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Where crafters share their favorite websites and crafting tips!

Free Patterns

Free Doll Patterns

Learn how to make your own dolls from this great group of free doll patterns. Along with the patterns, most offer great tips and tutorials on doll making.

All the website owners have also included their favorite crafty tips on making and caring for dolls.

Great Free Patterns Websites

Free Cloth Doll Patterns

More than simple rag dolls, this fabulous collection of free cloth doll patterns has something for everyone. An eclectic mix of pins, collectible and fantasy dolls. With names like "Bildgewater Bedbug", "Mama Uglioni", and "Captain Underpants" you know you're going to find something to stir your creative muse. Site includes a list of charities looking for cloth dolls. Dollmaker's Journey also offers for sale many dollmaking supplies and designer doll and doll clothing patterns.

Doll Making Crafty Tip
If you really mess up the face, just make another face on the other side of the doll and cover your mistake with hair.
 
 
Little Cindy - A Cloth Doll Pattern

A great site dedicated to Cindy. This free cloth doll pattern is quite unusual as it has gentle girlish curves and the author allows for this pattern to be used for dolls that will be sold (check the License page for details). A gallery also showcases completed dolls made by site visitors and provides additional inspiration to create your own Cindy.

Doll Making Crafty Tip
To make a work bench for working on a doll's head, take a plastic food storage container and line it with a towel shaped with a depression in the center for the head to lie in. This will keep the head steady and supported for fine detail work on the face or to add hair.
 
Free Patterns for Barbie Dolls Outfits

Miss B. Couture offers free patterns and tutorials for sewing Barbie dolls outfits. You can follow step by step images and descriptions on how to make each outfit. All outfits are original Miss B. Couture creations and hand sewed. I usually recycle any little piece of fabric, ribbon, button I can find. New outfits are posted every week.
 
You can sew a complete wardrobe for your dolls: princess dress, fairy dress, pants, sweaters, coats, lingerie, t-shirts, bags, hats, Halloween outfits...

Sewing Doll Clothes Crafty Tip
When sewing Barbie dolls clothes, you should use sew-on-snaps rather than velcro. Doll clothes are to be used by kids and velcro will damage fabrics and clothes.
 
Do not forget to keep any little piece of ribbon, any little button and any little piece of fabrics you can gather around you. I made a great sweater for Ken from a recycled sock. It takes a very little piece of fabric to make a Barbie doll outfit.
 

On a site dedicated to the Lord of the Rings can be found a pattern for a Hobbit sock doll. A new take on an old standby, this version of the sock doll will delight Tolkien fans of all ages. Instructions include an interesting technique for curly hair that could be used for any type of doll.

Don't forget to check out the rest of the site for everything LOTR.

Doll Making Crafty Tip
To create more sculpted-looking faces for your handmade dolls, tightly ball up a bit of the fiberfill stuffing and wedge it between the main stuffing and the surface of the face area. Use some tiny and hidden stitches to position the balls to create noses, cheeks, lips, and eyelids once the head is fully stuffed.