Baby's Back! How to replace a mask face doll body



Recently I got a request to replace a doll body in my hospital and found it was a mask face doll. Mask face doll replacements will cost more because I have to find and purchase fabric as close as possible to the original fabric, and it takes more fabric since I basically make clothing for the doll instead of just a body. I thought you might like to see the process of replacing a body like this. Regular body replacements are now $100 plus return shipping  if you have me do them and a doll like this will cost at least $15 more depending on the price of the fabric. So, it's a money-saving skill to learn for yourself!



First, carefully take apart the body. I take photos of the process so I will remember how to put the pieces back together. In this case a great deal of the original body was missing so I studied it to see how to recreate the original doll. I found scraps of lace inside many of the seams, so I realized the doll originally had a lot of lace trim that was now missing. I searched for mask face dolls online. I couldn't find this exact one but I saw many similar dolls. Many of them had "dresses" or "overalls" made by sewing lace trim over the printed body fabric to resemble those garments.




At this point in the process I contracted COVID and was too sick to do much of anything for about a week and a half. You can see from the "Before" photos that the doll's face and hands were extremely darkened when she arrived. I covered them with benzoyl peroxide acne cream and set them in the bright sun. Every day I added more cream and set them in the sun longer to bleach the vinyl. In the end that was the only positive thing about getting sick; the doll had plenty of time to bleach!


Once I started feeling well enough to work I cut out the body and sewed it partially together. When I laid it out I could see there must have originally been more of a neck and chest. That part of the doll's original body was gone; it was just stuffing with a bonnet the owner's grandmother sewed over it.

I used the grandmother's bonnet to make the neck and back of the head. I always pin the vinyl to the body before sewing to make sure I have it positioned correctly. It's very easy to sew the limbs or face on backwards because you have to sew them inside out. 




Once I got the face and arms sewn onto the body I stuffed it and added the lace trim. I think this doll would have originally looked like she was wearing a dress, bonnet, and socks sticking out of her shoes based on the lace fragments I found inside the body. I made a second bonnet to go over the doll's head because it still looked too sparse when the face was sewn on and stuffed. The extra bonnet made the doll look symmetrical. It's sewn onto the head so it's not removable. 

I think this dolly turned out really cute! She's heading all the way home to Canada. It is such an honor for me to be trusted with my clients' precious heirlooms! You can request a doll repair quote by filling out the Contact Form at ateliermandaline.com, or just purchase my Doll University book from the Shop page of the website and learn to do it yourself! I have been encouraging customers to buy my book and learn their own repairs for the past few years because we are gone quite often nowadays and I get overwhelmed with repair requests during the times we are at home. I'm not as young as I used to be and my husband and I are both working toward semi-retirement. My ultimate goal is to send my store stock off to fulfillment centers so the only hands-on work I'm doing is doll repair, and as I age that gets harder and harder on my hands. As much as I love all my little patients I recognize it's getting close to time to pass the torch.

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