Burda Style For people who sew

If you are making these dolls, guess what! You’ve already got your green on!! Sewing dolls is a very eco friendly activity.

Wool felt is an amazing, totally renewable textile. It has been made in the same basic way for centuries. Sheep are shorn and the wool is cleaned and organized. Then a combination of water, heat, soap, agitation and pressure transform the wool roving into beautifully smooth felt. I am proud that the felt I use is from the United States or Germany where the dyeing process is implemented in a manner that does not harm the environment. And wool felt is completely biodegradable. Because of these features, wool felt is also expensive and difficult to find on a retail basis. But it offers the perfect intersection of features and function. I have not found ANY textile that comes close to achieving the smooth, plump, gorgeous result that wool felt delivers in doll making.

There are a number of eco conscious choices in selecting stuffing materials including wool and cotton stuffing, poly fil derived from renewable such as corn and bamboo, finely shredded nylons or old clothing. I use the corn-based stuffing which is renewable and also has a nice light loft that makes stuffing the doll simple and relaxing. In a perfect world, I might consider wool stuffing as the MOST environmentally sensitive, however it is also expensive and very dense making the process of sculpting the dolls features difficult. So there is a tiny bit of a compromise here as corn uses a great deal of fertilizer, etc. – but it is much more eco friendly than ordinary polyester stuffing made from petroleum products.

Finally, as you will see in my later posts, sewing doll fashion is fun and economical way to repurpose outgrown or shrunken clothing and to use up scraps. Throw away fashion and industrial fabric remnants make up a significant percentage of our clogged landfills. Every effort to break the cycle, no matter how small, helps. The dolls will model outfits that stitch up quickly using some of the leftovers from the BurdaStyle vault and inspired by BurdaStyle patterns. In Doll Fashionistas there are about a dozen easy to sew mix and match fashion patterns.