Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 296, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 December 1918 — DRESSING CHRISTMAS DOLLS [ARTICLE]

DRESSING CHRISTMAS DOLLS

"Be Sure the Clothea Come On and Off," la Advice of Woman Who Has Had Much Experience. “Be sure the clothes come on and off.” This is the Injunction that one woman has to make every year when she gets to work at her usual Christmas task of getthig 50 dolls dressed for 50 llftle orphans who live in an institution in which she is interested. She buys the dolls at wholesale prices and then gets/good folk she knows to dress them, yt>ut always with the request goes/ this injunction—“be’ sure and the clothes on.” TheXeason for this is the. fact that these 50 little girls are like all other little girls. In liking dolls that can be dressed and undressed, and the first thing they do on receiving their Christ-, mas doll is to see how readily it may be dressed and put to bed and then dressed again. In dressing dolls it is possible to buy paper patterns for doll clothes. One set, sold by a leading pattern concern, contains a’cape with a hood, a jumper dress and gutmps, a bathrobe and a petticoat drawers—all for ten cents. The only trouble with this sort of pattern is that it doesn’t always fit the doll you choose; in fact, it is by the merest accident that the paper pattern would fit the doll. Although the

pattern is cut in various sizes for dolls ranging from 14 to 80 inches in length, the proportions of your doll may be quite different from the doll used in cutting the briginal pattern. If the clothes do notfUt it is not a very difficult matter to mike alterations in the patterns. You never need to allow any outlay for materials for dolls’ clothes, for there are always enough pieces in your work box, or a friend’s work box, to make afi sorts of dainty garments. There are sure to be dflds and ends of lace and insertion to use on the little underwear and pieces of ribbon with which the dresses can be trimmed.