How to Make T-Shirts for Homemade Dolls

Update your homemade doll's look by making a T-shirt.

Making clothing for your homemade doll is the next step after your doll is finished. The doll needs clothes to wear, and one of the easiest pieces to make is a T-shirt. You don't even need to buy fabric if you have collected scraps of material or have pieces of clothing you no longer want.

Things You'll Need

• Cardboard or paper
• Ruler
• Pen
• Scissors
• Fabric
• Straight pins
• Chalk
• Needle and thread

Instructions

1. Trace the pattern. Lay a piece of paper or cardboard out flat and put your homemade doll down on top. Trace around the doll's arms and torso with a pen, about 1/2 inch away from the doll. Start your tracing from the doll's waist, go across the middle of the arms (or slightly above for a T-shirt with shorter sleeves), and up to the neck. Remove the doll from the paper and connect the lines across the sleeves and the neckline. You can draw the neckline as a V shape, a wide neckline, or a regular T-shirt neckline. Cut the pattern out.

2. Fold the fabric you want to use in half. Lay it on a flat surface and make sure it is smooth. Trace around the pattern with sewing chalk. Stick some straight pins through both pieces of fabric to keep them from shifting and cut the line you traced with the chalk.

3. Remove the straight pins to separate the two pieces. Fold the edges of the neckline, waist and sleeves about 1/4 inch inward and secure them with straight pins. Thread a sewing needle and sew the hemlines so that the sleeves, waist and neckline do not fray. Line the edges up--with the print inside out if your fabric has a printed pattern--and pin the two pieces back together.

4. Run a straight stitch--either by hand or with a sewing machine--all around the T-shirt, about 1/4 inch from the edge. Be sure not to sew openings of the sleeves, waist and neckline shut. Secure the beginning and end of each line of stitches by running your needle back and forth at least five times.

5. Turn the T-shirt right side out. Add embellishments if you want, and the T-shirt is ready for your homemade doll to wear.

Tips & Warnings

• After you sew the hemlines and before you put the two pieces together to sew, sew a little pocket to the front or cut the middle of the front and hem the edges so you can make it a button-up shirt.

• Embellish the T-shirt by hand-sewing rick rack, ribbons or buttons. You can even design a print for the doll's shirt with fabric paint or an iron-on transfer.