Thanks to Ant999 for sharing his experience making clothes for dolls. Since dolls have different body proportions than real women, it's really hard to find clothes that fit them properly off the rack. If you want to try making doll clothes yourself, what tools do you need? How do you make form-fitting clothes for dolls? And how should you go about designing outfits for them? Ant999 shares his experience here, and hopefully it'll help anyone who wants to give doll clothing a try!
You can read the full post here:
https://www.coeros.com/home-made-clothes-for-sex-dolls/.
OverviewBasic pointers/thoughts, to help (or discourage!) those who want to try their hand at making clothes for their dolls, and some ideas about designs
Something you need before you buy anything, without this it will be really hard:
The ability to visualize and manipulate 3-dimensional objects in your mind. Clothes are sewn together inside-out, so that when they are done and turned right side out, the seams are on the inside. Planning how to put things together the wrong way round, so that they end up the right way round, can be…exasperating.
Tools, Materials, and Sewing TechniquesStuff you can buy
Fig. 1
1. Needle for hand sewing short distances, attaching buttons, press studs, Velcro®, etc. It really cuts down on the frustration if you have a threading tool (red thing top right in fig.1) to pull the thread through the needle. Also for threading a sewing machine’s needle, because with all the shiny metal around, it is hard enough just to see what is the real needle hole and what is reflection.
2. Thread, white is the most useful but other colors become necessary as you go along. Perfectly matched fabric and thread colors look great, but then the thread is very hard to see if you have to unravel a mistake.
3. Measuring tape, the soft ones sold for sewing are the best, the metal one from your toolbox will do, but it does not like following curves, and with most of our dolls, curves are what make them so desirable.
4. Scissors. One pair of good quality scissors, for cutting fabrics and thread only. Cutting stuff like paper with it, blunts it real quickly, use your general household scissors for that. A rotary fabric cutter (like a small pizza cutter) is useful, but then you need a dedicated cutting board on which to use it, and when there are too many grooves in the board, you have to toss it and buy another one. Scissors work anywhere, even in the air.
5. A marker pen, of the ones that have water-soluble ink, it washes out with cold water when you are done.
6. Pins or small clamps, to hold fabric and pattern or two layers of fabric together while you work. You never have enough hands and dolls can’t move their hands with you as you work. Dolls are great for holding something steady in one place, though. The piece of foam that is often found at the top of a bottle of pills, is a good cushion to hold pins until you need them.
7. A table, desk or piece of smooth board of at least 1 meter/1 yard square, where you can lay your work out. The board can be put on a bed for working, and stored leaning against a wall.
8. A pick tool (the other red thing in fig. 1) for taking apart stitching, when you have made a mistake or the quality is just not to a standard that you set for yourself. Taking apart and starting over is almost inevitable as you learn, don’t let it get you down.
9. A sewing machine, if you are going to get serious. Doing anything more than an inch/few centimeters straight and even, by hand and needle, will take a lot of practice and patience.
10. Patterns may be useful for a flowing skirt or loose-fitting top, but for anything close-fitting, a pattern will need to be adjusted using actual measurements from your doll, because dolls rarely follow human proportions. I also find professional patterns hard to understand, there are too many lines, because they provide for different sizes, so you must know which lines to ignore, it is clearer if I make my own templates from old newspaper, held together with sticky tape. Add a bit extra in areas like shoulders/upper arms and crotch/upper legs, I made that mistake with my doll’s winter pj’s, they are difficult to fit because they are too tight in those areas. Especially the arms need to move when you fit the clothing, so the shoulder area in particular, needs some extra freedom of movement. It is also fairly easy to sew a new seam and cut off the excess if it is too loose-fitting, not so the other way round.
Sewing machine operations1. Remember that the two “outside” sides of the fabric are placed against each other, so that when the finished item is turned right side out, the seams end up on the inside.
2. When you have the pieces of fabric together and under the foot of the sewing machine, hold the free end of the top thread for the first second or two of sewing, it really loves to pull back out of the needle and then you have to go through the threading again.
3. It takes some “feel” to feed the fabric layers along as you sew, without working against the machine’s own feeding mechanism. Especially with stretchy fabrics, I try to hold the fabric some distance in front of and behind the needle, to keep it just tight enough to flatten any folds, but not stretch it. Stretchy fabrics need a stretch fabric needle, and need zig-zag stitches, straight stitches can’t stretch.
4. At the start and end of a length of sewing, leave long enough free ends of both threads so that you can tie the top and bottom (or inside and outside) ends of the thread together in a double or triple knot, to stop them from unravelling at a later stage. It looks neatest if you can give the inside free end a tug so that the last stitch of the outside thread starts to pull through to the inside, then you can pull it through completely, and tie the two free ends together so the knot will be on the side that will not be visible. Then trim off the remaining free thread close to the knot.
5. Alternatively, there is something called backstitching, that is used to lock the first and last few stitches by stitching over them in the opposite direction. You use the same reversing switch on your machine, that is also intended for making button holes. But either I don’t know how to use it correctly, or my machine’s “reverse gear” doesn’t work, so I will just continue tying loose ends. When you are old and retired like me, at least you get to choose what new things you will try to learn, and when you will just putter along in your old ways!
Elastic waist bands, etcThe simplest way to put elastic at the upper edge of a pair of shorts, for example, is to sew a slightly wider seam and leave a little gap somewhere on the inside, so that you can pull a piece of elastic right through, and attach the two free ends to each other, either by sewing, or a simple knot, if appearance is not important. To pull the elastic through, attach a small safety pin to one end, and put it in through the gap in the seam. Feed it through slowly, bunching up the fabric so that the tail end does not disappear into the gap, or attach the tail end with another safety pin, so that it cannot disappear. Once the two ends are joined, redistribute the bunched up folds evenly. The piece of elastic must be short enough to fit snugly around the waist when fully relaxed, but long enough to go over her hips, or head/shoulders/boobs easily, when stretched.
ShapingFabric is 2-dimensional, so even the simplest design will not fit nicely around anything rounder than an A-cup chest. Shaping is almost always necessary, although often done at the end, when the garment can be fitted to the doll, and you can see and mark where shaping is necessary. The standard technique is called a dart, a triangular fold that is sewn on the inside, from the edge of the fabric, getting narrower to a sharp end. It forces the fabric to curve. Do not trim the excess fabric off until you have fitted the garment and it is satisfactory. It is easy to unravel and redo differently, if the excess fabric is still there. If cut too soon, you can only scrap and start from scratch.
Fig. 2 shows a dart, and also what happens to satin without double seams. It frays right out from underneath a single row of stitches. See fabric choices below.
Fig. 2
Note: What follows is written from the point of view of a male making clothes for a female doll. In case of a different combination, please just disregard what is not applicable, or perform the necessary mental editing to adapt to your situation.
Fabric choicesPolycotton is cheap and simple, but I tend to like the stuff that makes my doll look sexy, either the shiny slippery stuff, or the stretchy stuff that fits snugly around her curves. Both are a bit troublesome to work with, though. Real silk is beyond my budget considerations, which leaves satin and my favorite, pongee lining, which is an affordable fabric meant for linings and drapes, but it looks near enough to satin to my taste. It also slides around and frays at the edges like satin, so it takes some extra patience and technique to work with. For fraying at the edges, double seems are the standard work-around: make a seam, fold it over and enclose it inside a second seam. Remember to provide extra wide seam allowances when marking out cutting size.
Double seam in progress in fig. 3.
Fig. 3
Doll clothing would not be complete without swimsuits, so Lycra/Spandex deserve a mention. It is great in that it stretches to follow curves beautifully, just keep in mind that some manufacturers give it more stretch in one direction than the other, so remain aware in which direction you want the most stretch, before cutting. It also tends to curl up at the edges, and develop diagonal ridges, if stretched more in one direction than the other.
For a close fit in the ballroom rather than on the beach, my other favorite is stretch velvet, available in the most wonderful rich colors, but keep the possibility of staining in mind, if your doll is TPE. It has the same tendency to curl and make ridges, and the added complication of having a distinct inside and outside, but the play of light over the textured surface, makes a doll look really smart.
Design Ideas and PracticesDesign considerations and practice for startersWhen choosing a design, form a clear idea in your mind how you will fit the finished garment to the doll, without unnecessary wear or overstressing her joints. Anything that is small enough to fit nicely around her hourglass waist, will have to stretch to pass over either her hips or her head/shoulders/boobs. If it cannot stretch, it will have to split somewhere, and be re-attached with strings, buttons, Velcro® or a zipper, after initial fitting, usually the easier solution. My doll is classified as a 148B, but her boobies are still delightfully large compared to her chest and waist, so achieving a good fit is not a simple matter.
A very simple way to practice when you start learning, is to take one of your own t-shirts that is faded or starting to develop holes, like t-shirts usually do, and is only one step away from ending in the trash. See if you can modify it to fit your doll, who is more than likely smaller than you. It should only involve measuring, sewing new seams and cutting off the rest. And if it is a failure, it is no loss, you were going to toss it anyway.
Next, duplicating a simple bought item, like a panty or plain top, is a good way to gain practice and confidence:
1. measure each panel of the existing item, writing down the dimensions next to a rough drawing of the approximate shape of each panel, and then draw it as near as you can to the correct shape and size, on a piece of paper. Measurements between diagonally opposite corners help to get the shape right, if sides are not parallel. Alternatively trace each panel onto paper directly. Tracing paper is great, but old newspaper and a brightly colored marker, does the job well enough, and no loss if you have to toss it in the bin and start over. Cut out paper templates can even be taped together and held against the doll to see if it looks like it might fit, just not for long, because printing ink may stain her.
2. once you are satisfied with the paper templates, they can be laid out on your fabric, and moved around to see how you can fit all the panels into the available fabric, to minimize offcuts. Just keep orientation of the panels in mind if the fabric has a color pattern, or stretches more in one direction than the other, or if the fabric has an obvious top side and underside. Lay the templates out to provide for a left panel and a right panel, or you could end up with two lefts or two rights, or color patterns running at different angles. For symmetrical left and right panels, some people fold fabric in half and put the template’s centerline on the folded edge, then the left and right come out correctly by itself, but I find it difficult to keep track of where to put what, I rather cut left and right panels, even if they are symmetrical. Remember to add about 1/2 to 5/8 inch/ 10 to 15 mm seam allowance right around the edges. You can “measure” the allowance by eye, no need for it to be exact. When everything seems ok, mark out each panel on the fabric, using the water-soluble marker, and cut. If two panels are symmetrical (mirror images), it is quite ok to mark it out for the one side, flip it over, and mark out the other side, no need for two templates.
3. The ability to visualize the finished item in your mind, helps to plan what sides to attach first, and what can be done later, otherwise you may find that a place where you need to sew, is obscured by sewing you have already done.
Designs from the internetBoob tube, bandeau, call it what you want, puff tube top is what the pattern called it, but I made it simpler than the instructions: literally a rectangle of fabric 1/3 longer than her circumference just above her boobs, short sides joined, elastic in the top edge and another near the bottom. Non-stretch fabric, so that it stays puffed up. The elastic essentially makes a large number of “darts” as in the shaping section above, making a flat piece of non-stretch fabric follow her curves quite well. Fortunately this fabric had a scalloped edge, so there is added decoration without extra work.
Fig. 4
By accident we discovered it works just as well as a mini skirt.
Fig. 5
Bikini, every doll must have at least one. My design is derived from a triangle bikini top found in a Youtube video, It consists of two triangles of Lycra, each with a long strap on one corner, and a sleeve along the edge opposite the strap. Each cup has one dart. Elastic string is pulled through the sleeves and tied together around her neck or abdomen, and the ends of the two straps are tied together, also at the back of her neck or abdomen, there are many ways, as numerous videos demonstrate. The bottom consists of two larger triangles held together by a narrow rectangle in the crotch area, and with sleeves for elastic string on the two opposite edges. This one was made with two colors of Lycra, to be reversible. The folded over white makes an easy sleeve for the string. Fig 6 shows it spread out on her bed, and different ways of tying it.
Fig. 6
Something classy: a stretch velvet, off-the-shoulder dress, from a design found on the internet. (search for DIY fold over off the shoulder velvet dress tutorial) Fig. 7 shows the play of sunlight on the texture.
Fig. 7
Own designsThe way I make it easy for myself, is to try and wrap her in rectangles and triangles. A completely novel design can be drawn on paper, using own measurements, cut out, held together with sticky tape, and loosely held against her, to see if it fits as imagined. Darts can always be added, to shape flat panels around boobs, buns, etc.
Rectangles: The boob tube in fig. 4 is a rectangle of fabric. I have also made a stretch velvet skirt from a rectangle of fabric left over from the dress in fig. 7. Three darts at the back make it fit over her nice round little buns, the front top corners are held together by pieces of Velcro®, strategically placed at a slight angle, so that the skirt makes a sexy slit up the front or side.
Fig. 8
Triangles: Apart from the bikini that is essentially a couple of triangles, I made a satin sleepware top from two triangles, as in fig. 9. The two triangles are permanently joined in two places, the slit between the attachment points, goes over her head. The free corners are attached under her arms, by press studs, so it is very easy to fit. The panel on the left is the front, it has two darts, to shape it around her boobs a bit. Using different fabric, the same design can be made into an asymmetric day top.
Fig. 9
Repurposing old stuff Some imagination and some old things that would otherwise go in the trash, can have surprising results. Example:
The best parts of an old sun curtain that was tearing due to too many years of sunshine, combined into a layered petticoat, using its original drawstrings to bunch it up, fig 10.
Fig. 10
Add a skirt made from 3 simple panels of pongee lining and some decorative edging, two loose cuffs made from the same fabric and edging (small copies of the boob tube top), and a simple shoulderless top made from a scrap of white and gold fabric, fig. 11.
Fig. 11
…and little darling becomes a princess! Conservative or naughty, as you prefer.
Fig.12
I could go on and on, but the story is already quite long, so anyone who wants to see more, can look up my posts on The Doll Forum under the name Ant999.
The main post is called “Home-made clothes” but there are links to others. It can be reached without logging in.
About the AuthorAnt999
Retired in Jeffreys Bay, South Africa
Admirer of the female form, hence the joy of dressing my doll in such a way that I can also look forward to undressing her.
September 2025
