Jess Brown style Doll pattern

I'll start by saying this is not a tutorial....but I have noticed that the post about the Jess Brown style doll I made for my daughter Mighty gets a lot of traffic on my blog,

 so I thought I'd share some photos of the pattern I used....

I have no idea how big her dolls really are.  I saw them in Martha Stewart and drew my own pattern to be the way I wanted it.  I've never seen an actual doll in person....

 Below is the body pattern (folded in half so you would place this on a folded piece of fabric)

 The body itself is about 12" long, however you'll be sewing it so you'll lose a little for the seam allowance.  But she also has some long legs so that adds to the overall doll length.  You'll be cutting 2 pieces for each body part (a front & a back) to sew together....

 I made it about 6" (this is half in the photo) across at the base....

 This is the arm & leg pattern.  I used the same pattern for all 4 arms and legs....

It's about 8" in length

 And 1&1/4" wide.  If I were new to sewing I would make this quite a bit wider maybe closer to 2" wide...just to give yourself plenty of space for your seam allowance.  These are very long and narrow.

You can see that I sewed the 2 body pieces together all the way around EXCEPT for the bottom....so I could stuff it and then sew the legs into that seam on the machine.  If you have a zipper foot you can use that it helps sew right next to the bulk of the stuffed body.  But you can do it without one.

 So here she is all put together and I think she's close to 18" long...

 I said previously that I used the same pattern for the arms and legs.  For the arms I folded the unsewn, raw edge under for the arms....

 Then I cut a little round piece of wool coating material to make a sort of fabric button...this is because the fabric of the doll is flannel which is a pretty lose weave of fabric.  I wanted to sew through the doll's body arm to arm to attach them

and these help keep the thread and knots from pulling through.  You could use real buttons.  I made this for my 1 year old daughter and didn't really want buttons.

 I did notice in the photos that she had used a dark thread even though it was a lighter fabric...I really like the look...

I think she based her doll on a vintage rag doll she found or saw so I'm sure that one was hand sewn...

 I used embroidery thread for her face along with a small piece of fabric for her mouth, and sewed right through to the back of her head as you can see here....

 And here....

 Her hair, which is just torn strips of cotton fabric, hides those knots.  I just wrapped the hair on there and kept stitching through to keep the fabric covering most of her head....

I see there is food of some sort smeared at the bottom of her head there!  She's well loved...

I will probably end up making these as gifts at some point...there is something really beautiful about simplicity....