern pieces. I am really not sure how I missed the waistband last week when I cut out the pattern. I didn't realize it until I got to the step where I was instituted to sew it on. Hmmm... I guess I was a bit tired when I filmed that. Sorry about that. It was easy to fix I just cut another piece of ribbing exactly like I cut out the neckband just with the waistband pattern piece.

For these pajamas I chose a thread that would coordinate with the background of the fabric. Here is the color I used. Coats and Clark Dual Duty Thread  #8180 Cafe Beige. I do prefer to go a bit darker than my fabric rather than lighter, I find it blends better that way.

I am a bit torn on this series as to how often to re-show certain steps. Like cutting out that waistband or pressing certain parts. I'm just talking about the steps we have done before. Let me know how you would like me to handle those parts in future videos as get more advanced in our sewing. I am thinking show each step at least the first time it comes up in the current project then skip the repeats of the same step.

To press the inseam seam I used one of my favorite tools, it is a sleeve roll designed for use when making 18” doll clothing. I got it in a pattern along with a doll size pressing ham. I think this is the pattern although the one on the cover looks slightly different. I got mine several years ago and I no longer have the pattern. I went through my account on Pixie Faire to see if I could find it but I didn't have any luck. I think I might have gotten mine before I set up my account. Anyway, here is a link to the pattern for sale on Pixie Faire currently. I do recommend if you are going to do much doll clothes sewing that you pick this pattern and make yourself a set of the pressing-tools included. They do come in handy and I will be using mine in future projects.

Now, in all honestly I am not 100% happy with how my pajama pants came out. I'm not sure if it was a machine threading issue or an issue with the needle I had put in. When I was sewing the waistband ribbing to the pants my machine was pulling oddly and the stitches were not perfect. This is usually a sign of either a threading issue or a needle issue. I did re-thread the machine and it was better and I was able to finish the pants without any more issues. I did decide to change the needle for another fresh one when I finished the pants. I had changed the needle before starting the pants but it is possible that the one I had put in was either not as sharp as it should have been or it might have had a bad spot on it. These things happen. I knew the issue would only show on the inside of the garment and it isn't even that big of a deal. A lot of people probably wouldn't even have noticed the difference in how the stitches look.

Let's Sew Doll Clothes part 8

 

Watch the video here.

 

 

This week's video is a bit shorter than some of the others in the series. I simply didn't have time to go much further and it seemed like a good place to stop. I do apologize for being off screen during some of the clipping of notches. I didn't realize how far I had zoomed the camera view in. I'll try to be more aware in the future.

Anyway, this week we cut out the pieces to make our doll pajamas. I think this is going to be a fun project and it is super simple to make. We are working with a knit but I chose a fairly stable knit for this so it shouldn't cause any problems. I do love this fabric because it has a bit of sparkle via some glitter on the print. So cute for this outfit.

Other than keeping the stretch of the fabrics going around the body of the garments there really isn't much of a trick to cutting this one out.

I do highly recommend pre-washing your main fabric but not the ribbing fabric before cutting this out. I generally wash any fabrics before sewing with a very few exceptions. Whenever we get to those exceptions I will go over them. For this project the ribbing is the exception, it should really never be washed before sewing. If it is it won't work as well.

I am still working on the video for decorating doll clothing. It will probably end up actually being multiple videos that are sprinkled in between other videos of this series. I think I have too many ideas for just one video. That one is going to require a lot of prep work however since I am going to make a bunch of simple doll t-shirts to use to show the methods. Please be patient it will come in a while.

If you have questions or would like to suggest ideas for future videos be sure let me know. You can ask/suggest here in the comments, over on the Facebook page, on the video comments or via a personal message.