Easy steps on making a doll : part 1

Finally, it's Sunday! Finally some time off to make a new digibudi's doll!
I had the cross stitched teapot (almost finished) to start with choosing the fabrics and ribbons and buttons.

my cross stitch patch to sew on the belly-center of the doll

I like to limit my choices in choosing matching fabric for my dolls because this way it's much easier to pick out the right ones out of my quite large stack of fabric. I've been collecting patches of many different kinds of textile, that it is sometimes difficult to have a total overview of what's in stock! :) Talking about a luxury problem..

Anyway, I came up with two main styles of fabric, it's woven Italian furniture fabric. I got a pile of those from a teacher who was retiring and didn't had use for them anymore. She gave it to me, and I'm ever so grateful for those boxes full of authentic woven Italian goodness.

So, here's the idea:

Some dotted fabric I'll use for arms and legs,
and some pretty vintage roses fabric in mustard
and green color schemes.

Now I needed some ribbons and buttons to match..
And of course some sweet pink fabric to use for the doll's head and hands.

Now, that's cute! After all, the doll's name will be 'Tea for Two'.

Now on to the cutting and putting some parts of the doll together.
I like to make some parts first and see if other parts will match and if I maybe can change some of the design.
I work organically, which means not necessarily sticking to the plan. Going with whatever fits at that moment in the progress of creation.

I've chosen some thread to match the colors of all the fabrics, and whatever is in one of my thread-treasure boxes.

I've chosen some very dark green and a color that's more green/blueish.

I sewed the patches for legs together to get some idea of how the size of the doll will be.

And then back to the layout of the doll. The body part, which will contain the cross-stitched teapot patch, and arms, head and ribbons to finish it all off in a pretty rosy kind of way.

I'm making the legs first because I don't have much fabric to work with, this way making it easier for me to know how big in size the doll will be. I measure and cut the doll parts with a ruler that's so easy to use. It's called Omnigrid and is used primarily in patchwork and quilting. It has diagonal and straight lines on it, and it's a blessing!

Ones I've got the size of the doll I make some alterations.
I cut the patches I need to fit the body part and use ribbons to jazz things up a bit and to hide some seams that I'll need to make for sewing the patches of fabric together.

That's it for now, but I'm gonna be back next time with arms and head parts of the doll, and then finally putting them all together, so that this doll will be a lovely one!

Bye for now, and remember : "A rose is a rose is a rose"