The pattern and instructions in this tutorial will make a jointed fabric Hitty base doll and her ensemble. When your basic fabric Hitty doll is stitched together, you can finish her with your choice of traditional or original fabric doll techniques. Visit my fabric Hitty galleries on Sara Cole Studios to see examples of painted and embroidered fabric Hittys, and use your imagination to design your own original fabric Hitty. Do you want to paint, ink, or embroider your doll, or try something no one's ever done with a Fabric Hitty before? Perhaps you can paint her features and give her embroidery floss hair, or you could make black curls from clusters of seed beads. One of the easiest ways to finish a painted fabric Hitty is to visit Gail Wilson Designs and purchase her doll paints and antiquing gel, which are designed to work as a complete system to penetrate, seal, stiffen, paint, and finish antique-style painted cloth dolls. Her colors are beautiful! If you decide to embroider your Hitty's features and hair, you can add stain/antiquing, tinting with paints, or use fabric pens or colored pencils to enhance her features.

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Printable Pattern Pages:
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3

Remember: always read all directions before getting started!

Doll: To create your base doll, you will need printouts of the printable pattern pages, high-thread-count muslin or cotton fabric, a fray-check product, stuffing, a sewing machine, and a needle and thread.

Cut out all body pattern pieces. If you are going to paint or ink Hitty's hair, you can use the pattern as shown. If you want to make her hair out of yarn or some other material, you might want to cut the head part of the pattern into a smaller, rounder shape. Double your body fabric, and trace one body, two arms, and two legs onto the fabric with a pencil, water-soluble fabric pen or dressmaker's pencil. Set your sewing machine to a very short stitch length to make a strong seam. Stitch along the traced outline of the body, arms, and legs, leaving openings where indicated in purple. After stitching, treat all seams with a fray-preventing product. You may be able to use watered-down tacky glue or white glue if you don't have another fray preventer on hand. If you use glue, make sure you treat the seam only outside the stitching, not inside, or your doll may be stained. When it's dry, cut very close, 1/8-inch seam allowances around the seams, and clip curves and corners where indicated by the blue dots. Turn the doll parts right side out, using a blunt stick or tool to shape out the corners and the doll's thumb. Be careful not to poke through on the hand! You may have to cut the seam allowance very close around the thumb and coax it gently inside out if you wish to have a separate thumb, but it can be done.

I recommend wool or high-quality polyester stuffing for this doll. Cotton can be used, but may be lumpy and difficult if you're not used to it. Cotton stuffing will making jointing very difficult. Start in the top center of the head. Continue stuffing tufts, creating a firm core in the middle of the head, downward to the top of the neck. The center top of the head may appear to dip into too much of a 'v' at first. Keep stuffing and it will fill in properly. When you've filled the center of the head down to the neck firmly, use a thin stick or hemostat tool to work tufts in at either side to fill out the 'wings' of hair at either side of Hitty's head. Try to make the stuffing continuous from the head down into the neck, and then the neck down into the body. Hitty's neck is quite thick, so you probably won't need to reinforce her neck, but you may wish to do so if you want a little extra insurance. Fill out the shoulder corners firmly, and continue to tamp stuffing into the body very densely until she is entirely firm. Luckily the arms and legs are easier to stuff, but I recommend including some sort of reinforcement in the ankle and wrist area, particularly if you are going to paint her. A q-tip works well if it's cut down a bit, particularly if you have the kind with the plastic stick.

Sew up your openings with a blind or pillow stitch, and you're ready to get creative! I usually do all of the finishing work on the doll's hair, face, boots, etc, before attaching the limbs, just to make things easier. To assemble the doll, use a long, sharp darning needle. You can use thick crochet cotton thread or round elastic to joint your doll. A bead or tiny button on the outside of the joint, like on teddy bears, to secure the joints can be very attractive. Pass your needle straight through the body, attaching the arms and legs on either side. This will create an old-fashioned teddy-bear style jointed effect.

Tip: If you'd like to make Hitty's hair with real curls, take an entire skein of black embroidery floss and wind it tightly around a long 1/8-inch dowel. Don't overlap-- wind the skein down the dowel so that threads are parallel and touching, to cover the dowel completely in a perfect, tight, spiral curl, but not overlapping. Soak the thread and permeate it with heavy spray starch, and bake it in the oven on a low setting until dry. Unwind carefully and stitch to Hitty's head using the same hairstyles and techniques you would use with straight yarn, concentrating more bulk in the lower portion of her head and attempting to recreate a Hitty-shaped hairstyle. You may wish to use more black floss to stitch most of the curls down tightly to Hitty's head for a loopy, curly look. It's important this doll's hair doesn't get wet, but if it's mostly stitched tightly to her head you shouldn't end up with any long, straightened loops if this does occur.

Now you're ready to make clothes for your new Hitty!

Clothes: You will need a printout of the dress pattern pieces, dress fabric, matching thread, 18 inches of miniature lace, a fray preventing product, fabric glue, a sewing machine, iron, and needle and thread. Clothing pattern pieces in pale pink can be cut from your dress fabric. Also cut a skirt piece approximately 3 3/4 inches by 12 inches. You can vary the length depending on your desired dress style. There are four sleeve options, so choose one and cut two pieces from the dress fabric. Reinforce all edges lightly with the fray check product, except the skirt. Set them aside to dry while you work on the bodice. To create the bodice, double a large rectangle of your dress fabric, right sides together. Trace the bodice piece onto the dress fabric. Machine stitch your traced line ONLY along the edge marked in red on the bodice pattern. Use fray preventer outside of the stitched seam and along unstitched edges. Cut an 1/8-inch seam allowance outside the seam and cut directly along your traced line on unstitched edges. Clip curves and corners around neckline, turn, match up raw edges, and iron flat.

Turn a 1/16-inch hem along bottom sleeve edge, iron, and glue. If you are using a straight sleeve, ease into bodice arm openings and stitch with a 1/8-inch seam allowance. You may wish to do this by hand, (a backstitch works nicely), or baste before machine stitching, if you are inexperienced with tiny sewing-machine work. If you are using a puffed sleeve, gather along curved edge and stitch to bodice arm openings. With right sides together, stitch an 1/8-inch seam along bodice sides and sleeve edges. Clip under arm and treat the seam with a fray preventer. Turn bodice right-side out. If you are using puffed sleeves, you can leave the cuff loose, or gather it with elastic thread or doubled thread to fit your doll's arm.

To prepare skirt, stitch lace with the fancy edge facing upward to the right side of the skirt about 1/4-inch from bottom raw edge. Iron lace down and seam allowance up, and blind stitch hem. Iron over 1/4-inch at either end of skirt piece. Gather top of skirt and stitch to bodice. Right sides together, stitch back edge of skirt along ironed creases to within 1/2-inch of bodice bottom. Close back edge with buttons and loops, or with tiny safety pins.

Pantaloons: Sew remaining lace in the same manner to right side of each pantaloon piece, about 1/4-inch from bottom edge. Iron lace down and seam allowance up, and blind stitch hem. Right sides together, sew along both curved edges. Refold so that inseams are together, and stitch along inseam. Fold about 1/4-inch of top edge under and iron. Blind stitch if desired. With large darning needle and fairly large stitches, thread a drawstring of crochet cotton thread in a running stitch around the top edge.

Hitty is done! Congratulations!