New headband for the Kindi Kids doll

As I seem to be making an entire outfit for the doll, I thought I might as well make a new headband for her too. I used the original to draw a paper pattern and then cut the piece out of a metal sheet (0.3 mm thick).

Cutting the metal was easy with these shears. I've been wondering about the manufacturer as there are no markings in these. Did a Google search and found a picture of similar shears, but no info on who makes these. However, the picture was from ebay, so I found out that these sell for about 10 €. I don't remember what I paid as it was over 15 years ago.

I bent the metal piece using the original headband as a guide.

Then I covered the upper surface of the metal piece with felt using hot glue.

The next stage was cutting a piece of felt that would cover the inside and gluing it in place.

I glued some ribbon on the upper surface using again hot glue.

The final stage was gluing one of these paper flowers to the headband.

The text in the package sounds really good, but I'm a bit skeptical. I tried finding verification for this, but all searches only found online stores selling this stuff. You'd think that they would make a big deal out of the story, if it's legit, so I still have my doubts.

Here is a picture of the finished headband on the doll. Metal should keep its shape fairly well, and gluing the felt onto it when it has been bent should also add some tension that'll help to keep the shape.

Necklace for a doll

In the previous post about the coat for Kindi Kids dolls, the doll had a pearl necklace with a star pendant. That was my first experiment with new material, a strand of plastic pearls. There's 2 meters of it in the roll, so that's enough for quite a few necklaces.

The star is one from this package. These decorations are just the right size for larger dolls.

I used metal wire to make a ring for attaching the star to the string of pearls (sewing thread would work just as well).

The closing mechanism gave me some trouble. I thought of all sorts of elaborate alternatives, but ended up gluing a loop of thin rubber band to the other end of the strand with hot glue. This loop goes around the first pearl in the other end to keep the necklace closed.

Here is the doll again, wearing the necklace. The pearls would be too big for most dolls of this size, but the proportions of this doll are so strange that the pearls look just fine.

Another try with the coat

After figuring out what went wrong the first time, I modified the pattern. The main change was removing the shoulder seams and having side seams instead. This way, the sleeves are much easier to sew in place. The back piece is also a bit wider than it was originally. However, the front is the same width, I didn't make any changes to it.

Here is the main part of the coat with edges treated with textile hardener. This fabric frays very easily, so the hardener was useful as I didn't want wide seam allowances.

The best thing about this pattern is that you can use the sewing machine to sew the sleeves in place. It is also much easier to get everything aligned correctly this way.

The last part is to sew the side seams. The next picture shows the coat without any trimmings, but I plan to use some sort of ribbon for the edges. That means hand sewing the ribbon to cuffs. If you sew it before sewing the side seams, even that can be done with the sewing machine. I just couldn't decide what I wanted, so I finished the coat and will think about the ribbons later.

Edit: You can find the PDF file containing the pattern for this coat on my web site.

Coat for the Kindi Kids doll

I decided to try making a coat using the dress pattern as a starting point. I shortened it, moved the opening to the front, rounded the edges of the front pieces, and made a pattern for the sleeves. In this picture, the sleeves are too long. The doll's arms are really short and the hand size means the sleeves need to be quite wide. These sleeves were a bit too narrow, although the resulting coat can be put on the doll, but only just.

I treated the edges of the fabric with fabric hardener (basically glue), because this fabric frays easily. After that was dry, I sewed some ribbon to the cuffs to make them look neat without turning the fabric.

Then I sewed the sleeve, side and shoulder seams. Before that, I made sure the hands would go through the arm holes and sleeves. It was a tight fit, but manageable, although I knew the pattern would require modifications after checking all the things that were wrong with it.

The final step was sewing the sleeves in place and adding ribbon to the remaining edges. I managed to get the coat on the doll, but while I was doing that, I also realized the back piece needs to be wider. This doll's arms aren't quite as bad as the Living Dead Doll's, but the hands are still quite far apart, making it difficult to put something like this on. See the Fashion Doll Shoes blog for the description of making the shoes.

Variation of the Kindi Kids dress

I finished the dress shown in a photo in the pattern file for the A line dress. 

The patterns in the fabric required dividing the one piece pattern into three pieces. Also, this is 100% cotton, so fraying would have been an issue. That is why I decided to use a lining for the dress. I sewed the side seams and then sewed the resulting piece into a rectangular piece of the lining fabric. The sewing is easier this way as the fabrics stay flat against each other better. 

In the next picture, you can see which seams need sewing at this stage. The hole in the right edge is where you pull the entire thing through when turning it the right way round.

After sewing, I cut away the extra lining fabric and turned the piece. I also ironed it, because I wanted to make sure the lining wouldn't show.

I realized the shoulder seams would be really thick if sewn. So I decided to glue them instead. I used PVA glue and glued a piece of ribbon first on the outside and then, after the glue had dried, folded it on the inside and glued it there as well. This should be strong enough to form a shoulder seam. After the glue was all dry, I trimmed the ribbon so it was level with the edge of the armhole.

The final step was adding velcro closing on the back. The next photo shows the doll wearing the dress. For the shoes, see the Fashion Doll Shoes blog.

Easy to make dress for Kindi Kids dolls

I'm not usually interested in little child dolls, but Kindi Kids are quite cute, and their proportions are interesting in the point of view of making clothes and shoes. So I bought one, and I'm going to experiment on some techniques I wouldn't use for items I make for collectible dolls.

The first idea was making a dress using felt. Unfortunately, this turned out to be too big, so I'll need to make the orange and blue parts a bit narrower, adding two more seams, but hopefully this can be salvaged.

The nice thing about the first experiment was that it gave me a good idea on what to change in the pattern. After making the changes, the pattern can be used for making the dress below. It's one piece of fabric, only shoulder seams need sewing, and back needs some sort of a closing mechanism (velcro recommended).

The pattern is available on my web site, so you can download it as a PDF file and make as many dresses as you like. And it's also a good starting point for your own creations as it has the basic measurements and you can make changes as you wish.