Great tracing paper! Great tracing paper has to be sturdy enough to pin without tearing, to use over and over, yet you must be able to see through it easily for tracing patterns. It also needs to be wide enough ( for me) to cut or trace patterns for even long skirts for dolls, or big circle skirts for dolls. It also has to be handy– on a roll, not in sheets or a tablet — so I can reel out just what  need, and either use right off the roll, or cut a piece the size I want to work with. I seldom have any use for commercial patterns, but when I do, I never cut them– I trace them  so they are ready to use in tissue form that won’t easily tear when I am working with it. Many of the great old doll dress patterns you buy on eBay and such are photo copies of the old patterns and are not on tissue. By tracing them off in stead of cutting them,  you not only have a pattern that is much easier to use, you have the original intact in case you need it again– or want to resell it. 

I of course make most of my own patterns, which is why I need the large roll of white tracing paper…. I use it to make all my patterns. It is soft and easy to fit on the dolls, but is also sturdy enough and crisp enough to be easy to work with. It is ideal if you want to alter a pattern, too– making it a little larger or smaller for a better fit on a doll.

The tracing paper shown here is the kind I use. I wanted to be sure and have it on the blog, because I will soon be offering more patterns you may want to use, and if you do, I recommend that you trace them off. This tracing paper comes in several sizes so you don’t have to buy the size I do–the 50 yard roll. You can also get it in much smaller amounts. Click on the picture or here to see where to buy at a great price!

The craft stores sell 5″ x 7″ ziplock clear plastic bags that are just the right size and shape to easily store and access your traced patterns. With a heavy felt pen you can write what it is right on the bag. These are perfect and will lie almost flat in a small drawer.

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Click picture to  enlarge

When sewing doll clothes, you can be dealing with very small pieces– for example the sleeve for a Patsyette may be only 1 1/4″ by 2 1/2″.  The sleeve has to be sewn into the curved sleeve opening on a dress bodice that is around 3″ wide over all– so that curved opening is hard to grasp and guide under the needle with your fingers.

Even sewing the sides of the bodice, where you want to guide it to a 1/4″ seam, can be difficult to grasp with your fingers and guide under the presser foot. Tweezers are the answer. I have both curved and straight heavy duty tweezers near each of my machines, two regular sewing machines, the sergers, and the machine used for ruffling lace. They are excellent for guiding narrow lace through the ruffler too.

Acommpanying this text is picture is of the tweezers I use, one picture the serger, the other my main machine.  If you have ever struggled to guide a little piece of cloth beneath a wide sewing machine foot, you will love having the tweezers. Here is a link to the heavy duty type, in the handy 6″ size, at a good price! And I also have the larger size, the 8″, which come in handy when I need more reach to grasp something, click here

And here is a link to a nice sized curved tweezer that even in titled, “sewing machine tweezers”  just click here

I hope you enjoy having the tweezers to ease you guiding the little bodices, sleeves, lace and trims as you sew.

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Collector’s Book of Dolls’ Clothes: Costumes in Miniature, 1700-1929

This book (the title is a link to where you can buy) is another must have if you are going to sew heirloom doll clothes. It has more than just pictures of the clothes, it has different  kinds of information about the dolls and how they were dressed in the time period of the title, 1700-1929. Dorothy Coleman is one of the worlds experts on dolls and has put together many books to leave for future generations to become  educated about them.

While this book is somewhat more expensive than some I recommend, it is also  such a wealth of information that to get the same thing you would have to buy several other books– and I doubt if even then you could get all the information Ms.Coleman put together here. If you want a book to use, not for show, then don’t hesitate to buy a used copy and save some money.

If you are sewing clothes for old dolls, this is an absolute must have book for your shelf. Like most encyclopedias full of information, it is a large heavy book. The book was first published in 1975, and the original price was high– I think I paid close to $100 for it when I bought it, but I knew that she had done all the research that would take me an equal number of years to do– or more. I was happy to pay her for her work. Remember, we did not have the internet then!  But even with the internet, it would take a long time to find on your won all the information that is consolidated in this book.

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Collectible Dolls and Accessories  of the Twenties and Thirties from Sears, Roebuck and Co. Catalog

If you are just getting into dressing old dolls and want to do it right,  this reprint of dolls from the catalogs of the era is a super resource. While most of the illustrations are drawings, the descriptions give lots of information on what materials are used and what accessories the dolls might have come with. There are some name brand dolls ( such as Shirley Temple-Ideal) but also  many “catalog dolls”. The catalogs of the era liked to buy unmarked dolls ( and sometimes even marked) and give them their own unique catalog name such as  “Sunshine” . Doll makers such as Effanbee, Ideal, Horseman sold dolls in the department stores like Sears and Monygomery Ward, but this book is from the Sears catalogs. It has dolls such as Tickle Toes, Patsy Family, and others. You may be able to find the identity of your unmarked doll here, or you may find one with the same style and description and year it was sold, to help you know what the original clothes looked like.

There are dexcriptions of unnamed dolls that may fit the “mystery doll” you are trying to dress– such as a celluloid or metal head doll. The pictures and descriptions can help you figure out when your doll was made, and how it came dressed, so you can dress it in appropriate heirloom quality clothes.

I love the description of the fabrics and styles of the clothing! It is like a journey back in time— when the Christmas catalogs would come, and my sisters and I would sit down and look at them for hours,  dreaming of what we might find under the tree. If you want to make beautiful, authentic doll dresses for dolls of this era, you will love it too. When I did doll clothes sewing seminars, this was one of the books I gave to the students.

 

 

 

To do Heirloom quality doll clothes, the first thing you need to know is how your doll should be dressed for her era.  There are many books to help you understand the different fashion periods.

There are basically two kinds of dolls to dress: lady dolls ( fashion dolls) and child dolls, which can mean anything from newborn to pre-teen. Remember that dolls at any given period in time were dressed in the fashions of their time, whether the dolls represented children ( of any age) or adults.

It is interesting to note that the earliest “infant dolls” did not look like infants; they were simply dressed as infants and put in cradles or cribs. Today dolls representing infants LOOK like infants– and this trend began with the Bye-Lo baby doll. This doll was by Grace Storey Putnam, and was the first doll truly looking like an infant. Grace Storey Putnam  was a sculptor born in 1877 who had to support herself and her family after a divorce in the  1920s. She sculpted the doll while actually looking at a three day old baby. This at the time was revolutionary–It  had not been done before, but was the beginning of dolls that looked like real babies, that are still popular today– although the soft materials of today’s dolls make far more realistic babies than the porcelain, composition. paper mache, celluloid and other hard materials of Putnam’s times.

Here is an example of a very old doll dressed as an infant, but the doll does not look like a baby. You will often find these dolls dressed even as “ladies” when people find them stripped of original clothing, because they do not “look like babies”. This is why research is so important if you want to do heirloom quality doll dresses.

To get back to the fashions— whether infants, children or ladies–the dresses on your heirloom antique dolls should be authentic to the times of their introduction and manufacture. Research today is easy– we have the internet. If you are seriously costuming dolls, though, there are books you should have at your fingertips.

For an overview of  the fashions of the different time periods, I have never found a book that is better than one called the Evolution of Fashion. This wonderful book not only shows drawings of the fashions, but shows the shapes of the pattern pieces to make them, and information –very important– on the fabrics used as well as what was worn from the skin out. The book  can be expensive but you can still find bargains on it. Mine is soft cover which I find easier to use than hard cover, as well as it being less expensive.  Don’y hesitate to buy a good used one. Mine is extremely used, and it still is just fine!

Whether you are making dolls or dressing antique ones, you will find this book a necessity, it covers fashions from 1066– 1930. Enjoy!

The cording foot is another tool I use a lot.
The Cording Foot allows you to attach thin cording, yarn, or ribbon neatly and precisely to sewing projects. Use a tricot stitch and decorative thread for a truly unique look.  The Janome type makes it possible to do one or more cords, but most of the cording feet  are for doing one at a time. Because the small trim is so wonderful for doll dresses, this foot is  a must have if you are sewing  a lot of dresses. If you have a different brand of machine, just run a search for “cording foot for (your machine).

I have used this foot in the past to put on strings of tiny beads. It gives a beautifully even trim. 

When sewing trim on, be sure to draw a line with your disappearing ink pen on the exact place you want to sew the cording or other decoration, so it lays exactly where you want it!  I used it to sew the cording at the top of the lace on this voile dress for Patsy Ann.

I will in a later post put on a video of  this foot in action!

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I know your sewing room is just full of all kinds of measuring tapes– retractables, two sided ones, cloth ones–even that cutting board  has 36″ measuring markings on the side of it. and of course the sewing guage. I have all these things too. My industrial ruffler has the measuring strip built right into the front– incredibly handy.

But there is one more tool I use the most, and nearly every day I am sewing. I have one by the ironing board, by each sewing machine and a couple on the cutting table because things can “get lost” there. ( Sound familiar?)

 

This great tool is  a clear plastic 12″ ruler.   I use them for measuring to press in hems,  measure sleeves, hats, the facing allowance,  the width the collar needs to be, and a whole bunch of other things. It is handy because I can see the edge of the fabric , any markings on the fabric or pattern, and a bunch of other things through it.  These I used to pick up at Office Depot and they are very inexpensive, but now like for many other things, I just look on line to buy. They do get kind of scratched up and marked up and sometimes lost. Or carried to another room to measure something and forgotten. I also have one 18″ clear plastic ruler, for the rare skirts for larger dolls that are a little wider.

I have only named a few of the things I use these rulers for! When I do a seminar, there is always one in the packet of tools I give to the student– I do this because I want to be sure when the student gets home, they will have the basics to work with.

In case you don’t have an Office Depot or are like me and love the convenience of shopping on line, click on the picture and you can get these  from Amazon!

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Many of you will say “what the heck is a piping foot?” — for a couple of reasons. Number one, piping is not commonly used anymore. Number two, if people do use it, they usually just go buy some piping ( comes in a package like bias tape does). I use it quite a bit on heirloom quality doll dresses— but the commercially made  is too heavy and thick for most doll dresses, so I make my own. See a sample of piping on a dress here.  

Piping, if you are not familiar with it, is bias fabric folded over, ( similar to bias tape) encasing a cord or string. The size of the cord/string determines how heavy, light or delicate the piping is. I have a ball of plain white  cotton string that is just the right thickness for doll dress piping that I have used for years. You also have to use a lightweight fabric to cut your bias strips to avoid making it too bulky.

I usually use the piping on the waist line although it also makes a nice finish on the neck on a dress with a lined bodice as in the Cissy dress pictured here.I have usedpiping the same way to finish the bottom edges of straight sleeves. It can be a very effective and charming embellishment on your doll dresses.

In a later post I will have a video demonstrating this foot,  but in the picture above you can get an idea.

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Another attachment I couldn’t work without!  The blind hem in an heirloom quality dress is important to the appearance.  A hand stitched hem is nice, but there is no way anyone sewing for a living could take the time for that! The blind hem replaces it.

You may say, but all old doll dresses have regular machine-sewn hems! A blind hem would not be authentic! You have to remember, we are sewing heirloom quality, NOT exact copies of the old clothes! We want them to look the same at a glance, but be of top quality. The very finest antique dresses — pre-1900– may have had  hand sewn hems, but keep this in mind– once the sewing machine was in common use, no factory would pay women to sit around and sew clothing by hand. Most of the work was machine done! Things that could not be done by machine at the time–sewing on buttons or hooks, blind hems– were done by hand. As soon as machines and attachments were available to do so , it was done on the machine.

Our goal in sewing heirloom quality dresses is to make them beautiful, looking like the finest old ones, but with superb sewing.on dresses that will still be beautiful in 100 years.

The picture of the hemmer I have included is the one for MY machine– if you buy one, be sure you get the one for YOUR  machine, if you run a search you will easily find it.

In a later post I will be showing a video of how this foot is used and how easy it is!

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This is another presser foot I use all the time. Most machines come with them– but if you don’t have one, you are missing out. I use this for anyplace I need a little 1/8″ rolled hem. All you experience sewers will say “Gee everybody has those” but more than half the students I have had take seminars have seen it but have no idea what it is for. In a later post I will do a video of using it. It quickly and efficiently will make a neat and tidy hem where you need one, in small enough scale for doll dresses. These have been around for machines for well over 100 years! The old machines often had the hemmer foot in  five or six sizes— for wider hems.

I wanted to put it on with a link to one with a reasonable price.Sewing machine shops tend to sell attachments at higher prices although many consider it a service to carry them and sell them reasonably. If you have to buy one be sure it is made for the type machine you have.

Do check the attachments that came with your machine! I have never bought a machine that didn’t include this basic tool, but if you bought a used machine it could be  missing.

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 This is the machine that I use my old fashioned ruffler on. The industrial ruffler I use for ruffling skirts is too heavy duty for ruffling fine lace and some fine fabrics, so I use an old fashioned ruffler attachment on this machine for those items. The ruffler attachments will work on newer machines, but not as well as they do on the old straight stitch machines. I got this machine at an estate sale, it didn’t work because the bobbin was in backward and it was threaded wrong. I  fixed those and it sews great, but since it is well over half a century old I had it all tuned. My machine guy said it will last longer that I will and beyond. Love this machine!

The rufflers made for domestic machines will do a fine job of ruffling your doll dresses. It just isn’t fast enough for me, doing it commercially, so I use the industrial one for that, and you will see a picture of it in another post. I had it made specially for my needs.

I will be talking about using the ruffler itself in a future post under tools of the trade.

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In every single sewing seminar I have done, I have given the students  a sewing gauge as part of the package they get. I have been amazed that NOT ONE  of them even knew  what I was talking about when I said, “get out your  gauge”!  They would look at the box of tools with a blank look until they spotted the name of the tool on the package.

I use the sewing gauge every day. I use it to mark hems, to mark where the trim goes on the bodice or skirt, to adjust a pattern, and so many other things there is not room to list them all. There will be some explicit instructions for use later. For now, just be sure you have one in your tool box by your machine! Dritz  is the kind I always buy, they are quality and inexpensive. Just click this link to find one  Dritz Sewing Gauge

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