Making Rag Dolls and Soft Toys from Scrap Fabrics

Materials needed

... you don't need much to get started

Pictured - Wendy, smallest size in this doll.

The materials you will need.

Scraps of cloth or old clothes. If you want to make a doll, try to be sure you have white, black or any other flesh tone of fabric you want for the body parts.

Scissors You'll need a good sharp pair of scissors for cutting your cloth. Ideally you should have two pairs, one small for cutting threads and for intricate cutting and one pair large dressmaking scissors. Proper tailors' shears are normally quite expensive but you can usually get a smaller version of these giants for a much lower price. Any scissors will do, as long as they don't have a serated edge (like kitchen scissors) as it's impossible to cut most fabrics neatly with serated scissors.

Strong thread Remember you are making these for children to play with (unless you want them for yourself) so choose strong thread to stitch them with. You can machine stitch these items but will still need to finish them off by hand at the end of stuffing them. You don't want that stitching bursting in a child's hands. More about stitches on this lens.

Needles You probably want to have more than one size of needle for sewing. Most packs of needles contain a variety of sizes which are suitable for toymaking.

Wools, buttons, zips A selection of wools is a great thing to hang onto. Use unravelled wool from an old jersey as crinkly hair for a doll, use as manes and tails for horses etc. Keep a box, maybe an old biscuit tin, just for gathering together bits and pieces like zips, buttons, hooks and eyes etc which you remove from clothing you are recycling. These are always useful, whether it's for trimmings or making doll's clothing and, as long as they're not broken, you shouldn't throw them away. Buttons can be used for eyes on some toys.

Stuffing nope, not sage and onion. You need a filling for your toys and there are several which are suitable. Personally, I prefer kapok. This is a natural substance obtained from the seed pods of a tropical tree, however, it is flammable. There are synthetic fibres which you can buy for the purpose or, if you have the energy, you can shred old tights and stockings to make filling for toys.

Whatever stuffing you use, you must make sure that the opening the toy was stuffed through is very securely stitched.

In any case, it is probably safest to regard these toys as unsuitable for children under 3 years old due to the materials used.

Finally, you should arrange a workspace for yourself as you are unlikely to finish this in one day.

Scaling up a diagram

... it helps if you have pre-printed graph paper but isn't essential

Scaling up the diagram isn't dificult.

First, if you right click on the images, you should be able to save them to your picture folder and print them out as one image per page, filling the page. This should be a fine size for the animals but will give you quite a small doll.

To scale a drawing of any kind up you need to mark out inch squares on the paper and mark out a larger piece of paper with squares in a larger size, say, 2 inches. It's then simply a matter of copying over the pattern, making each 2 inch square look the same as the corresponding one inch square and you have your larger pattern.

If you want a pattern smaller - for mini piglets perhaps - then after marking out the copy with one inch squares, take a sheet marked in, say, half inch squares and scale the pattern down to fit this size.

All these patterns are drawn on the lines of stitching, in other words, they represent the finished size and you will need to allow extra fabric around the edges when cutting.

Except if you are using felt, in which case you need not allow extra for the seams.

The stuffed doll

Stitching and style

... the fabrics you have available will dictate style to some extent

Pictured - Miss Scarlett and Miss Beloux

Each pattern piece for the doll needs to be cut out from doubled over fabric, giving you a total of ten pieces to stitch together.

When sewing together, leave the tops of the arms and legs and bottom of the torso open as the areas through which you will stuff these parts. Make each part seperately and stitch up the open ends of the legs and arms once you have tightly stuffed them. Do likewise with the body, then you can attach the legs and arms by their top seams to the seams of the body, legs attached to the bottom seam where you stuffed the body and arms attached, angled down towards his/her sides. This is why the tops of the arms are slanted. The peak goes at the conjunction of the shoulder and side seams on the torso.

When stuffing the head, you will find it best to keep the head slightly flattened, rather than trying to make it have depth like a human head.

These dolls can be given an enormous amount of personality.

Normally I embroider the eyes and mouth on a doll but you could just as easily use buttons or small patches of fabric.

If you are using scraps of fabric, why not make the doll a real patchwork princess or turn her into a gypsy. Really, you can let your imagination run riot, why not a Goth or a Punk. Never be afraid to experiment and give the doll your personal touch.

You can probably see that the original clown I made was purely from scraps, I used a piece of fur fabric for his "hair". When I was making them professionally, I used swan's down which you can buy as trimming, a bit like a fine feather boa to make the "hair".

The fabulous Miss X has feather boa for hair and was made from scraps.

Soft toy zoo

... animals are not hard to make and so much fun for your little ones

Pictured - tortoise and hedgehog fun floor cushions using fur fabrics and velvet for the faces.

The little animals are very simple toys and take minutes to make.

Using the simple basic shape, you need to cut out two pieces which are opposites to each other. You also need to make a gusset so that you will have four legs on the creature and it will be able to stand.

Making a gusset is a matter of common sense. For example, the pig has a fat belly so you need to allow for this in the gusset, a horse is slimmer by comparison, again, this is done in the gusset.

Below is a sketch of how to allow for a gusset.

The dotted line across the top pattern piece shows how the shape of the gusset is arrived at.

In all, you have four pieces to cut, as shown in the picture. Begin your stitching by sewing together the gusset where it joins under the body (where the dotted line is) and then stich to that, the two sides of the horse. stuff the horse with filling and stitch up the space you left to insert the filling by hand, the base of the neck is often a good place to put the stuffing in from.

At the joins at the chest and backside of the horse, take a few secure overstitches to hold the pieces together on the outside or you'll find your animals are prone to doing the splits.

You can finish it off by giving the horse a mane and tail made of wool and a small pair of pointy ears.

For the lion you will want to add some wool scraps or perhaps fur fabric round his head and add a tail with a tuft of "hair" at the end, I'm sure you don't need to be told that each animal needs its tail, ears etc and I'm equally sure that you'll realise from the pattern pieces shown that a simplified outline representing your chosen animal is easy to create, meaning you could expand your zoo to include animals not shown here.

Making your own templates

... use thick card or thin stiff plastic

Pictured - Gypsy dolls to tell your fortune.

Really not a difficult thing to do, if you make your own templates up you can reproduce, for example, a whole farmyard full of little pigs in different fabrics.

Simply make a clear outline drawing of your basic shape on a piece of stiff card and cut round it. Sometimes I've found that packaging inserts can be good for this. If they are sturdy plastic, for example, you can cut yourself out a durable template which could probably be passed on to a younger relative once you're done with it.

Three little pigs for a book bag, perhaps, the three bears - but don't forget to scale one down to baby size.

The possibilities are endless.

How about a soft Noah's Ark

... all handmade for your special child

It's a gift

... handmad rag dolls make a very special gift of love

Pictured - two fine ladies taking the air.

Obviously you can make these little people and animals entirely from scraps of fabric, either offcuts from something else you have made or from old clothing etc.

You will be amazed how good they can look when finished. I have given many as presents and used to make these and larger, more complex animals professionally, large Old English Sheepdogs, for example. Believe it or not, they were all based on simple shapes and the same principles as those shown here.

A small tip, if you stuff the arms of the dolls very solidly then the dolls will sit up. Angle the arms slightly back and they form a triangle with the body of the doll which supports her in an upright position.

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