Questions Regarding Fusing Paper Doll Fabric
 

Hello all. Am ready to start my paper doll project for my GD. I have a couple of questions. I took the advice on here and purchase the stiffest pellon--Peltex 71F to use for my dolls only. So, I have to cut each doll out to fuse individually to this because there are doll clothes on the fabric also. Do I need to put something, a towel or something else, over these to keep the sticky stuff from getting on my iron? Should it be damp? Now about the clothes--I bought pellon 987F fusible fleece for these. I am going to just use a big piece of it, and a big piece of the fabric, fuse together and then cut out. I've never fused anything before, the instructions on the pellon says for extra strong bond to use a "damp pressing cloth", wool/steam setting, and press firmly for 10-15 seconds. Is an old towel OK as a damp pressing cloth? Anything else I should know about this process? I've seen where some have also put tiny pieces of velcro on these to help hold the clothes. Do the clothes not cling well without it?

Thanks in advance for any advise you can give me. I want these dolls to last a long time for my GD.

Joyce

for your first question- the fusable-pressing cloth-and your iron---fabric will stick to the fusable---and make a mess- parchement paper- or a teflon pressing sheet- or even release paper from used fusable works well to protect your iron-and pressing surface.
for your second question- yes an old towel is fine- to use for your damp pressing cloth.
as for the clothes clinging well- i would think with the fleece they would---if that is the back- if both sides of the fleece are covered with fabric it would depend on the fabric- flannel clings well- regular cottons-not so much - if you are only fusing one side of the fleece-the fleece will also cling well

make sure to "rough cut" out your doll fabric so it leaves all little extra room around the doll pattern. ... and then cut your fusible piece so it doesn't overlap the rough cut piece of fabric.

And then once it's all fused together, you can trim out the doll pattern perfectly.

I fused Heat n Bond Super to the back of the dresses, peeled and then fused a good quality white flannel to the back then cut out, cutting away the tabs on the dresses. The flannel backing sticks and stays very nicely to the dolls. The flannel is thinner than fleece and won't peel away.

One of my good friends is making a set of those for her GD. She came up with the idea of ironing Steam-a-Seam to the back of the clothes AND to the front of the doll. I thought she was daft!! But it works like a charm! The clothes stick to the doll front great. I have these to do too and had thought about using some pellon until I saw my friend's idea. I wanted mine to stand up, so will be using the Peltex for that, but she sewed each doll to a rectangle of fabric to resemble a book page and is making a book of these dolls. Each doll page is followed by a page or two of clothes. The steam-a-seam on the clothes sticks to the "clothes" page just fine too. She outlined the clothes on the storage page with a fine-tip marker so her GD would know where to store the clothes. My friend is very creative!