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Let's talk about stuffing. You could use anything you want to stuff a doll. Think about using dried beans, sand, sawdust, excelsior (shaved wood) straw, or polyester fiberfill, cotton batting or wool. These all have different qualities, such as weight, loft, washability, attractiveness to vermin, and susceptibility to moisture, mold and mildew. Some of them (such as excelsior) allow you to insert a wire after stuffing. Some of them (such as sand) have weight enough to make a drooping effect. Some of them (such as polyfill) can be wrapped around wire easily. So think about what you want to use. In many cases, you will probably choose polyester fiberfill (polyfill), so that is what we will concentrate on here. There are two methods of stuffing that we will address. The first is stuffing so as not to form lumps. The second is stuffing in order to form lumps. Seriously! There are times when you will want to put stuffing in irregular shapes to fill out breasts, shoulders, knees, etc. But let's deal with smooth stuffing first.
In order to stuff a large area, such as a torso, you should gauge the size of the area to be stuffed, and then tear off a piece of stuffing of roughly half that size. This, when stuffed through a large hole (large enough to keep the fiberfill in one piece) will nestle in the area with the least amount of lumps. Tear off pieces of the same size as the first and stuff them in so that they stack.
Use one hand to hold the area firmly while stuffing. This will prevent you from over-stressing the seams and perhaps tearing them. While you are holding the area tight you will be able to feel the tension and know when to stop stuffing. You want to stuff enough to make the stuffing hold the fabric in shape. But don't overdo it. If you will be needle-sculpting later, you need to leave some stuffing out so as to allow the fabric room to be shaped. When stuffing small areas, such as arms and legs, the principle of stacking equal sized pieces is the same.
However, you will have to judge how big the pieces should be. Try a few to see how they compact when inserted to the end of the tube. They ought to be the same length as width. If they are too small or large, simply remove them with a pair of tweezers or hemostats. Hold the area tight with one hand while stuffing with the other. This will really help to reduce lumps. When the head is cut in one piece with the body, stuff the head and neck from the opening in the torso. This will keep all the stuffing going in one direction. If you were to fill in the head and neck from the top of the head, and then stuff the torso from the leg opening, there would be a break at the neck where the two directions meet. You might not notice it right away, but it will come back to haunt you after a while. Avoid temptation and you will avoid disaster.
To stuff areas that you want to be a lump (such as breasts, buttocks, knuckles, etc.) you should not try to shift the stuffing in the main area to fill these small shapes. This will only cause unwanted lumps to appear later when you can't go back in to correct the problem. In the case of shoulders, you should stuff those areas first, then fill in the rest of the torso. For the breasts, stuff the whole torso first, and then, carefully insert one piece of stuffing under the "skin" to fill the whole breast.
If you need to add more, make sure to add it between the main area and the first inserted piece. This is a reprint from
Cloth Dollmaking. Copyright 1993 Antonette Cely. |
