Making a Rag Doll

This instructable is about how to make a rag doll. These rag dolls are great gifts and can be made from scraps leftover from your other projects. My wife searched through many rag doll patterns until finally making her own. This is the pattern she came up with. 

Materials
Scraps of cloth
Polyfil
Thread
Paint Pens/Sharpies
Elastic
Yarn
Cloth Flowers
Glue

Tools
Scissors
Pins
Safety Pin
Sewing Machine

Cut out the paper pattern. Take the cloth you are going to use for the body and fold it in half. Pin the paper pattern to the cloth you are going to use for the body. Cut the cloth along the pattern. Pin the pattern for the arm/leg in the same way you did the body and cut it out. You will need four of these. Two arms and two legs.

Now you will need to sew the doll and stuff it. First sew two arms. Then snip the tips of the arms to the thread. Then turn the arms inside out. You can use a pencil to stuff the poly into the arm. Now pin the two arms to your cloth cut out of the body. Place the other cloth body on top of the pinned arms. Sew the body, taking care with where the arms are pinned. Once done turn the body inside out. Stuff the doll. Now sew and stuff the legs. You can also add "knees" to the legs by sewing two small dots side by side where you think the knee should be. Then pin the legs to the bottom of the doll and sew.

Now for the dress. You will need to start with a sleeve and sew along the curve. Then sew the sleeve to the other side of the dress. Then sew the other sleeve to the other side of the dress. Follow the pictures if you are confused. Once all four pieces of the dress are connected you will want to sew the neck. Fold the cloth in and sew along the neck. Then take the elastic and attach it to the safety pin. Then feed the elastic through the neck. Tie the elastic off and sew the sleeve to the dress. Do the same for the bottom of the dress as you did the neck. Fold over the cloth where the arms will go and sew them. Finally sew up the sides of the dress and put it on your doll.

You add anything you want to personalize you doll. We decided to use brown yarn for the hair. Take you yarn and wrap it around a dvd case. Then remove the yarn and find the center of it. Sew along the center with a thread of similar color. You attach the hair either vertically on the head so the seam/part will be in the middle or you can place it horizontally to give it a different look. This doll's hair was put on horizontally so we could give it bangs and a ponytail. Place some glue on the head of the doll where the seam will be and carefully place the hair on the doll. Then using a needle and thread hand stitch along the seam the hair to the head. The combination of glue and thread give is a secure fit. Once you are done sewing cut the loops in the hair in whatever style you want. 

We also added a fabric flower to her hair with some glue.

The face was sketched in pencil and them drawn in sharpie. Try drawing a few faces on paper before you commit to a more permanent medium. We prefer paint pens because they do not bleed. The two other dolls we have in the picture were done with paint pens. 

Now you are finished and have an amazing gift you can give.