Remembering a Vintage Doll: Making Your Own Raggedy Ann or Raggedy Andy Doll

My older cousin recently welcomed home his second little boy, and it got me remembering how he and I both used to wag around our Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls that were made for us as small children. Mine was made for me by a family friend when I was born, and she made one for my cousin Jeremy as well (He would have been about two years old at the time). She made me a blonde Raggedy Ann, and she made him a red headed Raggedy Andy. Ours were the 36 inch dolls, and I have seen pictures of us wearing their outfits as Halloween costumes.

Thinking about that made me realize that you really just never see those dolls anymore. They have some small versions in the stores from time to time, but they look very different from the one I still have in my hope chest. So, I began to research. I discovered that the old fabric pattern was produced by a company called Daisy Kingdom. The patterns were sold in panels at the fabric store. Each panel had enough pattern pieces to make two dolls. The clothes you make for them and the length of the hair determine whether the finished doll is Ann or Andy. Otherwise the patterns are exactly the same. I found out this pattern is out of print. The only available patterns now are your standard Simplicity type patterns where you would have to buy flesh tone, black, and red/white striped fabrics and then either applique or embroider the face on the doll. This would have been okay especially since I got a new embroidery machine for my birthday, but I really wanted the dolls to be like the ones Jeremy and I had. After lots of investigation I was able to find a set of the vintage panel pattern on both Etsy and Ebay. I got them both just to have a couple of extra on hand for future kids.

Making the doll itself was super easy! It really is just a cut out and sew together kind of pattern. The only part that was tricky was the hair. I have seen it done a few different ways. One place recommended cutting strands of yarn and using a latch hook style method for attaching each individual strand. The pattern directions suggested just looping the yarn in long stacks to the length and thickness that you wanted before running it through the sewing machine to stitch it together in one long chain. I tried this and found it to be a really messy way to keep it all together. The yarn would slip and cause some strands to be uneven, and it was hard to feed it through the machine without dropping some of the yarn.

What I decided to do instead was look the yarn over a matching piece of bias tape pining it in place ever so often so that it had a solid base to sew on. It made it much easier to pick up the long row of yarn and move it to the machine for sewing. This way the yarn was sewn directly to the bias tape. Using the biase tape also made it much easier to sew the hair to the doll's head later too. Because I used a bias tape that was the same color as the yarn, it also helped to camouflage any small gaps between the strands when it was applied.

For the clothing, I decided to use Simplicity Pattern # 9447. This is the same pattern that I mentioned earlier for making the dolls. It has pattern pieces for making the doll and the clothes for the 15 inch, 26 inch, and 36 inch dolls. The daisy kingdom panels that I found were designed to make the 26 inch version, so I chose that clothing pattern to make an outfit for Kingston's Raggedy Andy doll. I had some scrap fabric around, so I ended up making the top part of the jumper out of a gray/white/blue checked fabric and the bottom out of a solid blue. I attached large white buttons on the front that I had left over from a previous lab coat project (both the pattern and the buttons purchased as Joann's Fabric and Crafts). For the hat, I cheated a little. I found a solid white, adult size large sun hat at a local thrift store for less than a dollar, so I cut out the pieces for the hat from it. I ended up with enough two make two hats from the one hat that I had bought. Plus it made my sewing project easier because it already had the reinforcement and stitching around the brim of the hat.

To finish off my rag doll project, I wrote a short message saying who made the doll, who it was gifted to, and the date so that as Kingston grows up he will know where his doll came from. I don't get to see my family very often because I live so far away from them, but in this way I can send a bit of handmade love their way. I just sent it home with my Daddy during his recent visit with us, so I hope Jeremy and his wife Deonna approve of my gift when they get it. Now that I've found a few more patterns, I plan on making Kingston's brother Cannon an Andy as well, and also an Andy and an Ann for my cousin Karla's son Rhett and new baby girl who will be along in a few months.

... Update ...

As an update to this post, I just finished making my first gothic inspired Raggedy Ann doll. I used the same pattern shown above for both the doll and the clothing but added a little darkness to the style. I embroidered the apron with a free Halloween embroidery design that I found online and accented it with a built in embellishment stitch on my new sewing machine. I think it turned out pretty well for my first try. If you click on the picture to the left, it will open a new window with the Etsy listing for this doll. Here are some pictures. I'm hoping to make a couple more with different themes in the next little while.

How to Make a Cupcake Dress of DOOM ... AKA the Kaylee Shindig Dress from Firefly

So, I'm insane. Why do you say that, you ask? (Do you know me?) I say that because when my wife announced that she wanted to wear the ruffled ballgown that the character Kaylee wears in the Shindig episode of Firefly, I replied, "Sure, I can do that!" Oh my gosh ... what did I get myself into?!

We bought a 150 inch Southern Belle style hoop skirt and went to work!

The dress is constructed very similar to the prayer dress worn by Scarlett Ohara in Gone with the Wind. It has 8 chiffon ruffles (three pink, three peach, and two white) topped off with a fitted bodice that features a flared peplum forming the very top ruffle. The first change we made was to go with cotton rather than chiffon. It easier to both dye and sew. She was planning to wear it to an outdoor wedding reception during late June, so we wanted the fabrics to be as breathable and natural as possible. My wife also does not at all care for peach as a color, so we changed the color scheme so that it would be dark pink ruffles on the bottom, light pink ruffles in the middle where the peach would have been, and white ruffles on the top.

I decided (in my lunacy) to buy a bolt of white cotton and then dye the appropriate amounts fuchsia and petal pink. I used RIT dye for this because it was the most widely available and because I had read a few posts that from people who used the same brand when making this dress. Can I say hugely uneven dye job? I ended up dying the strips for the ruffles three separate times to finally get the color mostly even. The first time it came out looking tie-dyed. Not at all what I was going for. If I had it to do over I would have just calculated and bought broadcloth in the colors I wanted each fabric to be rather than dying it myself. It would have saved money in the long run because dye isn't cheap. 

Next came applying all of the ruffles to the underskirt. I gathered these by hand because I don't have a ruffler foot for my machine. It went surprisingly fast considering the yards and yards of ruffles to be gathered. I think what helped the most was the decision to do it in halves (front half and back half) and then sew the two halves together on the sides. With all the ruffles, the seam wasn't very visible anyway, and it made it so much easier to work with. The skirt construction went by pretty quickly. There are some tweaks that I need to make before she wears it a second time to Gencon, but it wasn't bad. I blame the few uneven ruffles on the fact that many nights I was working on it up until three or four in the morning. It looked straight at the time.

The shirt portion was the biggest challenge for me. I have made many many chemises and flowing style shirts, but I'm not that comfortable making fitted, button down shirts. So, to make me feel a little more comfortable, I found a cheap shirt at the local thrift store that had the Mandarin collar that I was looking for and used it as a building foundation. To go with that I found a white specialty cotton that featured some floral embroidery in the same dark pink as the ruffles. I used this for the chest and back of the shirt that in the original was ruched. We thought the design kept with the Asian feel of the top. I made the puffed sleeves and the waist accent out of the same dark pink fabric and the peplum out of solid white. To finish off, I embroidered a small decorative trim along the edge of the peplum in the dark pink as well. The top fit pretty well, but once the corset was on underneath it was a bit large and short. I will be taking it in and adding a zipper in the back before Gencon to make it easier to get into and more fitted. 

All in all for my first full on ballgown, I didn't do badly considering how rushed I was to get it done. I let things go that I normally wouldn't have because of time constraints. If I'd had an extra three weeks to work on it meticulously, I admit the product of my work would have been better. But, saying that, the next time around I will know what I'm doing and it will all fall into place easier. 

After one more wear as the Kaylee shindig dress, we have plans to shorten it and make it into a cute lolita style dress for Steffie to wear to other events. I will post additional pictures of it when we do that.