Eloise & Evie

Eloise & Evie, originally uploaded by poketypatch.

Little twin dolls. I made them for my 3 year old neice. I hope she likes them.

I have become obsessed with making these little dolls. I am still trying to get the body proportions right. Instead of doing it the easy way - like actually using a pattern - I just keep fiddling with my own pattern pieces. It is a curse and a blessing to do it this way. It takes much longer to figure out the best method, but you learn a lot along the way!

Some things that I have learned are as follows. First, I have decided that I like a shorter neck (like on the brown haired doll). The problem lies in getting out the ripples that form in the fabric if the neck is too long. You have to clip the seams really well so that it doesn't wrinkle at the neck and under the arms. The shorter neck just looks better.

Also, I think that placing a seam which divides the arms and legs at the body is better than just attaching the arms and legs, or cutting out the body with legs and arms as one piece. This seam allows the arms and legs to bend better. I have an old Raggedy Anne doll that I played with as a child. It has seams where the extremities meet the body as well as at the elbows and knees. That doll is much longer than these, so it works well. However, I don't think that these are long enough for those seams.

Another element that I prefer is having the feet point frontwards rather than toward the sides of the dolls. It takes a little more work to construct the feet this way, but I think it looks better on the doll. The doll with yellow hair has the seams at the arms and legs as well as the feet facing front. I have been stuffing the doll at the skirt bottom before I add the legs. I stuff the legs and them handsew them to the bottom of the skirt. This makes it really easy to stuff the doll. I handsew the skirt together at the hem.