Now we are going to make the dresses! Just like I did with the bodies and hair, I first cut on paper to see what i wanted for a dress. I decided I liked the first dress offered on the Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge the best. Also, after cutting it out the dress I discovered that the size 8, (the size of my paper doll body) was a little bigger than I wanted for my body. So I tried 7 3/4 and 7 1/2 and I decided I liked the 7 1/2 the best. It makes the dress a tiny bit shorter and a little bit smaller around the waste. I figured it any of my doll waist pokes out on the side I can trim the waist! (wouldn't that be nice to do in real life?) I did the black out feature so that there wouldn't be any unnecessary detailed lines on the surface of the fabric. After cutting it out on paper I measured a surface of 6x5 inches for the dress. So I cut out 6x5 pieces, and ironed on the HeatnBond just like I did with the other pieces.
I should have done 6x6 pieces. My dress cut very close to the edge (which isn't a problem with paper), but with fabric, it sometimes cut off the bottom of the dress entirely, or gave me torn edges (since the fibers in the fabric can stretch, paper can't stretch!) Here is an example of a dress that was torn at the bottom, so i had to cut with my own sizzors the bottom to make it clean and smooth.
SO- for your project cut 6x6 pieces of fabric. I have found that even if the fabric is big enough for the object being cut, you want atleast a 1/2 inch extra on all edges because there needs to be a fair amount of fabric sticking to the mat so that it won't pull away from the mat. The cutting action wants to pull the fabric off the mat, and if there's not enough fabric holding it down, it will easily come up. So I would suggest to have atleast a half inch extra on all edges. For this project a 6x6 inch square will be plenty.
After you get your 8 dresses cut out you can finally start thinking about ironing them down. The only reason you wouldn't want to iron them down now is if you wanted to add shoes. I am still debating shoes, so I haven't ironed mien down. I need to sleep on it :) I am also going to do aprons on each dress. 
I love it! I'm so excited to iron it all down. What do you think? Should I do shoes? I'm going to embroider the face, and cut and iron on an apron on each. What do you think for shoes?
5 comments:
oh my heck these are turning out SO cute! I can't wait to see more! I'm gonna be honest- when you said you were making a quilt with little girls, I couldn't envision it (suprise surprise) and I was kinda wondering what the heck you were doing. But now I love it! I think it's so cute for kids.
i'm really excited to see the final product. since we kinda talked about it on the phone, i'm not sure what you finally decided to do....removable with velcro or anything, or strictly a quilt that's totally permanent??
it's super cute.
I LOVE it, way cute!
As for shoes, I think that you should do the faces and aprons and such and then decide (showing pictures of course!). I think they would be way cute with shoes though. I think you should do a pair and then show us!
(I have quilts that people made for both boys, I probably need to just do one for Makaylin :) Anyway, I hang them on their walls because they are so cute and they add color to their rooms. (plus, how can I just let them play with such a work of art???) This would be soooo cute to hang on a wall!) (Sorry, does that sound really dumb?)
I just read all of the tutorials and I think that all of the paper dolls are turning out so cute! I think that shoes would be cute, but I would put the aprons on first and then see. I love you! :)
Oh, these little clothes turned into artistic doll dresses. You're so amazing! Well, a girl's imagination is truly playful! Simple clothes designs can turn out to be good toys!
Chris Jeffery
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