I’ve wanted to make a Raggedy Ann for many years now. I had sketched her out in my sketchbook and created a Raggedy Ann board on Pinterest. But I kept getting caught up in the legalities of selling an unlicensed Raggedy Ann pattern. The Raggedy Ann and Andy characters seem to be in the public domain, but I haven’t been able to figure out if the look of the doll is? So, I put the idea aside for a long while.
Just recently, for some reason, it came back to me and I thought why not just make her and not create a pattern for sale. I feel like Raggedy Ann is such a classic doll and also such a challenge. How to create a Raggedy Ann that’s cute and not creepy?
This project was definitely made possible thanks to Spoonflower where I was able to order small-scale red and white striped fleece for her socks and a small-scale blue and white floral fleece for her dress. (Fleece mostly comes in very large-scale prints which don’t lend themselves to doll-making, but I love fleece for dolls because it’s durable, soft, machine washable, and easy to sew.) I had fun figuring out how to make her curly hair with fleece loops.
Although my kids still find Raggedy Ann to be terrifying, I’m happy with her.
Darling Raggedy Ann! I decorated my baby’s nursery in EVERYTHING Raggedy Ann and Andy in 1977 planning for a girl! Ha ha HE arrived August 10! I decided to redecorate in December with dinosaurs and took all the Raggedy Ann and Andy on our Christmas Tree. I used those decorations for many years and still have them. Might bring them out for Great Grand Kids this year. I’d love to make your dolls for my twin great granddaughters!! Fun!!!
You did good in creating a very cute version of her I think. And yay you (!) for remembering we’re allowed to create “just for ourselves” and not just for biz, once in a while. 🙂
Plus a blog post, that makes me happy too!
I know! It’s hard to carve out time for making and blogging. Feels so good to be back here!
I was looking for a small cloth doll pattern and found your Josephine pattern I have printed the one page pattern , but was wondering if there were any seeing instructions I am wanting to make some for Samaritan’s Pirse Project. Thanks,Beverly
The sewing instructions are on the blog post.