Doll Repair

 This little doll was in terrible shape from years of being loved.

I offered to try and repair her even though I've never repaired a store doll.

 I began by removing the stuffing; which was cotton and had packed together over the years creating a large lump.

 The limbs were held in place with string. This surprised me as I figured the limbs were held on with wire.

 Once the doll was apart, I then took the fabric body apart completely.

 After ironing the pieces, I used them as a pattern for the new body.

 Reattaching the limbs were a bit scary, but after a couple of attempts, it all went pretty smoothly.

 The only change I made to the body, was to add a seam down the back so I could have more space to work with when attaching the limbs and adding the stuffing. This seam was then closed up with hand sewing.

  Once the doll was back together, 

I made a dress with matching bloomers and hat.

 

Even though I wasn't sure what to expect when repairing a doll, the job wasn't too difficult. Taking pictures along the way was helpful; it's amazing how easily a person can forget little details, such as the directions each limb needed to face.

Bed Sheet Corner Alteration

Years ago, when I had trouble with a sheet slipping off the corner of a mattress, I learned about a special clip with elastic that is used to keep the sheet corner in place. This idea was simple and easily copied by sewing a piece of wide elastic in place and my problem was fixed.

Recently I had another sheet slipping at the corners, but kept forgetting to stop by the fabric store for some wide elastic, so this time I decided to be creative and came up with another solution. I began with a piece of stretch fabric, which I had in my stash, and roughly cut it to 16-inches square.

 This was then folded in half, corner to corner, and pinned to the wright side of the sheet corner.

 I stitched it down avoiding the elastic already on the sheet.

 After turning the corner inside out, I had created a nice pocket; which was repeated for the other three corners.

These pockets fits snug on my mattress and I haven't had one corner slip since making this alteration.

The pockets work so well that I am planning on replacing the elastic currently being  used on my other sheets.