Dollieh Sanctuary

Ok so my grandma has a huge collection of doll books. One of these was a book of patterns for a set of cloth dolls with nicely defined body shapes and a full collection of American history dresses, from the underwear out. The dolls were designed to be very similar in size to the Barbies and GI Joes of its time (going off these I'd guess it was published in the 60s or 70s) and so the clothing fits these commercially avaliable dolls too. This book went missing before I could make copies of all the patterns, and now I live on the other side of the country from grandma and would like to find my own copy. Nothing I put into Google has brought up the title. I know a couple of you have older doll collections, has anyone ever heard of this?

I'm not familiar with it - but try looking on Ebay. There are loads of doll related books on there. Try searching "vintage doll book" or "vintage doll pattern" and see what you get.

Could be The Doll Book by Estelle Ansley Worrell which has a family of dolls or one of the Wishbooklet Series by Susan Sirkis. I'm betting on the first one because they're closer to Barbie size.

Already told you in pm but yep, its the Doll Book! Jeez what an obvious name, makes me feel stupid. My copy had some pictures of Barbie and other dolls wearing the dresses, and before it wen t missing I was trying to redraft some to fit Obitsus. Also if anyone has some slim girls (like Obitsu 1/3), doubling the patterns makes em fit almost perfectly.

Now, off to Amazon to snag one used...

Check Half.com. Copies there are about $5 and shipping. I plan to grab one myself after the beginning of the month when I have funds again.

It's okay, I have several titled The Doll Book and I have to call it Worrell Doll Book to keep them strait. The give away was Barbie size as the Wishbooklet, which also deals with historical clothing, fits Tonner and smaller slender MSD size.

And it's not exactly Barbie just a general 1/6 size so anyone looking for their Obitsus and Volks will have some adjusting and tailoring to do.

Yeah it definitely requires some finangling to get them to fit an Obitsu. The dolls have a defined corset shaped body, with a small round waist and very full bust and hips. Your best bet is to always make a test dress out of scrap fabric first that you can keep taking in, and possibly consider what old timey ladies would call "judicious padding". That is, a bit of padding here and there on the bust or hips to give a better overall shape along with the corset (not unlike what some Spanx and a pair of push up pads would do today).