Baby Doll Repair

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   When my mother was a little girl, her teacher invited all the students to bring their favorite dolls to school for a baby doll beauty pageant.  Mamma knew she couldn't participate because she only had one doll.  It was dirty, had no clothes, and worst of all, it's porcelain head was cracked open.  So, she didn't even bother to tell my grandmother about the contest at school.
     On the day of the dolly beauty pageant, the teacher had decorated a lovely table to display all her student's prized toys.  Mom looked longingly at all the beautiful babies.  She was saddened that her own had to be left at home, because it was a tattered mess.
     At lunch, she stayed at school to admire the dolls instead of going home for lunch.  Before the bell rang signaling children to return to the classroom, she looked up to see her older brother hurrying toward her with a paper bag in his hands. She thought grandma had sent her lunch back to the school with him..
     When mom looked inside the bag, she found her doll.  Grandma had cleaned the doll, made a pretty little dress and shoes.  The crack in the doll's head had been glued together and was covered with a smart little bonnet.  Mamma, excitedly entered her dolly in the beauty pageant and won the contest.
     This sad little doll reminded me of that story when I saw her.  It was donated to the play area at my daughter's gymnastics studio.  The gym owner handed it to me asking if she could pay me to repair it. 

Poor little baby doll:
Before pic

     I began by reattaching the doll's left arm to her body by basting and then blanket stitching two strips of twill on either side of the rotating disks of the arms.

arm repair with twill fabric and blanket stitch

  

another view of reattaching rotating arm to soft body

     Next, I cleaned the doll's head, arms and feet with a mild detergent and water.  Then came the task of clothing this naked baby.  After measuring it, I found that the doll was much larger than most 18" doll patterns.  I was able to alter patterns for newborn babies for a better fit.  I found inspiration for the blouse by downloading the free Newborn Peasant Dress pattern from Bella Bama.  It may be accessed at this link  http://bellabama.blogspot.com/2012/05/newborn-peasant-dress-wfree-pattern.html .
      In order to cover the cloth arms of this baby, I lengthened the sleeves and shortened the dress by only utilizing the 1st page of the 2 page print out.  Next, I added ruffles to the cuffs of the sleeves and hem of the blouse.  I extended the neckline to cover where the cloth body attached to the head by adding two 1"strips of coordinating fabric to the neckline  of  garment and drawing the elastic tightly around the neck.
      For those of you who sew baby clothes, I highly recommend  This little peasant dress pattern.  It was easy to construct.  It appears to be true to size and was a real joy to sew.  Download this free pattern.  You will use it again and again!  I really loved it!

After
Cleaning, new clothes, shoes and hair grooming

      For the pants, I downloaded another free pattern.  This one is for Baby Bloomers from See Kate Sew http://seekatesew.com/free-pattern-baby-bloomers/ .  I really liked the design of this pattern, because it was just 2 pieces; a front and a back.  Again, I had to extend the legs to cover the cloth on the body of the doll.  This time, I did it by adding 3 strips of coordinating fabric, and serging everything together.  I had to do quite a bit of adjusting to this pattern to fit the doll, but it was very simple to do and I'm very pleased with the result.  This is a great pattern for crafters or beginning sewers.  I'm glad I now have it in my toolbox.

     Next, I moved on to hair bow ties.  I cut 4 strips of 2 coordinating fabrics and hemmed each of the 8 sides on my serger.  I really like the way the 2 sided bows looked after I made some pigtails for the doll.

     Then I decided I just couldn't have a baby doll with bare feet.  See my separate blog entry on creating the little mary jane shoes.  I've included a free PDF of my pattern for you!

     Finally, I recruited my four year-old daughter to help dress our cleaned and mended baby.  We attached a note about paying it forward in honor of the life of our little friend, Gabby Lewis.  Learn more about her story at http://rememberinggabby.blogspot.com/ .

     When we delivered our mended baby, the gym teacher didn't even realize it was the old, tattered doll she asked me to repair!  We named the baby doll "Gabby" in honor of our special friend. When a toddler barreled across the floor, squealing and snatching up the doll, my daughter and I smiled at each other and slipped out the front door.