This is something I've been meaning to do for a while, and whilst Tinydino had her nap today, I decided to go for it. Turning one of her tiny rompers into a romper for her baby doll.
Tinydino was a whopping 9lbs 9oz when she was born, that's just under 4.5kg. But she was all length! Long body, long legs, and a chubby chubby face. Even now she's all length and not much width. But, anyway, dispite being so heavy, she was long and skinny and her 3months clothes swamped her. This was one of the "just in case" tiny baby grows.
Poor 'Baba' is usually naked. He came with a lovely crochet and knitted outfit from Great Granny, and I made him a cloth nappy, but usually he is naked. This romper has lasted a whole day without being removed! I take that as a seal of approval!
So, onto the tutorial. This is my first tutorial, and I am far from a sewing expert, so please keep that in mind :)
Baby Romper to Dolly Romper.
First, gather your supplies: A romper, a doll, some pins and some pinking shears. I used my sewing machine, but you could do this by hand too if you wanted to!
The first step, is to turn your romper inside out and put it on your doll.
Then take your pins and pin the romper so that it will fit the doll on the arms, down the body and down the legs. You don't need to be too precise on the legs just yet. In hindsight, I should have done my legs much baggier than I did, because I lost a lot of fabric when cutting off the un-needed poppers. Remember, you can always make it smaller, you can't make it bigger!
Next, take note of where the crotch of your doll is (mine was just above the fourth popper), remove the doll and cut off the feet of the romper. Trim off the popper band from the leg area too from the crotch area downwards. You can see here how I lost a lot of fabric by doing this which is why I would recommend making the legs bigger than you think to start with!
Pick your neatest looking side, mine was the left as I looked at it, and I chose to add a few dots to keep me lined up when taking the pins out later. You can skip this step if you want to.
Now it's sewing time! My goodness, ignore my nails. I haven't put my newest Jamberries on yet, so I'm sporting the last few chips of my old nail varnish. Ahem. So, using a three-step zig zag i stitched along the line I marked out earlier. If your machine has it you could use a straight stretch stitch. You could even do this with an overlocker if you own one (Soon, my pretty, I shall own one soon!).
When I came to the armpit area, I had more or less a right angle in my sewing line. The way I do it is to stop with my needle in my fabric, lift the foot and turn the fabric, then lower the foot again. I don't know if this is the official way to turn corners or not, but it's how I was shown! Make sure any seams you sew over are laying the right way, it will make the finished product neater.
See, perfect little corner right angle thing, with both my seams laying the same way (You'll have to trust me on that as you can't see it on the other side)
Once you've sewn the first side, try it back on your doll. I forgot to photograph this bit but it's self explanatory! Then, if it's all good, use your pinking shears or scissors to trim away the excess fabric. Don't go too close to the edging. If you used an overlocker, you obviously don't need to do this step.
Next I folded the romper in half and decided to neaten up the other side. As you can see below, I added an extra bit to my sewing line. Sew as you did with the first side.
Try it on your doll. Yey, it fits! Then trim away the excess if you need to.
Next step is to tackle the crotch area. As you can see below, 'Baba's' legs are all scrunchy and Newborn like. If you have a doll who's legs lay flatter/straighter this bit will probably be easier! You can also see just how much fabric I lost cutting out the extra poppers! Erk.
Darn popper bands. I then trimmed the fabric a little to straighten it up whilst trying to keep as much as I could, as you can see it was quite wonky before! I also cut out the back section to make the two legs.
Because the doll needs space to have a nappy and also room to bend at the legs and sit down, I decided to use the excess fabric in place of the little semi-circle crotch shape that's on baby rompers. I matched up the bottom of the bands, with the edge of the fabric. This gives you a baggier back section than the front, making space for a dolly bottom :)
It was easier to wing it than to pin it. Because of the bulk, I also found it easier to do the corner trick, rather than going backwards and forwards with the reverse button on my machine. So I got to one end, left the needle in the fabric but lifted the foot, rotated the whole romper with the needle still down, lower the foot and stitch back over the original stitches again. You can see below how much of a 'bottom space' it created.
Now time to tackle the legs! Because I lost width when cutting my poppers off, I had to jiggle this about a bit. It was easier to line the edges up as I went, rather than pinning. It does mean the legs are a little twisted sadly, but I don't think 'Baba' minds!
Then it's time to hem! They were SO fiddly and I think next time I do this, I will hem the legs and sleeves before I sew the edges up to make it easier. But just take it slow and be careful not to stitch the sleeve together (Trust me, it's not fun!)
Not my neatest job ever sadly, I couldn't help but stretch it slightly because of how tiny an opening it was. Oh well.
I don't think Baba minds at all though! I could possibly take a little bit off the length of the body by shortening the crotch bit, but it fits well and looks adorable!
And I finished literally just as Tinydino woke from her nap too. She loves it and spent the rest of the day playing with 'Baba', he even got to come with us to pick Dinogirl up from school :)
I have a second romper that came in this set to make and put away for Christmas. But I'm not sure if I'm going to make it fit 'Baba' or make it to fit a waldorf doll. I also have a pair of leggings with a hole in the bum, a tiny teeshirt and a tiny vest to repurpose. And I kept the feet that I cut off this romper to make some little booties for him, so maybe I'll make another tutorial for those! We shall see.
If you make anything from this tutorial, please post pictures in the comments or on the Facebook page! I'd love to see them.
