FREE PDF Sewing Pattern Rag Doll with Easy Tutorial

Here’s a free pattern to make your very own rag doll! It’s a printable PDF pattern — with a doll dress pattern included!

I recently made this rag doll for a couple of little girls and am excited to pass along my design to you!

After all, sharing free sewing patterns with you all is one of my favorite things!

This fabric doll pattern has yarn hair, and the pattern and step by step instructions include how to make a lovely dress for your little rag dolls, too!

The body of the doll is the same size and shape as the other friends in my collection of Fashion Friends (see more about that at the end of this post!), which means the dress will fit those other cloth doll patterns as well!

I’ll walk you through the entire process of making this cute doll, from making doll faces and turning yarn into the doll’s hair, to making her changeable clothes!

I think that most sewing skill levels should be able to make this doll as this project requires MOSTLY basic sewing skills. And don’t worry — I have plenty of helpful hints along the way to help with some of the trickier parts!

Don’t forget to check out the other animal dolls at the end of this post to complete your collection! The other animal dolls come as free printable sewing patterns, too! Reuse the dress pattern in this pattern for the other animal dolls in different fabrics to create all sorts of different dress styles for these animals, too!

Let’s get right to it! Happy sewing

Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, this post contains affiliate links for products I actually buy and use. I earn a very small commission from these links. Thank you for your support as I continue to design and offer you free patterns!

List of Materials:

Cotton Fabric for the dress and doll. Although I used a knit cotton interlock fabric for this particular doll, I recommend a woven light to medium weight fabric for this project.
Sewing Machine (not totally necessary, but very helpful!)
Thread
Hand sewing needle
Scissors
Embroidery thread (or regular thread) for the facial features
Fabric markers or something to use to trace your pattern pieces onto the fabric
Yarn for the hair, at least 1/2 a skein. I used a worsted weight (weight 4) yarn.
Fiberfill of your choice (I used wool to stuff my doll)
Snaps, buttons, or velcro to secure the back of the dress

Print your free pattern

This is a free pattern. To print out your doll pattern pieces (and her dress, too!), print your PDF file below.

First Steps: Assembling your pattern pieces and cutting your fabric pieces

Once you have your pattern printed, you’ll need to cut out all of your pattern pieces.

You’ll notice that in order to print out the skirt portion of the dress, it needs to be split onto two separate pieces of standard sized printer paper.

It’s easy to assemble the skirt pieces — just line up your bell peppers, tape the two pieces together, and you’re good to go!

The rest of the pieces are pretty simple to cut out.

From there, use a disappearing fabric marker (my dear friend who is a very talented sewist recently gave me this one and I LOVE it! All the markings disappear when the fabric is ironed!) to cut out your fabric pieces as needed.

Be sure that each pair of fabric pieces has a “right side” and a “wrong side” — mirror images of each other. You can easily achieve this by folding the fabric in half before cutting it.

Leave all dotted lines OPEN. These are the edges you’ll stuff your doll with.

IMPORTANT: When tracing and cutting the ears, do NOT cut out the ears before sewing. Instead, trace the ear pattern pieces on top of two layers of fabric in a square a little larger than the size of your two ears laid side by side. Sew through the two layers of fabric, in the shape of the ears, leaving the dotted edge open. Sew right on top of the traced line. Once already sewn, then you may cut out your little ears, leaving a small seam allowance around them.

Check to make sure you have the correct number of fabric pieces cut out (you can also check this in your pattern notes):

2 body pieces in skin tone fabric
4 arm pieces in skin tone fabric
4 leg pieces in skin tone fabric
4 ear pieces in skin tone fabric (cut and sew as seen in photo below)
1 front bodice pieces in dress fabric
2 back bodice pieces in dress fabric
2 sleeve pieces in dress fabric
2 skirt pieces in dress fabric

Step 2: Sew doll pieces together

Now that your doll is cut out, sew your doll pieces right sides together. It’s best to use a sewing machine for this part, if you have one.

Use a 1/4″ seam allowance. This is the middle notch on your pressure foot for most sewing machines.

Note that the head pieces are attached to the body piece. The front of the face is a bit more round than the back of the head; the front of the face is also facing the same direction as the rounded belly of the doll.

Again, be sure to leave the dotted edges of the pattern OPEN!

Turn out your pieces right side out to hide the raw edges inside the doll.

Stuff all of your doll (except for the ears!) with wool.

Important note: I highly recommend using a stiff, woven fabric for this doll. If you decide to use a knit fabric for this doll, it’s crucial to NOT overstuff your doll, otherwise her clothes will not fit!

Step 3: Assemble your doll

Next, we’ll go ahead and assemble your doll!

First, place the top straight edge of the legs into the bottom edge of the doll’s body.

The outer edges of the legs should line up with the outer hips of the doll.

Fold the bottom edge of the doll’s body inside the doll to conceal the raw edges.

Use a hand sewing needle to sew across the bottom seam of the doll’s body to hold the legs in place and to seal the bottom of the doll.

Double check to make sure the toes are facing the correct way before you start sewing!

Use a ladder stitch to attach the arms (demonstrated in photos attaching the ears below).

Set the ears aside — it’s best to wait until after you attach the hair to attach them.

Step 4: Turning yarn into doll hair

Take your yarn that you want to use for the hair, and cut many pieces of yarn that are at LEAST 11″ long (longer if you want longer hair!)

Line up your strands of yarn until they measure 7″ long.

Create a second line of yarn, each piece of yarn measuring 2″ longer than your other strands of yarn (so, 13″ if you made the previous yarn length 11″). You’ll want this collection of yarn strands to be 4″ long.

Put these pieces of yarn through your sewing machine (with matching thread!) and sew through them with a straight stitch, as seen in the photos below. It’s helpful to sew over the same seam two or three times to make sure your yarn stays in place.

If you struggle with getting your yarn through your machine, you can first sandwich your yarn between two pieces of paper, and tear the paper off once you are finished sewing.

Next, sew the “hair” to your doll’s head right at the seam line.

First sew a circle with your 7″ long hair weft, start at the base of the doll’s back head, sewing across the top of the forehead, and back to where you started.

Then, sew the 4″ long hair weft, lining up the center seam of the weft to the center seam of the back of your doll’s head.

Hide your long tails of thread back in the doll by rethreading them with your hand sewing needle, and pulling them into the doll’s body. (this technique applies for the rest of your doll, too!)