Recycled doll

First you will need a doll pattern. You can find mine here, but you’re welcome to use the one you have or create one from scratch.

 

To make a doll you mostly need a body fabric. An old sheet, a shirt, any medium weight fabric should do. This means not too rigid and not too fragile. For this tutorial I choose a  kitchen towel, used and with lots of stains but also a nice texture. To diminish the look of stains, and to give my doll a bit more depth I stained the fabric with tea.

If you don’t have fill at home, you can always open up a pillow (be careful not to use one filled with down, it will fly everywhere and is not the best to fill out a doll). If you can’t find a willing pillow, try shredding an old towel or use small pieces of fabric. Just know the more dense the fill is, the longer it will take to dry if washed (if you’re making a doll for a child it will need a bath eventually).

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My doll pattern calls for an embroidered face. If you don’t have embroidery floss, a doubled sewing thread will do just as well. For a simpler embroidered face or to watch a video to help you out at this step, you can go here. You could also use paint or applied felt to create the face of your doll.

 

If you follow the instructions in the pattern, you can make hair with a recycled sweater or felt. You can even use the same technique with any fabric if you’re not afraid of fraying. For this tutorial I decided to try out yarn hair with some left over. There’s lots of ways to do yarn hair on a doll, I chose an easy and fast solution that works well with yarn that has a bit of fluff.

 

For the clothing, anything goes. Go through your drawers and cut out the clothing you don’t wear anymore. My doll is wearing a one piece made out of an old t-shirt, the pattern is coming real soon (and it’s free!).

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