Talented designer Natitys (Eloisa) visits the blog today to share some of her sweet cut & sew doll templates with you. She’ll show you how to customize the patterns to make your own unique doll, and upload your file for printing. These templates make a quick, simple and personalized project that fits perfectly onto just a fat quarter of fabric. 

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Eloisa: I think handmade dolls are one best gifts anyone could receive, especially when your doll is designed just for you! In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to change colors of the skin, hair, outfits and add accessories to these pre-designed doll patterns so you can add detail and personalization that’s all your own!

Two dolls sit next to each other in a chair. The doll on the left is blond and wearing a pink shirt and red skirt. the doll on the right has black hair and is wearing a white shirt and black pants with gray dots.

Versions of my cut & sew dolls, Lili and Sylvie made up in Silky Faille* fabric. For an even cozier alternative, select Fleece. (Note: As of March 2023, we are phasing out our Fleece fabric and launching Polartec® Fleece, which will also work great for this project!)

* Silky Faille was sunset in 2021.

 

Step 1. Click on the doll of your choice to save the file. There are 4 doll templates to choose from: Sylvie, Oriana, Simon and Lili.

SilviePreview

 

Download Sylvie here

Orianapreview

Download Oriana here

Simonpreview

Download Simon here

Lilipreview

 

Download Lili here

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Step 2. Log into your Spoonflower account. If you do not have a Spoonflower account, you will need to register.

Step 3. Hover your mouse over DESIGN, and a drop down menu will appear. Click UPLOAD.

Step 4. A small pop-up window will appear, click CHOOSE FILE, then find and select your downloaded file.

Step 5. Click Open, then confirm your copyright. Click UPLOAD FILE. This will take a few seconds, a new screen will appear, with the doll design uploaded into your account!

TIP: Make sure you tweak both the repeat and the fabric type and size you would like. For this tutorial, we will be working with one fat quarter of fabric, and, since these dolls fit into a fat quarter of any of our fabrics, and select the centered repeat for this project. Select the type of fabric you would like. In the photos of the sewn up dolls, I used Kona Cotton* for Oriana and Simon, and Silky Faille for Lili and Sylvie.

* Kona Cotton has been discontinued, but try Petal Signature Cotton® for this project!

Now, we are ready to customize our cut & sew doll! The next screen will show you a preview of what your doll will look like so far, and will provide you with tools to personalize the design.

Step 6. You will find the button to change the colors of your design on the left side of the design page as shown below. Click CHANGE COLORS.

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Step 7. Leave the color selection number as is. Colors will appear on the bottom of the screen, and you will be able to edit each color individually.

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Step 8. Every time you click on a color, you will be taken to a new screen with the old color, a space for a color code and a color map. You can select a new color to replace a color by clicking on the color from the map, or, by entering the hex code of the color on the space (make sure you include the # symbol  before the number). Learn a little bit about printing colors with Spoonflower here.

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Step 9. You can repeat this for each color you would like to replace, in this tutorial, we changed Sylvie’s hair to black.

Step 10. When you have made all the colors changes you’d like, click SAVE.

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Adding details with Picmonkey*: This is an independent application that has been added to the Spoonflower website to facilitate changes to images online for free, without the need to download any design software to your computer. For this tutorial, we will use Picmonkey to add some details to Sylvie.

* This application no longer works with the Spoonflower site. But you can see our other design resources at this link.

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Step 11. It’s time to accessorize your cut & sew doll with PicMonkey. Click EDIT WITH PICMONKEY on the left hand side of the screen, and you and your file will be transferred to the Picmonkey site while you make your edits.

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Before editing your image in PicMonkey you will be asked about sizing, click CANCEL.

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Step 12. On the PicMonkey website, you will see the original design, plus a menu on the left hand side of the screen. There are numerous options to make changes to your files on this screen and you should really find some time to play and test all of them with this and every one of your files, it is a lot of fun! For this tutorial, we will be using the OVERLAY TOOL (it looks like a butterfly).

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Step 13. In the OVERLAY TOOL option, you will see several designs to choose from. You can add a flower to your doll’s hair, maybe a mustache to your plushie’s face, etc. PicMonkey has different graphics to choose from, and they vary from time to time, it is always fun to look at what’s available and play with your design from there! When you chose a graphic, it appears in the center of your image, you can change the size and color.

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Step 14. This is a closer look at the overlays, the circle on the top allows you to rotate it, the circles on each corner will allow you to re-size it, and the four way arrows will allow you to drag it. The color map that appears allows you to change the color. Change the colors to your taste!

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Step 15. Once you are done with all your overlays, you will click on MERGE OVERLAYS and then SAVE. You will then be transferred back to the Spoonflower website with your edited file. Notice that the file’s name has also changed to: the name of the file plus “-ed” and/or “ch” which stands for edited and changed.

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Step 16. Make sure you are under the product you would like {fabric, decals, gift wrap}. For this project, you can use one fat quarter of any material you would like! Simon and Oriana are made with Kona Cotton, Sylvie and Lili are made with Silky Faille.

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Once you’re ready, just click “add to cart” and your order will be sent to Spoonflower’s printers where it will be custom printed on demand and shipped out to you. Once you receive them, just cut out your dolls, pin them together (right sides facing) sew around the edges (leave a few inches unsewn) turn them right sides out then stuff with filling, and sew the hole back up.

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I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! We’d love to see photos of your custom cut & sew dolls—share with us and the Spoonflower community!

+Eloisa