I’ve been wanting a toddler-sized doll for a while, to use in babywearing demonstrations. After reading all sorts of complex directions on how to turn a regular doll into a toddler-sized doll, I decided to just sew one up from scratch. I don’t need realism, just something that’s the right size, has some weight, and has jointed arms and legs.

So I used a pattern for a Raggedy Ann doll, made it completely out of muslin, then made a little dress and pants. I added a do-rag to hide the doll’s misshapen, bald head, lol.

But instead of stuffing her with just stuffing, I made little muslin bags to fit inside the doll’s legs, arms, head, and torso and filled those bags with old aquarium rocks. I surrounded those bags with layers of quilt batting to make the limbs and body soft on the outside, then stuffed the little rock-and-batting packages into the doll.

She doesn’t weigh nearly as much as I had originally planned - rocks are not the most efficient way to add weight to something - but she has enough weight in her to make putting her into slings fairly easy.

So, yay, another item crossed off the list!